Apeirogon

The very structure of the book, which should stand out in comparison to more formally structured novels, is aimed at showing the strange connections and interconnection of things, people, history, etc. The odd structure—the way the novel uses sections instead of chapters, how those sections vary in length, and how they vary in content—allows McCann to interject a number of various ideas, facts, histories, and trajectories, making them intertwine into a rich picture of the way both the regions’ histories and the histories of the two main characters are bound up in the history of the world. This vast network of nature, violence, history, and personal lives form the interconnection of things that is at the heart of this book.

Even before the reader understands the structure, the title should denote this theme, particularly because it has no narrative relation to the story of Bassam and Rami. An apeirogon is an infinitely sided object. This is how McCann views this world and the odd ways people connect. For example, the fact that Rami and Bassam, two people on opposite sides of a historical struggle, came together through similar tragedies—the killing of their respective daughters—at the hands of the other’s countrymen. This tragedy brought the men together rather than apart.

McCann highlights other connections throughout the book. The bomber who killed Rami’s daughter was a Palestinian who was also sentenced to jail, much like Bassam. The creation of weaponry, like the Czech scientists who created the explosive Semtex also created a future link between Bassam and Rami through its use as the primary weapon of suicide bombers. McCann spends a few parts of the novel in explicating how weaponry both binds us together (through the tragedies they create in their wake) and tear us apart (both literally and in the way families and loved ones are torn away).

The opposite side of the tragedies and loss that tear us apart is that of the struggle that binds us together. The telling quote that McCann uses at the end of the novel from the Palestinian philosopher Edward Said is, “Survival, in fact, is about the connection between things” (381). This is plain to see in the indomitable spirit of both Bassam and Amir after their respective familial tragedies (also in the rest of their family members as well). They use this to advocate for peace and a rejection of the Occupation and hostility between nations.

The title of the book remains important in this theme. An apeirogon is infinitely sided, but it is all one object. For McCann this is a great symbol for the world. As he writes, “As a whole an apeirogon approaches the shape of a circle, but a magnified view of a small piece appears to be a straight line. One can finally arrive at any point within the whole. Anywhere is reachable. Anything is possible, even the seemingly impossible” (417). The connection between everything, especially things that one might think would never go together or be in contact (like Bassam and Rami) are the very things that can create new possibilities in this world.

Another theme is the universal quality of grief as a part of the human experience. This is the binding agent of the central narrative. It is through their respective griefs that Rami and Bassam come together. First, Rami loses his daughter. He joins a group called the Parent’s Circle, which helps parents and relatives grieving lost children. The group accepts all races, religions, and nationalities. From this, Rami joins, following his son Amir’s lead, Bassam’s group Combatants for Peace, which is aimed at spreading education, humanity, civil disobedience, and fighting against the Occupation.

When Bassam’s daughter is killed, Rami is there for Bassam and his wife at the hospital and he supports the family in the best way he can. A small detail, one that evinces the togetherness that occurs through shared grief is that Rami doesn’t smoke cigarettes, but at the first Combatants of Peace meeting he attends and after Bassam’s daughter dies, he shares a cigarette with Bassam.

The grief that each man has at the death of their daughters is something that brings them together, and it is also something the two men utilize for good. They begin lecturing around the globe, talking about their grief, and using it to promote a message of peace. As McCann writes, “Bassam and Rami gradually came to understand that they would use the force of their grief as a weapon” (74).

A specific story McCann presents about Rami’s grief is representative of this theme. At first, Rami was very angry, he was angry at the Palestinian bombers and, worse, Palestinian people as a whole. He becomes irate and incensed and lets his anger fester into wanting vengeance for his daughter. After finally deciding to attend the Parents Circle, he had an important experience. There, Rami meets Yitzhak Frankenthal, an Orthodox Jew. Frankenthal lost a son a few years earlier and suggests that Rami go to the group he created called the Parents Circle. Israelis and Palestinians were both welcome in this group. This gives Rami some pause; he didn’t think a Palestinian could understand his suffering, but then he saw a Palestinian woman holding a picture of her daughter who died. Rami is overcome: “this woman had lost her child […] My grief and her grief, the same grief” (223). Rami saw Palestinians as human beings for the first time in that group.

One last example that shows the universality of the grief is the story of Youssef Shouli, the bomber responsible for the death of Rami’s daughter. McCann does not paint Shouli as an antagonist but rather shows the humanity of his anger and frustration with the injustice of the Occupation. Shouli’s story illustrates how without the proper social structures—the ones that Rami and Bassam are fighting to put in place—grief and frustration can curdle into violence and hate, just like they almost did for Rami.