North Vancouver City Library Adult book club April book

Excerpts

  • “Every man you ever meet in nothing but the product of what was withheld from him, what he feels owed.” 
  • “Today you are the only boy in the world and tomorrow it will be as though you never existed.” 
  • “Amir took flight. Headlong into the seaborne sky, the roof of the great inverted world. In meeting him the water was not cold or concussive but warm and tranquil, its temperature the temperature of a body, the temperature of blood. With ease and without pain, he flew past the surface, past the depths, past the places where light and life surrendered and the domain of stillness began. And then lower, farther, past the crust of a million interlocking bodies who’d braved this passage before him and come to rest at the bottom, sick with the secrets of their own unallowed mourning. Past the smallest flour-white bones, past the world at the feet of the world. To the lowest deep, then a lower deep still. Until finally to a dry womb of a place in which were kept safe and unchanging everyone he had ever known, and everyone each of those had ever known, outward forever to encompass the whole of the living and the lived. And each of these the boy met, in their old lives and their new lives waiting, and from each drew confession and each he felt into as though there were no barrier between them, no silo of self to keep a soul waiting. What beautiful rebellion, to feel into another, to feel anything at all. —” 
  • “Vanna could not help but think of ancestry as a king of shackle one could never fully unclasp, an umbilical cord that, not matter how deeply cut, could never be severed.” 
  • “And what do you think the prerequisite for kindness is? Have you ever tried to be kind to someone better off than you?””You are the temporary object of their fraudulent outrage, their fraudulent grief. They will march the streets on your behalf, they will write to politicians on your behalf, they will cry on your behalf, but you are to them in the end nothing but a hook on which to hang the best possible image of themselves. Today you are the only boy in the world and tomorrow it will be as though you never existed.”

What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad

NVCL Book Club Reading Guide

About the book

“More bodies have washed up on the shores of a small island. Another overfilled, ill-equipped, dilapidated ship has sunk under the weight of its too many passengers: Syrians, Ethiopians, Egyptians, Lebanese, Palestinians, all of them desperate to escape untenable lives back in their homelands. But miraculously, someone has survived the passage: nine-year-old Amir, a Syrian boy who is soon rescued by Vänna. Vänna is a teenage girl, who, despite being native to the island, experiences her own sense of homelessness in a place and among people she has come to disdain. And though Vänna and Amir are complete strangers, though they don’t speak a common language, Vänna is determined to do whatever it takes to save the boy. 

“In alternating chapters, we learn about Amir’s life and how he came to be on the boat, and we follow him and the girl as they make their way toward safety. What Strange Paradise is the story of two children finding their way through a hostile world. But it is also a story of empathy and indifference, of hope and despair—and about the way each of those things can blind us to reality” [publisher]. 

About the author

“Omar El Akkad is an author and a journalist. He has reported from Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, and many other locations around the world. His work earned Canada’s National Newspaper Award for Investigative Journalism and the Goff Penny Award for young journalists. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, Le Monde, Guernica, GQ, and many other newspapers and magazines. His debut novel, American War, is an international bestseller and has been translated into thirteen languages. It won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award, the Oregon Book Award for fiction, and the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, and has been nominated for more than ten other awards. It was listed as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, GQ, NPR, and Esquire, and was selected by the BBC as one of 100 Novels That Shaped Our World” [publisher]. 

Interviews and articles

Discussion Questions

  1. Amir is the book’s central character, but What Strange Paradise includes a wide range of voices – people from different places with different personal histories. Did a particular voice stand out to you the most? How come? What was the role of that voice in the story? 

Umm Ibrahim – a pregnant woman on the boat. Though not a major character, she was a steadying and mothering presence

Mohammad – the worker on the boat with a gun. Aggressive, ominous tones of trafficking. Threatening. 

Vänna – her kindness and compassion. Not knowing Amir at all and dedicated to sacrificing everything to help him

  1. Why do you think that El Akkad chose to make 2 children – Vänna and Amir – the protagonists? What does this focus on children add to the story, versus if the main characters were adults? 

Innocence of children. Naivety and untarnished empathy. They haven’t acquired the layers of adults that comes with experience. Their eyes were less jaded of the traumatic experiences.

Also how the children were victims of the situation in that these global forces have shaped their lives. Pulled into the situation and did not choose to be in these situations. Adults making choices in their lives have resulted in them being in these difficult situation.

Based on Peter Pan – fairy tale/fable of children on this adventure. Amir is like the lost boy and Vänna is Wendy to guide him. With the ending, he never actually grows up. 

They had the ability to communicate despite the language barrier. Shows human connection transcending language and the childhood curiosity and interest being able to still find ways to see other humans and connect.

  1. The book’s chapters alternate between ‘Before’ and ‘After.’ Did you like this? Why do you think El Akkad used this format? 

When getting to the ending, it became more apparent that the “After” was the afterlife, not just after the shipwreck. 

All the after story was actually happening in the afterlife or in a Peter Pan way where they were in Never Never Land.

The language when Amir went into the water mirrored the flying of Peter Pan as he was dying, it was poetic and beautiful instead of the tragic and chaotic drowning it was. 

The ferryman at the end of their journey is similar to the afterlife and crossing the River Styx. Journey to the afterlife.

  1. What stood out to you the most from the ‘Before’ chapters — particularly from the chapters set on the boat? For example, a specific character, something someone said, a general theme. How come?

The differences of all the characters and how they represent different people who go on these refugee boats. What are their motivations and the ways they confront the massive challenges and scarcity?

Below deck as second class citizens. Showing that even in a situation where they are all in the same boat, that there is even a separate compartment where there are those “below” and colorism are suffering further than those on the top deck. They are all at risk and yet even on the boat, there is a segregation of races and classes. Portrayal of society – we’re all on the same boat. Even though we create separation, we all meet the same ultimate end.

  1. El Akkad said that he writes about what makes him angry, and that this book came from a place of anger. Did you sense his anger throughout the book? Did you sense any other emotions? 

There were a lot of emotions, including anger. There was a range that was represented by different characters and their worldviews.

The highlighting of the have and have-nots shows the stark differences and the suffering that it creates. 

  1. El Akkad also said that “the act of writing the story is hope.” Did you find the book hopeful? In what ways? 

It felt hopefully until the sudden shock at the last chapter. When we thought that he survived it felt really hopeful. Except later on when we find that he has actually died, the hope feels diminished. 

Vänna represented hope. She went through a lot of risk and showed immense empathy. She symbolized a light in the dark and the good in humanity. 

There are many opposite/contrasting ideas in the book: hope and despair, past and present, possibility and unlikelihood, kindheartedness and cruelty

  1. El Akkad says that the book is a “repurposed fairy tale” that’s based on the story of Peter Pan (but also that “a lot of the stuff is beneath the surface”). Did you notice this? What are some similarities between this story and a classic “fairy tale”?

Afterlife is Never Never Land. The way he drowned was actually described in language that made him soaring through skies instead of it being a tragic event.

Fairy Tale where people are miraculously helping them through the journey.

But there was no happily ever after.

The moral of this story feels like an individualistic interpretation where the ruthless people try and save themselves. Their happily ever after is based on themself.

“You sad, stupid people,” he said. “Look what you’ve done to yourselves. The West you talk about doesn’t exist. It’s a fairy tale, a fantasy you sell yourself because the alternative is to admit that you’re the least important character in your own story. You invent an entire world because your conscience demands it, you invent good people and bad people and you draw a neat line between them because your simplistic morality demands it. But the two kinds of people in this world aren’t good and bad—they’re engines and fuel. Go ahead, change your country, change your name, change your accent, pull the skin right off your bones, but in their eyes they will always be engines and you will always, always be fuel.”  Mohammad p. 133

Vänna’s last name is Ermes, who is Greek for bringing souls across the afterlife.

  1. El Akkad is also a journalist, having reported around the world from locations such as Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. How do you think that his experience influenced his writing? 

He’s been able to have the perspective of different people and made it digestible. Showed empathy for different people and their choices and motivations. 

He is able to write about the suffering and complex situations but from a very human perspective.

He’s accumulated a lot of ideas and met a lot of people to be able to share and translate those myriad of experiences. 

  1. What does this book have to say about the migrant crisis in Europe? What did you learn? How does it compare to what you might’ve heard about it previously?

With climate change we’ll see more and more migrants. There will be lots of displacement and we’re not prepared. More devastating situations are coming.

Empathy on individual level doesn’t offset injustice at institutional level

In the news, there were two families who drowned in the St. Lawrence River to try and escape deportation. It’s tragic what happens when people are trying to find a better life.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/03/canada-us-border-eight-migrants-drown-investigation

  1. In a CBC article, What Strange Paradise is said to ask the questions “How did we get here?” and “What are we going to do about it?” Did the book provide any answers for you?
  2. What is your interpretation of the ending? What were your initial thoughts after reading it? Do you think it was satisfactory? 

It was confusing at first, as it was a shock to the story we thought we were initially reading.

The ending brought things back down to earth. The story felt very fairytale like in its ending that it was almost unbelievable. The shocking but tragic ending felt truer to real life. 

  1. What do you think is the significance of the title, What Strange Paradise? 

The ideas of the Western World is a fairytale. It’s an illusion and you’ll always be less than.

We all believe we have a paradise, a beautiful place that is home, yet it is a delusion.

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6377517

“What is the paradise of What Strange Paradise? 

I suppose I think of it as delusions. The paradise in What Strange Paradise is a delusion of safety, a delusion of home, a delusion of what it means to have arrived.

So that, for me, is the paradise in What Strange Paradise — it’s the delusion of what the world is, instead of what it actually is.” – El Akkad

  1. What will stick with you the most from What Strange Paradise? 

The humanity and humans behind all the harrowing new headlines.

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