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 Three: Life Goes OnChapter Summaries & Analyses
Section Three
Section Three returns to Karim’s diary as he stays in the hospital after his fight with Dave. He returns to the moment when he first came to Quebec with Jad. He reveals that he gave his parents little detail about the Tabarra family’s death, or his journey with Maha. Upon his arrival, he “lived in a total vacuum. In a bubble that isolated [him] from everything” (134). However, this was not a contemplative period—it was a vegetative period. His classmates’ treatment of My-Lan woke him up.
Karim’s diary also tells us that My-Lan now visits him every day. Her black hair, frail body, and the things she says remind Karim of Maha. Although others assume their relationship is romantic, he maintains that he is not in love with her—yet. Learning about her immigrant experience, he realizes that he does not have “a monopoly on unhappiness,” and he resolves not to “wallow” (136).
In his diary, Karim addresses Maha, telling her that she was right, that he now understands the feeling that a statement and its opposite can both be true. He lives with both pain and hope. He resolves to go on and live his life because she and Nada are dead, and so that he can tell their story to Jad.
We also return to the anonymous narrator, who tells us that life has gone back to normal, and that Karim is now accepted within the high school. Furthermore, the violence seems to have made the school a bit more pleasant: “It’s definitely not heaven on earth, but it isn’t the cold, artificial place we all lived in without every touching or knowing anything about each other” (140).
The book concludes with Karim’s letter to Béchir, in which he finally lists twenty-one things he likes. Many are places around Montreal, and many are about girls.
Section Three Analysis
After the high-stakes action and tragedy of Section Two, which presents Karim as not exactly a “desert prince” but certainly a character on a journey of epic proportions, Section Three returns to the world of high school to remind us that, despite everything he’s been through, Karim is still a teenager leading a regular life in Montreal. Furthermore, his conversations with My-Lan reveal to him that many immigrant teenagers have similar stories of violence and loss that color their lives.
The return to the anonymous narrator’s perspective shows us how Karim now appears to someone who still doesn’t know Karim’s backstory. Whereas Karim had experienced real violence in his life in Lebanon, our narrator, it is implied, has not. She thus calls the incident on a ski trip a moment that “Violence Just Erupted in Our Lives” (139). Just as Karim’s violent experiences eventually come to teach him the value of life and the importance of peace, the narrator comes to value community and peace after witnessing Karim’s hospitalization.
Karim’s final list of twenty-one things he likes in particular demonstrates both the normalcy and the uniqueness of his life, filled as it is with stories of friendship, sites around Montreal, and goals for the future—as well as a deep appreciation of the safety and peace of Canada, as compared to Lebanon.
