Colum McCann. Apeirogon. Random House, 2020.

Years ago I did some research on the migration of birds through the Holy Land. Birds throughout Europe and Asia that winter in Africa funnel through that neck of land that connects West Asia with Africa. I wrote an article for a magazine on the subject, but it was never published. Apeirogon describes various birds of Palestine and Israel, both residents and migrants.

Even longer ago than that I read some stories by Jorge Luis Borges. I once attended a public lecture given by him. I loved his tales, but there was one story that was over my head. Apeirogon mentions Borges a number of times and alludes to that story. When Borges refers to the Aleph in a story by that name, he is suggesting not just the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, he is describing a degree of infinity, according to McCann. (See David Foster Wallace’s Everything and More.) I will have to reread that story.

An Apeirogon is a polygon with an infinite number of sides. Technically, it is not a circle because it has an Aleph sub zero points (i.e., the set of rational numbers [א₀]) while a true closed curve like a circle would have an Aleph sub one set of points (i.e., the set of real numbers [א₁]).

So the conflict over the Holy Land that developed in the twentieth century appears circular—A attacks B, who attacks back, and it goes on and around like migrating birds. But it is not exactly circular. It is a conflict with many sides. The first chapter begins “The hills of Jerusalem are a bath of fog.” The last chapter, also called chapter one, ends with, “The hills of Jericho are a bath of dark.” A many-sided circle? How well does either side see?

Apeirogon touches on many things, but it is mainly about two men on two different sides who come together in the name of peace. Their unlikely connection begins because of evil.

One of the men, an Israeli named Rami Elhanan, is a seventh-generation Jerusalemite on his mother’s side. His father was born in Hungary, survived Auschwitz, and was smuggled into Palestine after World War II ended.

His father-in-law was an honored general who fought in three of Israel’s wars between 1948 and 1967. Yet after 1967 he spent the rest of his life campaigning against what is called the Occupation. He believed that it was possible for Arabs and Jews to live together without the intimidation and bitterness that the Occupation has provoked. At one point McCann notes that Eliezer Ben Yehuda, the father of the modern Hebrew language, believed that Arabs and Jews were brothers with a similar language and cultural background.

Like most Israelis, Rami was drafted. He served in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Though assigned to a tank repair unit, he saw action in the Sinai and knows he killed some Arab soldiers who were trying to kill him. These Arabs were probably Egyptian, not Palestinian.

After directly seeing war, he expressed some sympathy with his father-in-law’s beliefs. Still, he wanted nothing to do with politics or the military after his tour of duty. He married, began a family, and worked as a graphic artist in Tel Aviv. His life would radically change one day in 1997 when his thirteen year old daughter Smadar was killed on her way home from school by two Palestinian suicide bombers.

Eventually Rami joined a group of parents who lost children in the conflict: both Jews and Palestinians. Many sided, indeed. There are even more sides because Smadar had already adopted her grandfather’s opposition to the Occupation. Still, to the bombers she was just another infidel.

The other main character is Bassam Aramin. He is a Palestinian who was arrested at the age of seventeen for throwing rocks at an IDF jeep. He was sentenced to seven years in prison as a terrorist.

Apeirogon retells some of the treatment he received at the hands of the prison staff. Much of it was meant to humiliate him, but there were occasional acts of kindness as well. He never compromised with the authorities even when the raised the possibility of extending his prison term. His reaction was reminiscent of Thoreau’s in On Civil Disobedience where he expresses the idea that some things are more important than being set free from jail.

Released from prison at the age of twenty-four, Bassam gets married and raises a family. In an incident that is like a mirror image of Smadar’s, in 2007 Rami’s daughter Abir is shot and killed by an IDF soldier while she was on her way to school.

Rami befriends Bassam. He understands. Together they promote the parents’ group and each tells his story. Over the years they have spoken all over the world, yet in their homeland they often have to resort to subterfuge to meet. They are very frank.

Bassam and his family spend a couple of years in England as he studies the Holocaust. He knows it really happened—he is no denier—but he wants to understand the Jews better.

Both Bassam and his wife Salwa appreciate the freedom in England, especially the freedom to travel. Apeirogon has pictures of various signs from Israel warning that Jews or Palestinians are prohibited from entering certain areas. But the Aramins do not stay in England. Palestine is where they belong. Bassam meditates on a line from the Persian poet Rumi:

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world.
Today I am wise, so I have begun to change myself. (325)

At one point the author observes that the Kabbala sees two aspects of God:

The first, known as Ein Sof, finds God to be transcendent, unknowable, impersonal, endless and infinite [always infinity]. The second is accessible to human perception, revealing the divine in the material world, available in our finite lives.

Far from contradicting each other, the two aspects of the divine—one locatable, one infinite—are said to be perfectly complementary to one another, a form of deep truth to be found in apparent opposites. (236)

Not only does this say something about the way God reveals Himself, but in its subtle use of chiasmus, it really points to the two natures of the Messiah: He is both God and man. That is indeed the main way God revealed Himself to mankind. See Hebrews 1:1-3.

Speaking of Messiah, there is a detailed and accurate description of what crucifixion was like, notably the crucifixion of Jesus. That is chapter 358.

There are 1001 chapters, corresponding to The 1001 Nights, a.k.a. The Arabian Nights. They average less than a page per chapter. Many are just one or two sentences. A few are photographs. As you may have already noticed, the chapters cover a variety of topics, but together they provide many of the infinite sides of the story.

Although the world stereotypes both Jews and Palestinians, Bassam seems to be more aware of this. Once when being interviewed for a television show, he felt his interviewers wanted him “to fit into their box of ideas” (312). From my own experience with the press when I was in the Coast Guard, I can identify with that experience.

Bassam would note that:

So many times people would come up to him after his lectures and say that they wished there were more like him. What do you mean? he would ask. Immediately they would realize what they had said and drop their heads. As if he didn’t encounter people like himself every single day, at every single angle [infinite angles?]. As if he were the only sort of Palestinian they could stomach. (382)

Prejudice is simply part of who we are.

Since one man served time in prison and the other in the military, there is a small amount of strong language.

There is so much more. Apeirogon is a work of art, but it is not precious or elitist. We do not have to get it all to get it.

As a reviewer I am left with two minor questions.

In chapter 121, writing about a German concentration camp, the book mentions a German lieutenant named Rahm. Corrie ten Boom’s book The Hiding Place tells about a conscience-stricken German Lt. Rahm when she was caught rescuing Jews and sent to concentration camps. Same man? A deliberate choice of name on McCann’s part?

One of the chapters on bird migration lists nearly forty reasons why six out of ten birds do not survive migration. I would be surprised if it is much different in the Old World, but in the Americas cats kill more birds than just about anything else. Why are cats not on McCann’s list?

It is a minor quibble over a major work.