There's nothing like a pandemic to slow down your everyday life, and if you're fortunate, to give you the opportunity to focus on the things you really love - for me, it's my family, doing yard work, finding a great new show, sitting in the backyard trying a new beer or expert cocktail crafted by my husband, and of course, reading a great book. I'm working during this period to put my energy towards things that will relax me rather than add to the anxiety of the unknown. I know reading books will be a big part in that.
Colum McCann wrote one of my favorite books, Let the Great World Spin, and I'll now read anything he writes. Last weekend I had the delightful opportunity to visit Dolly's Bookstore in Park City, Utah, and McCann's newest release, Apeirogon, was on the new release table. I immediately snatched it up without reading the summary, which describes the book as McCann's most ambitious work to-date. I found that to be accurate - I've never read a book like this in terms of story-telling or organization. The book has about 1,000 chapters, ranging from one sentence to four pages in length, and it's incredibly fragmented. I think this is related to the definition of the title, apeirogon: a generalized polygon with a countably infinite number of sides. At any moment while reading this novel, I felt like I was holding a disco ball, spinning it in the light, and each chapter was a different facet that my eye would land on and familiarize itself with for a moment, but then catch a totally different angle. McCann uses this approach to guide the reader not only through the true story of Rami and Bassam, two fathers who have suffered the terrible loss of their daughters during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but also through the history of the conflict itself.
The constant-switching of the narrative also made the story almost feel hazy. I caught myself multiple times mixing up which story I was reading, Bassam's or Rami's, but I think this was intentional. Bassam and Rami grew up in cultures that encouraged them to villainize one another, but through their shared trauma they find they share more similarities than differences. McCann's writing highlighted these similarities by flipping between their stories so seamlessly that if you didn't catch the shift in names, you wouldn't realize the focus had changed. Bassam and Rami have a powerful friendship they have developed for years and used as the foundation for a movement within their communities to motivate change. I thought McCann's writing about their relationship was a beautiful way to communicate the deeper message underlying many conflicts - that communication can open up doorways, and that what we have in common as humans will always outweigh what we do not.
Apeirogon is about the tragic loss of Abir and Smadar, the daughters of Bassam and Rami, and victims of the extreme violence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The victims and their families are real, as are the organizations discussed throughout the book. It's a dense and difficult read, not suited for every reader, and shouldn't be your pick if you're looking for a fast-paced page-turner. It took me about 150 pages to fall in line with the rhythm of the narrative. All of that said, this is a book I will not soon forget, and I'm grateful for having learned more about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and these resilient families through the lens of McCann's story-telling.
Comentarios