In the Country of Men
Author(s):
Hisham Matar
Label: Dial Press Trade Paperback
Publisher(s):
Dial Press Trade Paperback
Studio: Dial Press Trade Paperback
Manufacturer: Dial Press Trade Paperback
Binding: Paperback
List Price: $12.00
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Editorial Reviews
Product Description
Libya, 1979. Nine-year-old Suleiman?s days are circumscribed by the narrow rituals of childhood: outings to the ruins surrounding Tripoli, games with friends played under the burning sun, exotic gifts from his father?s constant business trips abroad. But his nights have come to revolve around his mother?s increasingly disturbing bedside stories full of old family bitterness. And then one day Suleiman sees his father across the square of a busy marketplace, his face wrapped in a pair of dark sunglasses. Wasn?t he supposed to be away on business yet again? Why is he going into that strange building with the green shutters? Why did he lie?
Suleiman is soon caught up in a world he cannot hope to understand?where the sound of the telephone ringing becomes a portent of grave danger; where his mother frantically burns his father?s cherished books; where a stranger full of sinister questions sits outside in a parked car all day; where his best friend?s father can disappear overnight, next to be seen publicly interrogated on state television.
In the Country of Men is a stunning depiction of a child confronted with the private fallout of a public nightmare. But above all, it is a debut of rare insight and literary grace.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews
Exquisitely Devastating
Exquisite writing. Captivating style. Utterly devastating mix of innocence, dread and pain. The most effective and haunting message for political freedom and human rights.
a hero to not like very much
This book, the first part written very tediously, was very hard for me to get into. Then I came here to read some of the reviews other readers had written and on the strength of these to pick the book up again for another try. I'm not sorry I did.
The second half is much better than the first. I was pulled into the intrigues and horrors as a small underground tried to battle a dictatorial regime. As both the place and the characters became more real - including the father who is not described to any great length but is very much felt anyway - I cared more about what was happening.
I had a hard time liking the boy narrator, however. He was untrustworthy and petty. He would have betrayed his own father if someone else had not already done that for him. He betrayed others and was never found out. While he did have pangs of guilt, they did not really lead him to any serious introspection.
It was interesting how the tone changed toward the end and it became more the adult talking about what had happened when he was a child. It seemed to fit and was not jarring. Almost as if he could not bear anymore to stay in his own juvenile shoes.
It seems like almost everyone else in this story matured except the main character.
This book is fascinating for its inside view of a tyrannical regime and the attempts of ordinary people to lead decent lives against great odds.
A Tedious Novel with an unlikable narrator
When I purchased the book, I was quite interested in the setting and eager to read it because a good friend of mine had been living in Libya when Qaddafi staged his coup; my friend barely escaped the country with his life.
But what a disappointment the book turned out to be.
My main problem with the novel was that the narrative was told from the perspective of a supremely spoiled and obnoxious child who misinterprets nearly every event that occurs. Because I disliked the narrator so much, I found myself detached from the events and characters, and ultimately uninterested in the outcome. Towards the end of the book, I even found myself hoping the state security police would abduct this petulant child and torture him. Out of stubbornness I finished the book, but it took a long time.
Disappointing
In the Country of Men is basically story about life in Libya after the Muammar El Qaddafi's revolution. The year is 1979 and the narrator is nine years old Suleiman so we see revolution and its consequences through the eyes of nine years old boy. Boy who was much protected from the truth by his parents. It was interesting how some obvious facts (obvious for us, adults) are presented in some naïve language of a kid. We have impression that we are sailing through the sea surrounded with peaks of icebergs. The difference is that we (adults) are aware what's beneath the surface unlike the child who is telling us the story.
Then there is one nice picture about customs in the Muslim country and again position of woman in it. Suleiman's mother has been forced into the marriage when her brother saw her in the café with mixed company. Immediately "husband hunt" begins and the Scheherazade-like story. Therefore she was very unhappy with her marriage but in the same time in the husband's absence she's even more miserable and becomes "ill". Her "illness" is another peak of an iceberg and I must say I liked how Matar has described bond between mother and son making her "illness" something sacredly secret.
Suleiman's family is relatively rich. His father is businessman often on the trip abroad but also man who is part of democratic wing in new Libya. Wing you don't want to be part in post Revolutionary, Qaddafi's Libya; full of secret police, man in dark suits and sunglasses, land where national TV is broadcasting public execution of "traitors of the revolution"; where phone lines are tapped, etc. And inevitably consequence for being wrong winged came. But even then it's a peak of an iceberg.
Matar has done great job in conveying kid's confusion toward all the events around him. Politics is absolutely incomprehensible to him; he doesn't have a clue what his father supports or what he actually is doing in spite the fact that some glimpses have been presented accidentally to him. He is confronted with the mechanism of the regime when secret service is following their car or watching his house or taking away his friend's father but somehow he manages to not recognize that as something bad. He's explaining that in the most impossible ways. On the other hand his parents aren't teaching their son anything, they are worsening situation even more and make him confused `till the breaking point when he start to scream (finally!):" You always lie. I am not a child and you always lie." In the meanwhile I was so irritated with the kid and had to (too) often remind myself that he's only a child.
[Possibly SPOILER]
But what disappointed me the most are last few chapters when we are actually see that the story tells 24 Suleiman and not nine years old boy. I've found myself confused why on earth he made this unnecessary contrast with the rest of the novel who has convinced us that the narrator is a boy? The whole novel was through the eyes of a kid, who is not kid anymore and therefore it completely spoils the earlier approach. Now when I know Suleiman is an adult I'd expect story from a point of view of an adult person.
The story itself is nothing new. It's more/less the same story from a country under oppressive regime. There are only few specifically Libyan spices in this dish.
Indeed this is sad and sometimes poignant story but is that should be enough?
Very well written!!
I enjoyed this book; however, it is one that you must concentrate on every word. A little slow moving and yet very interesting perspective on the life in Libya in the late 70's and early 80's. Very interesting to me was the fact that this story was as seen through the eyes of a 9 year old. Having a 9 year old of my own, really related the significance of this story to me personally.
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