50 pages • 1 hour read
Michele MarineauRoad to Chlifa
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1992A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Section Two: The Mountain That Is Lebanon (Pages 37-84)Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Summary: Pages 37-55
As Section Two begins, the narrative style changes from first-person to third-person, and introduces the reader to Karim’s life in Lebanon in 1989. We learn that he has no memory of Lebanon before it descended into warfare, having grown up in a city cut in two by the “Green Line,” which, from 1975 to 1990, divided Christians in the east from Muslims in the west.
While Karim’s parents and brothers are visiting his grandmother in Montreal, Karim stays behind to take his baccalaureate exam, not knowing that the school will soon close, as the violence escalates. Karim and Béchir spend their time studying, as well as discussing girls—especially Nada Tabbara, whom Karim has thought about obsessively since the previous summer. After days of staying indoors during bombings, Karim and Béchir venture to Nada’s house on the day of Karim’s 17th birthday. Karim cannot be alone with her because her parents are strict, but he does receive a birthday kiss goodbye.
Their visits to Nada continue until Béchir’s family leaves for Paris. Then, walking to Nada’s on his own, Karim discovers her building blown up, “nothing but a smashed skeleton” (47). He cries out for Nada, who has died in the blast, and meets her sister, Maha, who is twelve, and her brother, Jad, who is six months old. He goes with them to a shelter, where adults call Maha a “bad seed” and speculate that she will be separated from her brother after the shelter is evacuated (52). Maha endeavors to escape to Chlifa, on the other side of the mountains. Karim agrees to accompany her.
Summary: Pages 56-84
When Maha, Karim, and Jad attempt to cross the Green Line, Karim gives the guard the name of his father’s friend, Antoine Milad. Antoine is the only resident of East Beirut whom Karim can think of, and although he has never met him, he believes Antoine will recognize his name and pretend to be his uncle. Antoine, a Christian and a journalist, indeed recognizes Karim’s name, plays along, and is able to get all three children across the border. Antoine brings them to his home, where they rest and plan a route based on the journey to Chlifa that Antoine took with Karim’s father years before.
At Antoine’s, Maha becomes fascinated with a postcard of a medieval tapestry depicting women playing instruments alongside a unicorn and other animals. To Maha, this scene represents peace. Karim, however, says that peace is a fantasy. Antoine tells Karim he has a right to “resent the older generation” whose actions led to the problems—and violence—he has grown up with (75).
Antoine drives the three children out of the city. He advises them to avoid villages. On the drive out of town, they observe some of Lebanon’s famed beauty, and regard the quality of the light at a vista. Maha hints that Karim didn’t know Nada well, but the two push the conversation aside.
They encounter a tourist site, the commemorative stela that mark events in history ranging back to the rule of Ramses II, in the 13th century. Karim and Maha begin their journey as a part of that history, although well aware that no stela will commemorate them.
Section Two Analysis (Through Page 84)
In this first part of Section Two, we are introduced to questions about the “right” behavior during wartime. Karim thinks it is “right” to stay in Lebanon, although Béchir and his family choose to leave so that they can survive, return, and aid in the rebuilding of the city. After Nada’s death, Karim has to rethink his commitment to Beirut, especially when he meets Maha and learns of her mission to escape to Chlifa.
Maha’s rebelliousness and independent mind present an alternate model of female behavior and empowerment, and of “right” behavior. Karim idealizes Nada for her beauty and modesty. Maha, by contrast, is underdeveloped for her age. When Karim tells her that she’s very unlike Nada, she is clearly offended. Called a “bad seed” by adults, Maha falls outside of the sphere of idealized female attributes. Her decision to leave the camp belies her lack of interest in conforming to rules or expectations. Notably, she is more motivated by her fierce protectiveness of her baby brother rather than by a desire to fit in. In this section, she is brave and resolute.
Karim’s budding attraction to Maha is also hinted at, as he observes that she has “eyes that are unusually large in the dark,” suggesting that she may have more of Nada’s beauty than Karim is initially willing to admit (61), though there is also a way to interpret this image as Maha’s ability to see a way out of the tragedy Lebanese Civil War has brought upon her and her family.
This section also introduces nature as an idealized space. Maha’s interest in the postcard of the Lady with the Unicorn tapestries comes from a desire to imagine that in nature, harmony and peace are possible. However, Karim believes that such peace is a fantasy and a fiction, just like the unicorn in the postcard.
Karim and Maha’s journey to Chlifa is also presented as a journey into the past. In replicating his father’s journey, Karim is reliving a bit of family history. Both Karim and Maha are aware that they will be retreating from the war-torn city, whose history is in ruins. As they walk forward, they also walk towards better-preserved relics of the past, including the commemorative stela that remind them of Lebanon’s history before the war. These monuments, co-mingled with nature, offer the promise an escape from the violence of the civil war.
