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的填写文献信息,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 机械工程 化学 抗压强度 材料科学 考古 财务 工程类 经济 复合材料 结晶学
作者
Kathleen Costello‐Sullivan
出处
期刊:New Hibernia Review 卷期号:26 (2): 41-52 被引量:1
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
大幅提高文件上传限制,最高150M (2024-4-1)

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
鬼鬼完成签到 ,获得积分10
1分钟前
白白完成签到 ,获得积分10
1分钟前
迅速的八宝粥完成签到 ,获得积分10
1分钟前
1分钟前
wish完成签到 ,获得积分10
1分钟前
腼腆的又槐完成签到 ,获得积分10
1分钟前
1分钟前
1分钟前
1分钟前
1分钟前
星辰大海应助张0106采纳,获得10
1分钟前
张0106完成签到,获得积分10
2分钟前
fengliurencai发布了新的文献求助30
2分钟前
天天看文献完成签到,获得积分10
2分钟前
xxxL完成签到,获得积分10
2分钟前
yangjian完成签到 ,获得积分10
2分钟前
研友_xnEOX8完成签到,获得积分10
2分钟前
莓啤汽完成签到,获得积分10
2分钟前
剪秋本宫头痛完成签到,获得积分10
2分钟前
2分钟前
2分钟前
3分钟前
Andy发布了新的文献求助10
3分钟前
小蘑菇应助枫倾杨采纳,获得20
3分钟前
高高代珊完成签到 ,获得积分10
3分钟前
Qiiiiii完成签到,获得积分10
3分钟前
一抹浅色完成签到 ,获得积分10
3分钟前
七熵完成签到 ,获得积分10
3分钟前
残忆完成签到 ,获得积分10
3分钟前
3分钟前
sonnen完成签到,获得积分10
3分钟前
吕懿发布了新的文献求助10
3分钟前
4分钟前
旱田蜗牛完成签到,获得积分20
4分钟前
4分钟前
共享精神应助fengliurencai采纳,获得10
4分钟前
FF完成签到,获得积分20
4分钟前
Sophie完成签到,获得积分10
4分钟前
Sophie发布了新的文献求助10
4分钟前
4分钟前
高分求助中
Un calendrier babylonien des travaux, des signes et des mois: Séries iqqur îpuš 1036
Sustainable Land Management: Strategies to Cope with the Marginalisation of Agriculture 1000
Corrosion and Oxygen Control 600
Heterocyclic Stilbene and Bibenzyl Derivatives in Liverworts: Distribution, Structures, Total Synthesis and Biological Activity 500
重庆市新能源汽车产业大数据招商指南(两链两图两池两库两平台两清单两报告) 400
Division and square root. Digit-recurrence algorithms and implementations 400
行動データの計算論モデリング 強化学習モデルを例として 400
热门求助领域 (近24小时)
化学 材料科学 医学 生物 有机化学 工程类 生物化学 纳米技术 物理 内科学 计算机科学 化学工程 复合材料 遗传学 基因 物理化学 催化作用 电极 光电子学 量子力学
热门帖子
关注 科研通微信公众号,转发送积分 2545278
求助须知:如何正确求助?哪些是违规求助? 2175612
关于积分的说明 5600084
捐赠科研通 1896314
什么是DOI,文献DOI怎么找? 946176
版权声明 565334
科研通“疑难数据库(出版商)”最低求助积分说明 503541