Bloomsbury Apeirogon

In an odd coincidence I had been recommended this book by a friend and then it was chosen a my book club read. I'd had a quick look at the ambitious structure and started it slightly in awe.There are 457 pages split into 1000 very small chapters with a large section of narrative in the middleI started in May 2022 and found that I couldn't connect with it at all - plenty of people loved it though so decided to keep it and try again. The current situation in Gaza brought the book back into my mind so it seemed an appropriate time to try again - and I'm so glad I did!To begin with the book is confusing - each short chapter seems to change the flow of the story and there are many strands that are introduced - they are wide ranging but connections are clear from the start. A rhythm is established almost immediately and continues through all the horror.The two men at the heart of the book have both had daughters killed in the fighting which seems to symbolise the futility of war.These stories are true which adds to the overall sense of hopelessness and tragedy. I read a lot of fiction and was curious that this book reads like a fictional story but has an underlying gravity that cannot be ignored.The war has been ongoing for decades and is largely ignored by most people. The recent escalation (Oct 2023) has increased media attention and the rest of the world is becoming more interested. Never has this book been more relevant.I learnt a huge amount about the conflict while I was reading. It's all incredibly complicated and the author repeatedly reinforces information to emphasise, educate and promote understanding. This is done in such a beautiful, lyrical way that it stays with you.The book is full of contrasts at every level with the symbolism of the birds being a continual theme. This metaphor is used over and over in a multitude of different ways.Many times, seemingly random, strands of the story are introduced but it is never long before a connection is made. This tapestry of images and links makes this book a joy to read.The message that both of these men want to spread is extremely powerful. I came away from the book wanting them both to shout louder and for people with influence to listen more carefully. Neither has answer but they hold the beginnings of a journey towards the end - this is clear when you read their stories.When I finished I wanted to learn more about the conflict and am certainly more aware of the current news coverage.The second half of the book seems to have a more mature feel - the immediacy of the grief has moved on and the long term development of the area is considered in depth. New themes are introduced with water, silence and music coming to be fore in many of the chapters.

Me encantó la forma en la que está escrita y como está narrada la difícil situación que existe entre los israelíes y los palestinos.

The author has said this book is a hybrid. If so, it's a cross between a dragon and a dove.Two murdered young girls, Abir and Smadar, are at the center of a kaleidoscope, a swirl of fragmented yet connected experience and brilliant color, of the fragility and power of children, of the fragility and power of birds (one swan, we are told, can take out an airplane), of the powers of art, the heart-leap of daring in the face of annihilation. Of the grief of two fathers, who are real living people on opposing sides of a hideous war over a tiny strip of land. Against that war, they form "The Parents Circle." The requirements for membership? A dead child and the will to speak. What can you do when your child dies?This book is about what they do, their struggle to understand and yet to survive. It's about the struggle of birds, likewise, to fly, to survive. Of writers to illuminate, of painters to portray, so that something may survive. Of inventors to make weapons, of young soldiers to try not to die.By page twenty, you will loathe your species for its atrocities against living flesh and spirit; you will see what a rubber bullet can do to a child's skull. (You might even retrieve it use it to kill again.) How Semtex can paint a town square red. And what the clean-up crew must do to erase the atrocity. What exploding bats and burning babies and roasted larks (because the world belongs to all creatures) can do to your mind. You can't stand it! But you can't put it down.Then by page 50 or 60 - no, you are not inured to torment, but you will begin to find a breath of air, a bit of oxygen in the struggle, in memory, in shared grief. One of the fathers has a motorcycle, and I found myself relieved at the movement of the handle bars, the unevenness of the pavement. Lulling for a moment.And when at last the book has folded you completely inside itself, you may come to love what it says we can be and do, what artists and thinkers and children and birds have been and have done, and go on being and doing. Forgiveness is impossible. But hope is within our grasp.This book has the greatness of spirit I found in books as a child, but this one is for adults who want to love the lived-in world the way children, even in dire circumstances, seem able to do. To be able to sleep on the wing, like the frigatebird, to help our neighbor in the midst of a firefall. We want to, but we need an anchor, a guide to take us through the burning cities and forests and oceans around us."Epic"? What a cop-out. "Ambitious"? What is that but a sneer? Better just to say this is a book that is wholly itself, in which every word is right and rightly placed. It is as perfect as the falconer's hawks it describes. As potent as the Picasso dove that figures so often in its pages.

Seems like a second hand book!

Due voci così lontane, eppure così vicine. Questo libro mi ha insegnato molto, mi dà speranza averlo letto. Unico difetto, la lunghezza un po' eccessiva. In generale amo i tomi, e questo libro è ben scritto, ma l'ultimo quarto del libro è piuttosto ripetitivo.