The History Book Club discussion
This topic is about
The Return
BOOK OF THE MONTH
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ARCHIVE - THE RETURN: FATHERS, SONS, AND THE LAND IN BETWEEN - DISCUSSION THREAD - (No Spoilers, Please)
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We will adjust the BOTM accordingly based upon length of the book and other considerations.
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Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Map 1
1. Trapdoor
2. Black Suit
3. The Sea
4. The Land
5. Blo’thaah
6. Poems
7. Your Health? Your Family?
8. The Truce and the Clementine
9. The Old Man and His Son
10. The Flag
11. The Last Light
12. Benghazi
13. Another Life
14. The Bullet
15. Maximilian
16. The Campaign
17. The Dictator’s Son
18. The Good Manners of Vultures
19. The Speech
20. Years
21. The Bones
22. The Patio
Acknowledgments
By Hisham Matar
About the Author
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✔Week One:
✔Cover - page v
✔Title Page - page v
✔Copyright - page vi
✔Map 1 - ix
✔1. Trapdoor - page 3
✔2. Black Suit - page 16
✔Week Two
✔3. The Sea - page 28
✔4. The Land - page 35
Week Three
In progress 5. Blo’thaah - page 40
In progress 6. Poems - page 51
In progress 7. Your Health? Your Family? - page 62
About to begin - Week Four
8. The Truce and the Clementine - page 67
9. The Old Man and His Son - page 76
10. The Flag - page 85
Week Five
11. The Last Light - page 92
12. Benghazi - page 103
13. Another Life - page 113
Week Six
14. The Bullet - page 122
15. Maximilian - page 144
16. The Campaign - page 159
Week Seven
17. The Dictator’s Son - page - page 171
18. The Good Manners of Vultures - page 190
19. The Speech - page 196
Week Eight
20. Years - page 206
21. The Bones - 220
22. The Patio - page - 234
Acknowledgments - page 241
By Hisham Matar
About the Author - page 245
Week Nine
Book as a Whole and Final Thoughts
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Week One: - February 16th - February 23rd
Cover - page v
Title Page - page v
Copyright - page vi
Map 1 - ix
1. Trapdoor - page 3
2. Black Suit - page 16
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WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • The acclaimed memoir about fathers and sons, a legacy of loss, and, ultimately, healing—one of The New York Times Book Review’s ten best books of the year, winner of the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times • The Washington Post • The Guardian • Financial Times
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“A tale of mighty love, loyalty and courage. It simply must be read.”—The Spectator (U.K.)
“Wise and agonizing and thrilling to read.”—Zadie Smith
“[An] eloquent memoir . . . at once a suspenseful detective story about a writer investigating his father’s fate . . . and a son’s efforts to come to terms with his father’s ghost, who has haunted more than half his life by his absence.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“This outstanding book . . . roves back and forth in time with a freedom that conceals the intricate precision of its art.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Truly remarkable . . . a book with a profound faith in the consolations of storytelling . . . a testament to [Matar’s] father, his family and his country.”—The Daily Telegraph (U.K.)
“The Return is a riveting book about love and hope, but it is also a moving meditation on grief and loss. . . . Likely to become a classic.”—Colm Tóibín
“Matar’s evocative writing and his early traumas call to mind Vladimir Nabokov.”—The Washington Post
“Utterly riveting.”—The Boston Globe
“A moving, unflinching memoir of a family torn apart.”—Kazuo Ishiguro, The Guardian
“Beautiful . . . The Return, for all the questions it cannot answer, leaves a deep emotional imprint.”—Newsday
“A masterful memoir, a searing meditation on loss, exile, grief, guilt, belonging, and above all, family. It is, as well, a study of the shaping—and breaking—of the bonds between fathers and sons. . . . This is writing of the highest quality.”—The Sunday Times (U.K.)
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Born in New York City to Libyan parents, HISHAM MATAR spent his childhood in Tripoli and Cairo and has lived most of his adult life in London.
His debut novel, In the Country of Men, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and won numerous international prizes, including the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, a Commonwealth First Book Award, the Premio Flaiano and the Premio Gregor von Rezzori.
His second novel, Anatomy of a Disappearance, published in 2011, was named one of the best books of the year by The Guardian and the Chicago Tribune. His work has been translated into twenty-nine languages. He lives in London and New York.
by
Hisham Matar
by
Hisham Matar
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Chapter One: The Trapdoor
Hisham Matar begins his introspective journey without the help of an introduction, a dedication, or a preface. Instead, he brings the reader into an empty airport alongside himself, his wife Diana, and his mother. The three were awaiting a plane to Libya, the former home of Matar and his family over thirty years prior, before his father’s involvement in the Libyan resistance forced them to flee. He sets the scene with the anxiety he naturally attaches to his home country by describing some of his most pronounced memories of the conflict. The oppressive regime of Muammar Qaddafi was met with what Matar calls an “armed and determined resistance,” which Matar’s father helped lead. Political dissidents were hanged in public settings, families of dissidents were considered fair game, and Libyan nationals were being executed worldwide.
Chapter Two: The Black Suit
To begin his second chapter, Matar divulges further into his childhood and the boarding school he attended in England under the pseudonym Bob. During his second year, he was acquainted with a Libyan boy named Hamza, and the two quickly became friends. Matar longed to ask his new friend of the home country he hadn’t seen in eight years, but Hamza’s father worked for the Libyan government. Matar claims that by this point, his father had become “one of the most noted leaders of the opposition,” meaning Hisham could not risk letting his new friend learn his real name. Nonetheless, the boys developed “that special thing, when a friendship comes to resemble a shelter”. Upon leaving the school, Matar confessed his Libyan identity, and recalls the friends embracing and weeping together.
Source: Bookrags
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1) Please introduce yourself and tell us why this book interested you and where you are from - city/state (general area) or country.
We love to know where all of our global members are from who are reading and discussing a book with us. It is a lot of fun.
2) Let us know how you are enjoying the book and your first impressions. Remember we are only reading Chapters One through Chapter Two this week. We will not have to use the spoiler html as long as you stay within the pages assigned with each week of the discussion.
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However for my benefit and for everybody else's I am changing things a bit. If you are posting during the week of the reading schedule and you are only posting information about that week's reading and not going ahead - then you do not have to use the spoiler html. However, if you go ahead of the weekly reading and want to post ahead about some topic or page or quote that we have not been assigned yet and have not read - you are bound to use the spoiler html with the header or your post will be moved to the spoiler glossary thread.
At any time you can post on the spoiler glossary thread but on this discussion thread we are posting and staying with the assignments and not getting ahead if in fact you do not want to be bound to use the spoiler html.
So it is up to you. If you stay with the assignments and do not post about something ahead that is coming up - you do not have to use the spoiler html but if you don't and you get ahead or you want to talk about something expansive then you MUST use the spoiler html or post it on the glossary spoiler thread.
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1. Read messages (13 - 17); those messages show you the rules for the BOTM discussion and how to do the spoiler html.
2. Messages 13 and 14 actually show you the spoiler html code. Use it on this thread if you plan to go ahead of the weekly assigned reading or if you become more expansive. You can post expansive material on the glossary thread with spoiler html but here you must use the spoiler html if you get ahead or become too expansive.
3. Where is the Table of Contents and the Weekly Reading Assignments? - for this selection - check message 3 for the table of contents and message 4 for the syllabi for all four weeks - so that your reading schedule matches the assigned reading for that week.
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Everyone is welcome but make sure to use the goodreads spoiler function if you get ahead of the assigned weekly pages.
If you come to the discussion after folks have finished reading it, please feel free to post your comments as we will always come back to the thread to discuss the book.
The rules
You must follow the rules of the History Book Club and also:
First rule of Book of the Month discussions:
Respect other people's opinions, no matter how controversial you think they may be.
Second rule of Book of the Month discussions:
Always, always Chapter/page mark and spoiler alert your posts if you are discussing parts of the book that are ahead of the pages assigned or if you have become expansive it your topics.
To do these spoilers, follows these easy steps:
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And please mark your spoiler clearly like this:
State a Chapter and page if you can.
EG: Chapter 24, page 154
Or say Up to Chapter *___ (*insert chapter number) if your comment is more broad and not from a single chapter.
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If you are raising a question/issue for the group about the book, you don't need to put that in a spoiler, but if you are citing something specific, it might be good to use a spoiler.
By using spoilers, you don't ruin the experience of someone who is reading slower or started later or is not reading the assigned pages.
Thanks.
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However if we discuss folks outside the scope of the book or another book is cited which is not the book and author discussed then we do have to do that citation according to our citation rules. That makes it easier to not disrupt the discussion.
You can copy and paste below to get your spoiler right:
You can copy and paste below to get your spoiler right:
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The other thread is the glossary which is the spoiler thread.
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Let us kick this off by introducing yourself (tell us where you are from - city/state (general location) and country - we are a global community and this is fun for all of us) and tell us why this book interested you and why you wanted to read and discuss it. You can call yourself your avatar name if you like - that is up to you - but give us a general location where you are from so we can all feel united across this big world of ours.
Also if you have begun Chapter One - what are your initial impressions?
My name is Bentley and I am from the Metro NYC area as well as New England and I am very interested in reading this book because without being political - I wanted to understand more of what happened in Libya . This book also appeals to me because I believe that we are all connected on this planet and what happens in Libya as well as where you live locally matters to all of us; and all of us will eventually see the impact of global events. Having traveled the world - I have loved every minute of meeting new people and understanding better the culture in a personal way. Libya is one country that I have not visited because of the unrest in that part of the world; but I would like to see it through the eyes of the author Hisham Matar.
Let us introduce ourselves and get this discussion started.
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https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
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More:
https://trialinternational.org/latest...
https://www.englishpen.org/campaigns/...
Source: Trial
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Cairo International Airport
And so we being this wonderful book about Libya, Jaballa Matar and what happened to him as well as what his son went through in understanding the fate of his father and the return to where it might have all have taken place:
"Early morning, March 2012. My mother, my wife Diana and I were sitting in a row of seats that were bolted to the tiled floor of a lounge in Cairo International Airport. Flight 835 for Benghazi, a voice announced, was due to depart on time. Every now and then, my mother glanced anxiously at me. Diana, too, seemed concerned. She placed a hand on my arm and smiled. I should get up and walk around, I told myself. But my body remained rigid. I had never felt more capable of stillness."
Matar, Hisham. The Return (Pulitzer Prize Winner) (p. 3). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Discussion Questions:
1. What are your initial thoughts about the book and chapter one?
2. Why were you interested in reading this book?
3. Please give a brief introduction of yourself and a general location of where you are reading this book from? Are you from San Francisco, Seattle, Kansas, France, Turkey? It is always fun to know the locations of the readers in any one of our global discussions.
4. Why is Hisham Matar making this journey to the Middle East and what do you think he expected to find from this journey? How was he feeling as he embarked from Cairo to Benghazi? If you had been in the same situation, what might you have done?
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Benghazi - 2015
Where is Benghazi located:
Image of Old Benghazi
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Joseph Brodsky
Quote One:
"Knowing this excited and worried me. I am reluctant to give Libya any more than it has already taken".
Quote Two:
"Joseph Brodsky was right. So were Nabokov and Conrad. They were artists who never returned. Each had tried, in his own way, to cure himself of his country".
What you have left behind has dissolved. Return and you will face the absence or the defacement of what you treasured. But Dmitri Shostakovich and Boris Pasternak and Naguib Mahfouz were also right: never leave the homeland. Leave and your connections to the source will be severed. You will be like a dead trunk, hard and hollow. What do you do when you cannot leave and cannot return? Leave and your connections to the source will be severed. You will be like a dead trunk, hard and hollow. What do you do when you cannot leave and cannot return?
Discussion Questions:
1. In all of the author's 36 years, what were the cities that he associated with and why? Did the author have a nomadic upbringing or where these instances of "places of his timeline of life"? In what way do you relate to the author and where have you spent time as part of your life? Have you traveled abroad and lived in various countries like Brodsky or were you more like a Pasternak? What group do you relate to more? And why or why not?
2. What were your thoughts on this passage?
“Where are you from?” and I, unfazed and free of the usual agitation, would casually reply, “New York.” In these fantasies, I saw myself taking pleasure from the fact that such a statement would be both true and false, like a magic trick.
3. What would be your answer to that same question - where are you from? Would you be doing a magic trick and where do you think you are from and why? Is it the place you were born or is it another place and why or are you a product of many places? Explain and tell us how you relate to places, locations and the events of your life?
4. What happened to his brother Ziad and what other events of fear influenced Hisham's apprehension about returning?
5. Did you ever ask yourself how safe is safe? And do we all have a false sense of security? What were your thoughts about this quote?
In Egypt, we felt safe. But in March 1990, Father was kidnapped from our Cairo flat by the Egyptian secret police and delivered to Qaddafi. He was taken to Abu Salim prison, in Tripoli, which was known as “The Last Stop”—the place where the regime sent those it wanted to forget.
6. What kind of man do you think that the author's father was? Did you find him complex with conflicting traits or did you find him a simple man with a noble aspiration? What were your thoughts in reading the father's description of Abu Salim - of the place and of the man writing about it? What do you think was his fate? How do you think the blind man had a photo of the author's father?
"And now a description of this noble palace…The cell is a concrete box. The walls are made of pre-fabricated slabs. There is a steel door through which no air passes. A window that is three and a half metres above ground. As for the furniture, it is in the style of Louis XVI an old mattress, worn out by many previous prisoners, torn in several places. The world here is empty.
7. How powerful was this passage to you? What did the trapdoor symbolize - did it symbolize for you the entrapment that the father endured or the entrapment that the author felt about the decision that he was facing internally about The Return? What were your thoughts? How did the references to Kafka and David Malouf images stike you?
"I crossed over a grille in the sidewalk. Beneath it, there was a room, barely high enough for a man to stand and certainly not wide enough for him to lie down. A deep gray box in the ground. I had no idea what it was for. Without knowing how it happened, I found myself on my knees, looking in. No matter how hard I tried, I could not find a trapdoor, a pipe, anything leading out. It came over me suddenly. I wept and could hear myself.
Matar, Hisham. The Return (Pulitzer Prize Winner) (p. 4 - 14). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Abu Salim Prison - Getty Images
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa...
https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2012...
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/fea...
https://www.aljazeera.com/video/afric...
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The above questions are all of the discussion questions for Chapter One. We will begin Chapter Two. But if you would like to discuss any other quotes or any other aspect of Chapter One or of the history of Libya during this period - please feel free to do so. Just do not discuss the book itself beyond Chapter Two on this thread beyond what we are assigned for this week without spoilers or post your thoughts on the glossary thread.
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Week One: - February 16th - February 23rd
Cover - page v
Title Page - page v
Copyright - page vi
Map 1 - ix
1. Trapdoor - page 3
2. Black Suit - page 16
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And so Chapter Two begins:
Red Sea
In 1980, my family was living in Egypt. On several occasions as a child I would sit in my room with the atlas and try to calculate the number of kilometres between our flat and the border. Every year, Qaddafi was going to die or be forced to flee the country. Every year, we were going to return home. In 1985, a couple of years after Ziad’s close call in Switzerland, I asked to go to boarding school in Europe.
Source: Matar, Hisham. The Return (Pulitzer Prize Winner) (p. 16). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Mediterranean Sea
Discussion Questions:
1. How tense was the moment when Hisham told Hamza his real identity? He also told him who his father was. And then apologized - what was he apologizing for. And why was it such a pivotal moment?
2. There is a quote which is striking later on in the chapter - what were your thoughts? Why would they have not kept in touch or after meeting each other in the street not want to rekindle their wonderful friendship?
"And he had that proud shyness intimate friends feel on first meeting your beloved. We searched our pockets for pieces of paper. We wrote our telephone numbers down. But even as we did, I was sure that we both knew that neither of us would ever call."
Source: Matar, Hisham. The Return (Pulitzer Prize Winner) (p. 19). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
3. How did the author explain his connection to England - he said that it was not so much by the length of time but nature. Have you ever felt that connection to any place where it was not where you were from but there was something about the place that gave you some instant joy or peace or a sense of finding a "soul home". Where is that place and how do you feel about it?
Giza Pyramids
Mena House Oberoi
4. What did the author mean by the following quote:
"Naked adoption of native mannerisms or the local dialect—this has always seemed to me a kind of humiliation. And yet, like a jealous lover, I believed I knew London’s secrets better than most of its natives."
Source: Matar, Hisham. The Return (Pulitzer Prize Winner) (p. 23). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
5. What do you think was the symbolism of traveling home in the author's "ill-fitting suit"? Did you ever wear something that down deep made you feel uncomfortable but you were bound to wear it. Compare your experience to Hisham and how do you think he felt going back to Libya under the circumstances?
"I wondered why I had worn a black suit, a suit I had bought a year before, when I was, for a fleeting moment, persuaded that there was something monastic and peaceful about a life spent in black suits. I had worn it only twice since buying it and on both occasions felt uncomfortable with how badly the cut fitted me and with the knowledge of the exorbitant amount I had spent on it. And now, for some reason, I was traveling home in this ill-fitting suit."
Source: Matar, Hisham. The Return (Pulitzer Prize Winner) (p. 24). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
6. What was the meaning of the last paragraph in the chapter about being last. Why did Hisham feel that he was last - was he only discussing the order of his birth in relationship to his other siblings or was there another meaning? How were the other families members being filled?
"That was his first time back. He went again after Tripoli fell, in August, and Mother went with him. I was the last, the youngest and the last, just as when I was a boy and was told to always fill the glasses of my parents and older brother before my own."
Source: Matar, Hisham. The Return (Pulitzer Prize Winner) (p. 27). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Plage des Brouis
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If you would like to go beyond the assignment you must use spoiler html or post on the glossary thread.
Here is the glossary thread link for anyone who is reading ahead. https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
The Glossary thread is a spoiler thread - the discussion thread is not.
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You can then try your hand at the discussion questions before we move on to Week Two on February 24th.
Bentley wrote: "We will be opening this book discussion today. 1) Please introduce yourself and tell us why this book interested you and where you are from - city/state (general area) or country.
We love to know..."
I have only read chapter one so far but wanted to jump in and introduce myself. I am reading from Boston, Massachusetts in the U.S. I opted in because I love history and have read a bit about the Middle East but I especially enjoy first person accounts for learning about history or a region. Having recently finished my undergrad degree I actually have something approaching 'free time' and what I miss from classes is reading together and getting other people perspectives on a book or any additional enlightening knowledge they might bring to the table.
-Jeannine
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You do not have to use spoilers as long as you do not go ahead.
In other words you can discuss anything from the beginning of the book up through page 40 on February 25th without using spoilers.
If you want to discuss beyond page 40 in this third week - you can add your comments to the glossary thread which is a spoiler thread - this thread is a non spoiler thread.
Week Two: - February 25th - March 3rd
3. The Sea - page 28
4. The Land- page 35
Also, make sure to do your brief intro - who you are - where you are from generally - city and state (you do not have to be exact) and/or place and country. Also why this book interests you. And any first impressions?
Make sure to take a look at the Discussion Questions for the previous chapter and jump in and try your hand at those so that you stimulate interaction with your other readers and members.
Chapter One's Discussion Questions - Posts 19 through 21
Chapter Two's Discussion Questions - Post 24
Hello, this is Camelia from snowy Minnesota. While I thought that the subject is fascinating, I found it hard to get into this book. As it started with the author and his mother in the airport i expected a linear story....so it took me a while to arrange the events in a chronological order so that they make sense to me.
Other then that (I still struggle with this issue) the book promise to be very interesting.
A couple of points:
-The author needs to conceal his identity while studying abroad because he feared to be discovered and potentially killed by Qaddafi's people.
-The family's the exile in Cairo it seems to me, from today's perspective, too close to the oppressor to be really safe .
That's it so far.
I am looking forward for next chapters.
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Be careful of spoilers since this is the non spoiler thread but you are ok for now.
Try your hand at responding to the Chapter One and Chapter Two questions - we would love to hear your perspectives and responses. I am sure that they will help us all.
One comment that I will make regarding Cairo - I think many of us view Cairo as being dangerous right now and maybe it is for Americans although for many years it was quite safe overall. Only folks from outside of Egypt tried to ruin Egypt's robust travel industry with terror attacks.. But for a Middle Easterner - Egypt used to be a haven of peace believe it or not compared to its neighbors aside from Jordan. The UAE and Kuwait are pretty safe too but many of the others not so much. Qatar and Oman are OK too. Egypt now is not that safe and there are police checks everywhere I have been told - back about 18 years ago that was not the case - you would have felt reasonably safe as an outsider - so it is not unreasonable to think that years ago Egypt was safe and different than it is now and was certainly safe for another Middle Easterner. Possibly Egypt was easier to get to - possibly by water and there were other fairly safe countries around Egypt. But so far we do not know why Matar's father considered it safe.
Maybe we will find out.
Hi, I'm Harmke, living in the Netherlands. I got interested in this book when I recently read 'The City Always Wins' by Omar Robert Hamilton. I am on the waiting list at my local library for this book. As soon as I get my hands on a copy I will catch up and jump into the discussion. 
by Omar Robert Hamilton (no photo)
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That book looks quite interesting too. And we look forward to reading your posts. I am sure that you will get the book soon and thank you for posting your introduction and giving us a wonderful hello and letting folks know that you are here.
I am going to look into that other book as well.
I am Rosemary from Atlanta, Georgia, USA. I enjoy reading history, memoirs, and about faraway lands. Libya is very far away from my perspective. I have just started reading The Return and my initial impression is favorable. I look forward to reading time! It will be a joy to read alongside you all as well.
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Thank you for your initial impression - and it will be a joy to read with you too.
Try your hand at some of the discussion topics in 19, 21, 24. We would love reading your perspective. Was there a special quote that you liked in Chapter One or Chapter Two?
Bentley wrote: "Chapter One - TrapdoorCairo International Airport
And so we being this wonderful book about Libya, Jaballa Matar and what happened to him as well as what his son went through in understanding th..."
Answering Q4... I get the sense of a very conflicted person not really wanting to return but yet feeling compelled or drawn. It’s unclear exactly why as of chapter 1 but I would imagine strong possibilities are needing to know what happened to his father perhaps part of a grieving process.
Bentley wrote: "Chapter Two - Black SuitAnd so Chapter Two begins:
Red Sea
In 1980, my family was living in Egypt. On several occasions as a child I would sit in my room with the atlas and try to calculate the..."
1. How tense was the moment when Hisham told Hamza his real identity? He also told him who his father was. And then apologized - what was he apologizing for. And why was it such a pivotal moment?
Telling Hamza who he really is seems to be important for not completely denying his heritage or living a lie. I can’t even imagine how complicated his feelings must have gotten growing up and attending school in England while his father was jailed and suffering. I think also, there are complexities for men that I don’t necessarily understand.
2. There is a quote which is striking later on in the chapter - what were your thoughts? Why would they have not kept in touch or after meeting each other in the street not want to rekindle their wonderful friendship?
"And he had that proud shyness intimate friends feel on first meeting your beloved. We searched our pockets for pieces of paper. We wrote our telephone numbers down. But even as we did, I was sure that we both knew that neither of us would ever call."
I wonder if there’s any shame involved in the fact that he was living with a hidden identity.
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Cairo International Airport
And so we being this wonderful book about Libya, Jaballa Matar and what happened to him as well as what his son went through in ..."
Yes, Jeanine - the reader has to ask themselves - why is the author finally returning - why now and not before.
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There may have been that shame - I don't know. I thought it very odd - could it be that one boy felt that it would be better protection for their friend's identity not to be in touch and the other felt that by being a friend that their family might be affected back in Libya. Hard to tell. But it probably is like so many other deep friendships in school - they last a lifetime in your heart and mind but in reality - life takes you in many different directions and the most one can hope for is to see folks at reunions or events held with reconnection in mind. Everyone sometimes has the best intentions which fall by the wayside.
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Regent's Park and Primrose Hill in London
And so Chapter Three begins -
On the 1st of September 1969, fourteen months before I was born, an event took place that was to change the course of Libyan history and my life.
In my mind’s eye, I see a Libyan army officer crossing St James’s Square at about 2 P.M. towards what was then the Libyan Embassy in London. He had gone to the British capital on official business.
He was popular amongst his peers, although his gentle reserve was sometimes mistaken for arrogance. He had committed to memory pages of verse that, many years later when he was imprisoned, would become his comfort and companion. Several political prisoners told me that, at night, when the prison fell silent, when, in Uncle Mahmoud’s words, “you could hear a pin drop or a grown man weep softly to himself,” they heard this man’s voice, steady and passionate, reciting poems. “He never ran out of them,” his nephew, who was in prison at the same time, told me.
And I remember this man who never ran out of poems telling me once that “knowing a book by heart is like carrying a house inside your chest.”
Matar, Hisham. The Return (Pulitzer Prize Winner) (p. 28). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Discussion Topics:
St. James's Square
1. I thought that this last sentence at the opening of Chapter Three was so powerful - "knowing a book by heart is like carrying a house inside your chest". What images did these opening chapters evoke for you?
2. What was the significance of the story of Hisham's father visiting Ziad and Hisham in London? How was an old photo of King Idris significant to Hisham and his father? Why did Muammar Qaddafi do to not make enemies of the senior military men which still seems strange given the events that occurred afterwards?
3. At first, Qaddafi appeared to want to appease Egypt and declared his admiration for Nasser who in turn gave his full support to Qaddafi. What then did Qaddafi do after fooling all of his people and supporters?
Gamal Abdel Nasser
4. How did the lorry/bicyclist incident create even four decades later images of irrevocable and violent changes that Hisham's family and country went through?
5. How powerful were the words that "We need a father to rage against... and how did Hisham fear the consequences of his father's convictions? How does Matar evoke memories of Telemachus and why? Who taught Matar to swim and why did he now fear the sea?
Tripoli
Mod
Colonel Mohamed Abdel Salam (el-Mahgoub)
And so begins Chapter Four:
"The plane was full. We sat down, but then Mother got up to let me sit beside the window. “To see your country,” she said. The plane door was shut. I took out my journal and began writing, slowly and deliberately.
The panic, like the dreams in which I open my mouth and nothing comes out, was born of loss. Or that recurring dream I used to have after they took my father, in which I found I had drifted deep out to sea.
All four horizons are water, and the feeling is not only of fear but also of a sort of vertigo of regret. The words I was trying to write, the notebook and pen, the aeroplane, the view of the runway outside my window, my companions—the woman who bore me and the woman beside whom I matured into a man—seemed theoretical propositions.
Matar, Hisham. The Return (Pulitzer Prize Winner) (p. 35). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Discussion Topics:
1. Hisham's mother knew him well and asked him which one of his imaginary characters he was returning to Libya as? What was the significance of that query and why was she more convinced that returning as one of these personas was better than returning as carrying the ghost of the Absent- Present.
2. The Matar family at first felt safe in Egypt - but Matar felt that he had been tricked - and in the book he wrote - "There is a moment when you realize that you and your parent are not the same person, and it usually occurs when you are both consumed by a similar passion. How did their loss connect Hisham and his father and how did it separate them?
3. The date and time were important and accidentally in an attempt to synchronize schedules - the meaning had escaped them until the day they landed. What was the importance and how eerie that must have been?
4. How had the Egyptian regime sold out?
5. Have you ever returned to a place that you once loved but had forgotten and when you arrived the scents were like a warm blanket that you were not aware that you needed? Describe those moments as the author described his.
The author (left) with his uncle Mahmoud, a political prisoner for twenty–one years.
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Week Three - March 4th - March 10th
5. Blo’thaah - page 40
6. Poems - page 51
7. Your Health? Your Family? - page 62
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5. Blo’thaah
Driving to Benghazi, Visiting Uncle Mahmoud, Do you remember?, Blo'thaah, Arriving in Ajdabiya, Abu Salim
6. Poems
Fathers, Jaballa reciting poetry at night, the elegiac Bedouin poetry of the alam, Flashback to Cairo, Your duty is not to doubt but to give
7. Your Health? Your Family?
Afraid to question, Uncle Mahmoud, Muftah, Uncle Salah. the desert still scattered with mines
Hi, I have my copy from the library, so I am catching up the first week in this post. The book reads easily and it reads as a novel. It leaves so many questions in the first two chapters!
Chapter 1, question 1-3: If you know where you are from and if you can return there once in a while, you know what is dear to you and why. And you will find both yourself and the place changed, so you know it isn't the perfect place from your memory anymore. For me, the little village I grew up in, is kind of a paradise in my memory. But I would never consider living there again: I have changed, the village has changed and the people living there have changed. It would simply never be the same.
Chapter 1, question 7: Because of the revolution in Libya, the author’s past comes back to him from places in his mind he thought were locked forever. At first, you want to push them away. Until the moment you know you have to face them. It is a bit like mourning I guess.
Chapter 2. A quote that caught my eye is the one where the author tells about his silent condemnation of exiles who adapted. I am reading the book in Dutch, so I can't give you the full quote and page number, sorry about that. I guess this is why he never felt really at home in all the places in the world he lived. Always looking forward until the day where he would go 'back home'.
Chapter 2, question 5: For a special occasion you want to wear something special. I guess it is that simple. The author has waited years and years for this moment and when it is finally there, it felt so uncomfortable. Not his suit, he was so uncomfortable with the fact that he was finally going back.
Mod
I agree with you - I find that things you thought were forgotten come back to you as you get older for some reason - and I have to ask why?
You make a very good point - Matar was always an expat looking for a "home" because he lost the one he thought he had which was the place his family came from. He would not be able to return under the circumstances (I honestly doubt he would anyway). There was also the fact that he was different and had different needs as an author, husband and father. Everything had changed - including himself.
His suit was uncomfortable because he was uncomfortable and trying to represent something that he wasn't - he was trying to be a Libyan when he was so many other things but no longer a Libyan - in fact he had not even been born there - he was a New Yorker by birth!
I love the points you made Harmke - all so relevant and revealing about the author and this trip.
It is an odd little book don't you think - it reads like a novel with flashbacks yet it is a non fiction book and the style of writing is flowery and poetic not an historian's style. But it is great maybe for all of those same reasons.
Keep the posts coming - I get lonely here (smile).
So, reached Chapter 6 this weekend. Here are my notes. Chapter 3: reading chapter 3 I felt so lucky I still have both my parents! I don't know how it feels like missing one, but I felt so grateful while reading Hisham's feelings on missing his father.
The other thing that I noticed was that Hisham's father was first really excited about the revolution. He hoped things would change for the better in Libya. After a couple of years he got disappointed: the king was replaced by a dictator. I had no idea that Qadaffi first brought a sense of hope to the people in Libya.
Chapter 4, question 1:Hisham's mother knew that Hisham missed his father and was in a constant search of him. He would be disappointed anyway if he was looking for his father. He would never find what he was looking for, because he was looking for something from the past.
Chapter 4, question 5: I don't recognise the experience of going back to a place I once loved and had forgotten. But I do know the experience of immediately recognizing scents as belonging to a place. Or scents in the air that make me feel at home: freshly mowed grass, cow poop, sour milk or ensiled corn (I grew up on a dairy farm). So I guess Hisham experienced something like that.
Chapter 5 and 6: These chapters are both about what we need to prove that we are a unique individual. In chapter 5, the author tells us about the stories his uncle told him after he left prison. They had only one purpose: to tell the world he exists. In chapter 6, the author tells the story about his father in Abu Salim prison. He wanted to be recognised by his voice, because he wanted to be known as who he was before his imprisonment.
Looking forward to read everyone else's notes on this book!
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Hi, I'm Connie from the state of Connecticut. I'm reading a library book so I'm hoping to read the book fairly quickly, and have finished the first seven chapters.My initial reaction to the book was that the Matar family has been torn apart since Jaballa Matar's kidnapping. There has been no closure since they are still holding a faint hope that he might be alive. Jaballa is called a ghost on page 31, and he is never far from their minds.
Hisham was extremely anxious at the airport, full of warring emotions, in Chapter 1. Libya was the land of his childhood and the home of many important relatives. But it was also the country that had imprisoned his father and other relatives. I imagine Hisham, Ziad, and their mother never felt totally safe for years, wondering how far the Qaddafi regime would go to wipe out any opposition. Even with Qaddafi gone, there must be some fear of the unknown.
Chapter 1-question 7: The picture of Hisham's father sitting in an airless cell for years is printed on Hisham's mind. So the "room" under the grill in the sidewalk without a trapdoor triggered an intense emotional reaction.
Chapter 2-question 5: The black "ill-fitting suit" is in the color of grieving in the Western world where Hisham has been living. I wonder if Hisham feels some "survivor guilt" as he thinks about his normal life in London as compared to what the people of Libya have been through. He knows he'll soon be meeting with his father's relatives who spent over twenty years imprisoned. He's a sensitive person, and doesn't know what awaits him. It's been so many years since he has been in Libya that it no longer feels like home.
Chapter 4-question 5 about returning to a place that you loved: I spent a few weeks every summer on the Connecticut coast every summer until I was in my early 30s. I still love the smell of the saltwater, seaweed, and fresh fish. The sound of the gulls, fog horns, and a train running along the coast all bring back memories. So I can relate to Hisham's memories being stirred when the plane lands in Libya.In Chapter 6 we can see how poetry was such an important part of Jaballa's identity since he wanted to be recognized in prison by the sound of his voice reciting poems. Perhaps the thick walls of the prison and the stress of the interrogations had made Jaballa's voice seem like the voice of an elderly man to Mahmoud. As a leader Jaballa probably was treated worse than the other prisoners.
In Chapter 7 the warmth of an accepting family contrasts with a history of trauma and loss.
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The History Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
The City Always Wins (other topics)Anatomy of a Disappearance (other topics)
In the Country of Men (other topics)
The Return (other topics)
Authors mentioned in this topic
Omar Robert Hamilton (other topics)Hisham Matar (other topics)
Hisham Matar (other topics)
This is the thread for the discussion of the book The Return: Fathers, Sons, and the Land in Between by Hisham Matar
Synopsis:
From Man Booker Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Hisham Matar, a memoir of his journey home to his native Libya in search of answers to his father's disappearance. In 2012, after the overthrow of Qaddafi, the acclaimed novelist Hisham Matar journeys to his native Libya after an absence of thirty years.
When he was twelve, Matar and his family went into political exile. Eight years later Matar's father, a former diplomat and military man turned brave political dissident, was kidnapped from the streets of Cairo by the Libyan government and is believed to have been held in the regime's most notorious prison. Now, the prisons are empty and little hope remains that Jaballa Matar will be found alive. Yet, as the author writes, hope is "persistent and cunning".
This book is a profoundly moving family memoir, a brilliant and affecting portrait of a country and a people on the cusp of immense change, and a disturbing and timeless depiction of the monstrous nature of absolute power.
Awards:
Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography (2017), Costa Book Award Nominee for Biography (2016), Orwell Prize Nominee for Longlist (2017), Los Angeles Times Book Prize Nominee for Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose (2016), National Book Critics Circle Award Nominee for Autobiography (2016); Folio Prize (2017), The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction Nominee (2016), Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize (2016), PEN/Jean Stein Book Award (2017)