Apeirogon: A Novel
From the National Book Award–winning and bestselling author of Let the Great World Spin comes an epic novel rooted in the unlikely real-life friendship between two fathers. Bassam Aramin is Palestinian. Rami Elhanan is Israeli. They inhabit a world of conflict that colors every aspect of their lives, from the roads they are allowed to drive on to the schools their children attend to the checkpoints, both physical and emotional, they must negotiate. But their lives, however circumscribed, are upended one after the other: first, Rami’s thirteen-year-old daughter, Smadar, becomes the victim of suicide bombers; a decade later, Bassam’s ten-year-old daughter, Abir, is killed by a rubber bullet. Rami and Bassam had been raised to hate one another. And yet, when they learn of each other’s stories, they recognize the loss that connects them. Together they attempt to use their grief as a weapon for peace—and with their one small act, start to permeate what has for generations seemed an impermeable conflict.
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Apeirogon by Colum McCann
457 pages
What’s it about?
Apeirogon: a shape with a countably infinite number of sides. In this book Colum McCann writes about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and it's infinite number of sides. Much on the novel is based on the lives of real people. Bassam Aramin and Rami Elhanan travel the world speaking about their personal experiences and their belief that no occupation is sustainable. Rami lost his 13-year-old daughter to suicide bombers. Ten years later Bassam loses his ten-year-old daughter when a young Israeli soldier mistakenly hits her in the head with a rubber bullet. The ambulance with Bassam and his daughter are held at a checkpoint for hours on the way to the hospital. " 'I still sit in that ambulance every day' Bassam tells us. 'I keep waiting for it to move. Every day she gets killed again and every day I sit in the ambulance, willing it to move, please move, please please please, just go, why are you staying here, let's go.' " The two men meet and recognize the need to use their grief to make people understand how the occupation is affecting both sides in this conflict.
What did it make me think about?
Life in any occupied zone. "You see the occupation exists in every aspect of your life, and exhaustion and a bitterness that nobody outside it really understands. It deprives you of tomorrow. It stops you from going to the market, tot he hospital, to the beach, to the sea. You can't walk, you can't drive, you cannot pick an olive from your own tree which is on the other side of the barbed wire. You can't even look up at the sky. They have their planes up there. They own the air above and the ground below. You need a permit to sow your own land. Your door is kicked in, your house is taken over, they put their feet in your chairs. Your seven-year-old is picked up and interrogated. You can't imaging it. Seven-years-old. Be a father for a minute and think of your seven-year-old being picked up in front of your eyes. Blindfolded. Zip ties put on his wrists."
Should I read it?
This is an exceptional book. Written in 1001 short chapters (perhaps a nod to the 1001 Arabian Nights) it highlights the many sides to a story that is complicated and fraught with tension. Neither side is listening to the other- maybe because to listen would make you see the humanity in the other viewpoint. I would love to hear Bassam and Rami speak in person. I can not imagine anyone reading this book and not admiring both of these men. They are a testament that something good can come from terrible tragedy. Colum McCann is a gifted writer and this is a masterpiece of a book. Be prepared to take it slowly. This is NOT a page turner. This is a book that will change your viewpoint and make you think.
Quote-
"His was a responsibility not to diminish. He wanted to talk about the use of the past in the justification of the present. About the helix of history, one moment bound to the next. About where the past intersects with the future."
"Some people have an interest in keeping silence. Others have an interest in sowing hatred based on fear. Fear makes money, and it makes laws, and it takes land, and it builds settlements, and fear likes to keep everyone silent."
" 'Once I thought we could never solve our conflict', Bassam tells us; 'we would continue hating each other forever, but it is not written anywhere that we have to go on killing each other. The hero makes a friend of his enemy.... When they killed my daughter they killed my fear. I can do anything now."
If you liked this try-
Milkman by Anna Burns
The Sound of Things Falling by Juan Gabriel Vasquez
Women Talking by Miriam Toews
Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday
Apeirogon by Colum McCann
457 pages
What’s it about?
Apeirogon: a shape with a countably infinite number of sides. In this book Colum McCann writes about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and it's infinite number of sides. Much on the novel is based on the lives of real people. Bassam Aramin and Rami Elhanan travel the world speaking about their personal experiences and their belief that no occupation is sustainable. Rami lost his 13-year-old daughter to suicide bombers. Ten years later Bassam loses his ten-year-old daughter when a young Israeli soldier mistakenly hits her in the head with a rubber bullet. The ambulance with Bassam and his daughter are held at a checkpoint for hours on the way to the hospital. " 'I still sit in that ambulance every day' Bassam tells us. 'I keep waiting for it to move. Every day she gets killed again and every day I sit in the ambulance, willing it to move, please move, please please please, just go, why are you staying here, let's go.' " The two men meet and recognize the need to use their grief to make people understand how the occupation is affecting both sides in this conflict.
What did it make me think about?
Life in any occupied zone. "You see the occupation exists in every aspect of your life, and exhaustion and a bitterness that nobody outside it really understands. It deprives you of tomorrow. It stops you from going to the market, tot he hospital, to the beach, to the sea. You can't walk, you can't drive, you cannot pick an olive from your own tree which is on the other side of the barbed wire. You can't even look up at the sky. They have their planes up there. They own the air above and the ground below. You need a permit to sow your own land. Your door is kicked in, your house is taken over, they put their feet in your chairs. Your seven-year-old is picked up and interrogated. You can't imaging it. Seven-years-old. Be a father for a minute and think of your seven-year-old being picked up in front of your eyes. Blindfolded. Zip ties put on his wrists."
Should I read it?
This is an exceptional book. Written in 1001 short chapters (perhaps a nod to the 1001 Arabian Nights) it highlights the many sides to a story that is complicated and fraught with tension. Neither side is listening to the other- maybe because to listen would make you see the humanity in the other viewpoint. I would love to hear Bassam and Rami speak in person. I can not imagine anyone reading this book and not admiring both of these men. They are a testament that something good can come from terrible tragedy. Colum McCann is a gifted writer and this is a masterpiece of a book. Be prepared to take it slowly. This is NOT a page turner. This is a book that will change your viewpoint and make you think.
Quote-
"His was a responsibility not to diminish. He wanted to talk about the use of the past in the justification of the present. About the helix of history, one moment bound to the next. About where the past intersects with the future."
"Some people have an interest in keeping silence. Others have an interest in sowing hatred based on fear. Fear makes money, and it makes laws, and it takes land, and it builds settlements, and fear likes to keep everyone silent."
" 'Once I thought we could never solve our conflict', Bassam tells us; 'we would continue hating each other forever, but it is not written anywhere that we have to go on killing each other. The hero makes a friend of his enemy.... When they killed my daughter they killed my fear. I can do anything now."
If you liked this try-
Milkman by Anna Burns
The Sound of Things Falling by Juan Gabriel Vasquez
Women Talking by Miriam Toews
Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday
APEIROGON è uno di quei libri che vedi nello scaffale dei libri scontati alla Giunti, non capisci il titolo così lo ribalti e leggi la trama: "wow bello, un libro sulla Palestina, molto attuale e interessante, lo prendo". lo inizi e lo finisci senza aver capito il titolo. L'apeirogon in geometria è una figura che ha talmente tanti lati da risultare quasi una retta, il che sembra un'assurdità (l'ho cercato su Google).
Bene, il libro non parla di geometria, né di storia, né di politica.
Questo libro parla di persone, un sacco di persone: in ogni capitolo (brevi, di una pagina o due) vengono descritte sensazioni, emozioni, sentimenti di qualcuno, che a quanto pare non è abbastanza importante in questo mondo per sapere chi sia, nemmeno per sapere il suo nome. Sembra un libro sconnesso, ma non lo è, è una rappresentazione perfetta del caos della guerra, ma non del caos sulla frontiera a cui siamo abituati dai libri di storia, di quello delle anime, di quello nelle case, nei supermercati, nelle scuole, nella vita quotidiana di chi quella guerra la subisce senza poterla combattere.
Quei famosi lati della figura geometrica sono tutte queste persone, allineate dallo stesso destino, dalla stessa paura, dalla stessa ingiustizia, coinvolti in una storia che nei decenni ha mantenuto una linea che pare immodificabile. Se letto con questo approccio è un libro struggente, se letto con superficialità è un libercolo che ha poco valore e pochi dati storici utili.
Big book…really interesting layout; confusing but part of what made it good. I liked the premise of the story a lot and it’s important for others to hear.
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