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2008—If All of Rochester Read the Same Book…

Discussion Points for Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits

Characters and Motivation

• What do we learn about the other main characters, as well as Murad himself, through his perceptions of them on the boat trip?

• Discuss the difficult positions that the four main characters finds themselves in before the boat trip and after. What different reasons are given for each character making such a drastic decision?

• How is their “success” in making the crossing, or their failure to get to Spain, reflected in their later lives?

• How do the differing stories parallel or diverge from one another?

• Which character is most fundamentally changed by his or her experience?

• How do each of the main characters think of their homeland before and after the trip?

• How does each of the main characters see Spain (or Europe and the West) before and after the trip?

• How does each character see him- or herself before they make the trip? Do they see themselves differently in the final stories?

• In what differing ways do each of the main characters think of their homeland?

• Were the rewards worth the risk each character took in trying to leave their situation in Morocco? What evidence does the author give us in each case?

• How do the different characters look differently at the workings of “fate” and of their own actions in forming their own futures?

• What role does religious faith, superstition or skepticism play in each character’s thinking?

• What do you admire or dislike about each character beginning with what is learned in “The Trip”? Does this opinion change over the course of the novel?

• This type of writing asks that we attempt to gain insight into and empathize with characters who might on the surface seem very unlike us; indeed part of the pleasure we get derives from feeling that we are getting inside others’ heads and lives and satisfying our curiosity. Therefore it is pertinent to ask: How do these characters show curiosity about, insight into or empathy for other characters? Where is lack of such traits an issue?

Issues and Themes

• What is the meaning of the title of the book?

• How do Murad’s thoughts at the end of the first section, “The Trip,” set the tone for the rest of the novel?

• Beyond introducing Faten and her story, what is revealed about Moroccan society in the chapter “The Fanatic”? Who is “the fanatic”?

• What role does the Muslim faith play in the book?

• How do the religious and secular characters interact and in what ways do their differing beliefs conflict? Do these challenges reflect similar conflicts in the United States?

• Discuss Faten’s comment that her friend Noura had the “luxury of having faith… [She] also had the luxury of having no faith.”

• How are class issues presented in the novel?

• How is corruption of different kinds displayed in the narrative and how is it confronted by different characters?

• How are the complications of family relationships depicted? How do they change over time?

• How are various gender relations portrayed?

• How do challenging economic circumstances undermine established social and gender structures?

• In what various ways is motherhood portrayed?

• How are marital and sexual relationships represented?

• How is the issue of survival characterized and approached in terms of each character’s situation and beliefs?

• How are secrets kept by the book’s characters?

• Two characters, Aziz and Faten, successfully reach Spain and start new lives there. How have their lifestyles changed after leaving Morocco?

• What roles does food play in each character’s story? How is it used as a catalyst for the characters’ actions or reflection of their emotions?

• How does the book address the positive and negative influence of immigration on a person’s life?

• How are non-Moroccan characters portrayed?

• How do various characters use stories to help themselves explain the world around them, understand the people they know, motivate themselves, shape their hopes, sustain their spirits and justify their actions? Do some uses of stories have negative impacts?

• What is the significance of the story of Jenera and the Sultan? How does it serve as a metaphor?

• In what ways do the events of the final story offer a greater symbolism beyond the story of Murad?

The Author’s Craft

• What is the effect of interspersing frequent Moroccan Arabic terms?

• The novel begins in media res, with the four main characters preparing to board the boat to cross the Straits of Gibraltar, goes back in time to explore the reasons each chooses to make this perilous journey, and in later chapters returns to each character to reveal what has become of their efforts to immigrate. How does this structure reveal characters and situations more effectively than a chronological narrative or if each character’s story had been told in its entirety at once? What change in emphasis or perspective does the author offer the reader by her unusual storytelling technique?

• What is the effect of using present tense in the first chapter?

• Why does the author use the narrative structure of shifting points of view?

• Why is “The Fanatic” not told from Faten’s point of view? Noura and Faten are in some ways “foils” for each other: similar and different, and Faten eventually reflects bitterly on their class difference. In “The Fanatic,” Faten is a two-dimensional character serving as a plot device to move forward the conflict between Larbi and Noura. Discuss the ironies in the their friendship and its outcome.

• How does this book function in terms of being neither clearly a novel nor merely a collection of short stories? You may have read other books of linked stories, such as those by Andrea Barrett or Louise Ehrdrich. What is the difference in the way you read and interpret such books as compared with your experience of novels or short story collections?

• Discuss the titles for the different chapters as they relate to the characters at each point in their lives.

• Why is it through Murad’s eyes that readers are introduced to Faten, Halima and Aziz? Why is it his story that closes the book?

• How does the friend Lahcen function in Aziz’s story? Why do you think the author included him and the issue of his homosexuality, though he slips out of the story?

• In what various ways do outsiders see Morocco, according to the author?

• What is the significance of the book ending with a new, unknown story about to begin? What does it say about the importance of storytelling?

Context

Look into the following historical references and comment on how they inform the book and how the book comments on them:

            The history of Morrocan/European/Spanish relations

711/Tariq Ibn Ziyad

1492/Spanish Inquisition

Paul Bowles

The Beats                   

Guardia Civil

Colonialism

Responding to Issues Raised about the World Beyond the Text

• Is Moroccan culture exotic? In what ways are these characters, their motives and struggles, familiar or unfamiliar to you?

• Does all emigration/immigration involve similar losses and gains? How is illegal immigration different in terms of the stakes? At what point does an immigrant become a countryman of his adopted state? Are emigrants/immigrants always stuck between two worlds? Can that position be a positive thing?

• How do stories function in a culture and in an individual? What are the purposes of telling and retelling ourselves and others stories?

• Are immigrants treated similarly in various countries? How do past national relations with country of origin figure into the equation? How do current events and stereotypes affect the treatment? How does the self-image of the destination country figure in? How do economic factors in the destination country play a part?

• What parallels do you see between the plight of Hope’s characters and the issue of immigration as it is currently being debated in the U.S.? How are the responses of the government and citizens of Spain different from or similar to how the issue of immigration is currently being debated in the U.S., particularly in relation to Mexican immigrants?

• The U.S. is often called “A Nation of Immigrants.” Have we been different from most countries because of the degree of immigration? Are we still?

• Under what social and personal circumstances are individuals most attracted to religious groups in which religious leaders closely prescribe beliefs and control behavior?

• What are the effects of European colonialism and post-colonial corruption on African nations’ economies and psychologies? (Aziz, Murad, Larbi)

• What issues tend to beset friendships that cross class boundaries? (Faten, Noura)

Speculative Questions for Discussion or Writing

• Stop after each of the middle section of stories and write your predictions for what will become of each of the following characters: Larbi, Noura, Faten, Halima, Maati, Aziz, Zohra, Lahcen, Murad.

• If Aziz and Zohra had been able to emigrate together to Spain, would their relationship have lasted? Or would Zohra have been unhappy in Spain, as Aziz ultimately predicts?

• Faten speculates on what became of Noura. Write it yourself: what became of Noura?

• Suppose Murad made it into Spain. What would his life have been like?

• Write the scene of Aziz’s death, including his thoughts about his life.

• Write the scene of Halima’s death, including her thoughts about her life.

Related Writing Projects

• Your ancestors came to this continent from elsewhere. Using what you know of them through family lore and through recorded history, write a scene of their leaving their homeland, an internal stream of consciousness of their thoughts on the journey or a scene of their arrival.

• Interview an immigrant on what they missed from their country when they first arrived here, what they miss now, what seemed strange to them if they ever returned to their homeland, and what they feel they have gained and lost by being here.

• Be like Murad on his trip. Observe and speculate about the appearance and actions of strangers around you, those that puzzle you as an observer (like Faten with her hijab) or that you think you can explain on sight (like the woman from Guinea discarding a paper in the water). Write a character sketch based on a stranger who intrigues you.

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