## Review Date #note/sourcereview/book | #source/book📚/fiction | #source/book📚/ingested ## What is the story The main character grew up in Libya and moves to London for university in the 1980’s. He studies literature and is part of a small group of students learning abroad, suspicious of each other, worried about being watched with the growing power of Khadaffi. He attends a rally against the dictator and is shot through the chest, his friend is shot. They both survive. He spends the rest of the book in a liminal space, unable to fully commit to anything, pulling and pushing at his relationships. When the Arab Spring happens, his close friends return to Libya to fight for independence but he is unable. He cannot commit to relationships and never marries. He does not visit his family, even when it seems he could. The book delicately balances the imperfections of us as we navigate uncertainty, trauma, friendship, and belonging as someone living in exile, either imposed fully from the outside world or somewhat by their inner world. The structure of the book is short chapters, over 100 in a 300 page book. The pace moves along and the writing is deep and rich. Many chapters end with deeply meaningful moments, characters speaking strong ideas. « To be a parent is to continuously come up against everything that is not ideal about you. » as the last line in chapter 97. The book takes place almost exclusively in a London (a tiny bit in Paris and Libya), London is a character in the story. The main character is part of the learned elite, and knows deeply about the museums, music, literary culture, restaurants, and neighborhoods. Mr. Matar paints the smells, creaks, and drafts of the city, helping the reader feel what it is to walk through Hyde Park at night after leaving a club that you feel too old to be at. Oblique and straight forward story telling leads the way, with wonderful and tender metaphors. The second to last chapter ends with the main characters watching a donkey navigate a cliff holding a child, while Libya struggles on the precipice of full catastrophic self-immolation, tipped like the child to nearly tumble into impermanence. I read the book during my [[2024 Morocco - Trip to Fès for HTIC Sim Conference]], causing me to reflect on what I know about North Africa, or rather what I believe I know based on my limited experience. ## What else do I wonder about? How do refugees and the exiled join a new community? How do they navigate the idea that they had a home, and the uncertainty of if they can return? Can one ever return? ## Action #on/gratefulness | #on/presence What choice do we have other than gratefulness and presence? Unless, we want to be stuck. In many ways, if we ever live home, we are all exiles to some extent. ## When do I want to stumble across this? I would consider reading this during another trip to a place that was unstable, or just emerging from instability. ## Source: Matar, H. (2024). _My friends_ (First edition). Random House. ## References, Quotes, Ideas ![[🐓 Idea Farm/Deadfall/For myself only/Readwise/Books/My Friends|My Friends]] %% ```dataview table file.mtime.year + "-" + file.mtime.month + "-" + file.mtime.day as Modified from [[ ]] and !outgoing([[ ]]) sort file.mtime desc ```