亲爱的研友该休息了!由于当前在线用户较少,发布求助请尽量完整地填写文献信息,科研通机器人24小时在线,伴您度过漫漫科研夜!身体可是革命的本钱,早点休息,好梦!

The Center Can Hold: Colum McCann's Apeirogon and W. B. Yeats's "The Second Coming"

叙述的 隐喻 背景(考古学) 中心(范畴论) 膨胀的 订单(交换) 平行线 判决 HAMLET(蛋白质复合物) 文学类 社会学 历史 哲学 艺术 语言学 经济 材料科学 化学 考古 结晶学 复合材料 工程类 机械工程 抗压强度 财务
作者
Kathleen Costello‐Sullivan
出处
期刊:New Hibernia Review 卷期号:26 (2): 41-52 被引量:3
标识
DOI:10.1353/nhr.2022.0029
摘要

The Center Can Hold:Colum McCann's Apeirogon and W. B. Yeats's "The Second Coming" Kathleen Costello-Sullivan (bio) colum mccann's ambitious 2020 novel, Apeirogon, takes its name from a geometrical shape with a "countably infinite number of sides."1 As a controlling metaphor, this concept of the simultaneously finite and infinite parallels a structural, intertextual reference to One Thousand and One Arabian Nights—what one critic calls "Scheherazade's famous telling of Middle Eastern folktales in order to ward off death."2 Both references highlight that this novel, which explores the story of two men's grief and their campaign for peace against the backdrop of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is about chaos and order, the controlled and the uncontrollable—and it pursues this tension thematically as well as structurally. I want to consider another reference that I believe has thus far been overlooked, but which offers a powerful intertextual gesture toward the author's intentions: McCann's structural indebtedness to W. B. Yeats's poem "The Second Coming." Readings of Apeirogon have focused predominantly on the novel's format, which layers an array of facts with specific details from the two men's lives in an expansive web that signals the complexity of their sociopolitical context. However, while it is an ambitious text built out of 1,001 chapters—some only a sentence or a phrase long—and layered with self-referential, intertextual, and imagistic connectivities, Apeirogon is nonetheless based on a firm, unmoving, and stable narrative center. Its series of chapters radiate out from [End Page 41] a thematic and structural heart: the fragile but obdurate relationship between two men, grounded in a shared grief. In this respect, Apeirogon creates an inter-textual conversation with "The Second Coming." It uses the structure and imagery of the earlier poem, such as a "widening gyre" and birds, and the common geographical location to engage Yeats's vision.3 McCann displays once again his hopeful faith in empathy and relationships as stabilizing resources against conflict and trauma. Apeirogon is a biofictional text.4 It explores the history and relationship of two real men, Bassam Aramin and Rami Elhanan—a Palestinian and Israeli, respectively—both of whom lost their young daughters, Abir and Smadar, to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The novel is based on interviews with the two, who now campaign internationally for resolution to this entrenched conflict. It also relates their respective histories as young men: Aramin spent seven years in an Israeli prison, while Elhanan fought in the Israeli army and was subsequently apolitical—until his daughter's death. Yet, as noted above, this is not a simple or linear narrative. As Ben Libman observes in his review of the novel, "Apeirogon proceeds to build an archive of seemingly disparate facts, anecdotes, and myths around the story of these two 'combatants for peace'" (a point to which I will return).5 The "chapters" count up from 1 to 500, followed by chapter 1001, which is a synopsis of the events of the novel (i.e., the meeting in Beit Jala where McCann was among an audience convened to listen to Aramin and Elhanan's stories). The narrative then counts down again from 500 to 1. Chapter 500 in both halves of the novel are the respective testimonies of Elhanan and Aramin. As Julie Orringer notes, "By placing them at the center of the book, and by setting them off formally, McCann [End Page 42] indicates their primary importance in the novel."6 The author also conspicuously disappears in that narrative moment, foregrounding his subjects' points of view and privileging their stories within his own.7 Outside of that stable core, however, there is a lot happening. Certain chapters and concepts mirror one another in the two halves of the novel. In addition to the men's parallel testimonies, for example (both at 500), Elhanan's admission that "Arabs were just a thing to [him], remote and abstract and meaningless," mirrors Aramin's observation that "we [Arabs] need to continually prove that we are human beings" (220–21, 237). Both men also identify a parallel moment when their worldviews were irrevocably changed. On observing an Arab parent grieving...

科研通智能强力驱动
Strongly Powered by AbleSci AI
更新
PDF的下载单位、IP信息已删除 (2025-6-4)

科研通是完全免费的文献互助平台,具备全网最快的应助速度,最高的求助完成率。 对每一个文献求助,科研通都将尽心尽力,给求助人一个满意的交代。
实时播报
共享精神应助科研通管家采纳,获得10
13秒前
超帅乐荷完成签到,获得积分10
46秒前
poki完成签到 ,获得积分10
57秒前
59秒前
zhzssaijj完成签到,获得积分10
1分钟前
1分钟前
Noah完成签到 ,获得积分0
1分钟前
eleven完成签到,获得积分10
1分钟前
clearsky应助科研通管家采纳,获得10
2分钟前
bkagyin应助科研通管家采纳,获得10
2分钟前
clearsky应助科研通管家采纳,获得10
2分钟前
精明寒松完成签到 ,获得积分10
2分钟前
量子星尘发布了新的文献求助10
2分钟前
2分钟前
miaomiao发布了新的文献求助10
2分钟前
2分钟前
思源应助miaomiao采纳,获得10
2分钟前
4分钟前
lingdu发布了新的文献求助10
4分钟前
隐形曼青应助科研通管家采纳,获得10
4分钟前
遍空应助科研通管家采纳,获得20
4分钟前
orixero应助科研通管家采纳,获得10
4分钟前
4分钟前
yshj完成签到 ,获得积分10
4分钟前
ZYP完成签到,获得积分10
5分钟前
爆米花应助lin采纳,获得10
5分钟前
5分钟前
iso发布了新的文献求助10
5分钟前
小蘑菇应助iso采纳,获得10
5分钟前
5分钟前
iso完成签到,获得积分10
5分钟前
lingdu发布了新的文献求助10
6分钟前
科目三应助科研通管家采纳,获得10
6分钟前
科研通AI5应助科研通管家采纳,获得10
6分钟前
搜集达人应助lingdu采纳,获得10
6分钟前
6分钟前
lingdu发布了新的文献求助10
7分钟前
玉米完成签到,获得积分10
7分钟前
可爱的函函应助玉米采纳,获得10
7分钟前
lingdu发布了新的文献求助10
8分钟前
高分求助中
(应助此贴封号)【重要!!请各用户(尤其是新用户)详细阅读】【科研通的精品贴汇总】 10000
Nuclear Fuel Behaviour under RIA Conditions 500
Sociologies et cosmopolitisme méthodologique 400
Why America Can't Retrench (And How it Might) 400
Another look at Archaeopteryx as the oldest bird 390
Parenchymal volume and functional recovery after clamped partial nephrectomy: potential discrepancies 300
Optimization and Learning via Stochastic Gradient Search 300
热门求助领域 (近24小时)
化学 材料科学 医学 生物 工程类 有机化学 生物化学 物理 纳米技术 计算机科学 内科学 化学工程 复合材料 物理化学 基因 催化作用 遗传学 冶金 电极 光电子学
热门帖子
关注 科研通微信公众号,转发送积分 4682323
求助须知:如何正确求助?哪些是违规求助? 4057809
关于积分的说明 12545519
捐赠科研通 3753261
什么是DOI,文献DOI怎么找? 2072912
邀请新用户注册赠送积分活动 1101909
科研通“疑难数据库(出版商)”最低求助积分说明 981211