Tepper Reads discussion

So if you’re all reading along at a pace to finish the novel before Mohsin Hamid’s visit, we’ve about finished Chapter 6. Nadia and Saeed have left their home country and ended up in Mykonos, and then have decided to leave Mykonos as well.

Possibly the most emotionally charged line of the whole novel takes place on page 98, “…but that is the way of things, for when we migrate, we murder from our lives those we leave behind.”

Do you think this statement is hyperbolic, or do you feel that it’s spot-on?

I’ve never emigrated out of my home country of the United States, and have never had to leave a place because I feared for my life, but I have lived in a handful of different states and cities, and I believe this sentiment does ring true. Though I have, and always will, kept up contact with my family and my oldest and closest friends, there are loads of people that have fallen by the wayside as I’ve moved around, some of whom I would have considered quite close when I was around them all the time. Absence, often, does not make the heart grow fonder. Even with our own magical doors (cellphones, computers, tablets) life continues to happen, and we are often only focused on the here and now, and those who were once close become blips on our social media feeds. “Murder” may be a strong word in my case, but putting myself in the shoes of Nadia and Saeed, of people fleeing the only home they’ve known because their lives are in danger, who will likely never see anyone they’ve ever cared about ever again, it doesn’t seem exaggerated at all.

What do you think?

I haven't stopped thinking about this passage since I read it. What struck me the most is Hamid's use of the word "migrate." Nadia and Saeed are refugees, which of course is a type of migration but a much more urgent and connotes much less of a choice. But the word migration embodies not only being a refugee, but also leaving for a job, following a love, wanting a fresh start, etc. Migration is such a neutral word that I felt called out by this line! I had to put the book down and think. Did I "murder" my family and friends when I went to the Peace Corps? I certainly felt like I had left them behind but I had never really thought about it in those terms. It made me feel... uneasy.

The only personal experience I have for comparison is when I moved cities when I was 12. At the sort of send off party before I moved they played "I'll Be Missing You" by Faith Evans and P. Diddy (lol) and in a way it was a moment morning the erasure of me from their lives and them from mine. It was probably more like accomplice to murder for me since I didn't have the agency to stay or leave at that age but I think the hyperbole of the language speaks to the depth of feeling when a relationship is severed by distance.

Daniel and Matt, there are two great things that show up in your posts that I always like to see people talking about: specificity of language, and putting the book down and having a good think.

I believe Hamid, in this quote and in the book as a whole, uses "migrate" to mean a permanent move from one place to another, a move with no end date. I don't know as time abroad in the Peace Corps is necessarily what he's referring to, but Matt's childhood relocation might better fit the bill. I do agree that he could have used a more specific word, like maybe "emigrate," but using a more neutral word makes the whole situation more relatable to a larger number of people--there's commonality in leaving one country for another, just as there is in leaving one city for another. I believe one of Hamid's themes in the novel is that we're all migrants in one way or another. (There's a very specific quote about this that happens much later in the book that I'll be referencing in a later discussion post.)

If you haven't had a chance to listen to Andreea Ritivoi's podcast, I highly recommend it. She found this line to be deeply affecting as someone who's migrated to the U.S. from another country.

And completely off topic, but Matt, I recently had a neighbor who played "I'll Be Missing You" on repeat for days and at an extremely loud volume. My partner and I thought we were going to lose our minds!