Completed September 2021
THE BEEKEEPER
OF ALEPPO
The Beekeeper of Aleppo quickly became a mystery to me. This wasn't due to the bouncing timelines (not too surprising), or questions around context. Instead, I was puzzled by the delicate tightrope walked between reality and... well, it wasn't quite clear. The narrator's voice proved unreliable and I found myself struggling to divide his observations into those which others could also experience, and those they could not. I puzzled over his vivid dreams, decoded his hallucinations, and dissected the lines of the voices his ear.
But by a third or so into the novel, I realised my strategy was flawed. Straining to mark a clear distinction between Nuri's experiences was futile, because every passage was equally important to the story. In fact, was only by accepting the swirling narrative that I truly began to understand his perspective. He wasn't broken – he was strong. The only way for him to survive was to project, in a way that protected himself and his family. The human brain is remarkably adaptable, and never more so in times of extreme trauma.
With this new perspective, I surrendered myself fully into the remainder of the novel – and wow, was it an experience. The descriptions were truly beautiful, tender and delicate one moment and horrifying the next. Each new development seemed to bring it fresh horror, and with it another impossible ask of the central cast. Often plots predicated on reaching a certain destination can stagnate en route, but The Beekeeper of Aleppo didn't experience this struggle. Each stage of their journey was as meaningful and built on our understanding.
Afra's character development was a highlight for me. Told from Nuri's perspective, it was as complex as it was mysterious. Due to their close proximity, you'd imagine his readings of her to be close – which they were, and yet at times the chasm between them was awfully wide. I was struck by the way they lay together at night, each totally absolved in their own rumination.
Her trauma was especially fascinating in its physical manifestation. An artist blinded is a risk of cliche but with Afra it was handled with delicate precision, in particular how she overcame limitations through creative drive. Some of my favourite passages were Nuri's description of her painting, conjuring vivid imagery as he observed. It was if he saw the truth in her heart and mind in these moments, their fleeting coalescence hauntingly beautiful.
Interestingly, reading this book didn't make me cry. I realised this only after I finished, and it took me some contemplation to realise why – after all, I'm the type to get emotional over fiction. I'll shed a tear at pretty much any rom com, so why didn't this book provoke as great a response?
It's not as if the subject matter wasn't upsetting. In fact, it was horrific – some of the most gut-wrenching narrative I've experienced in a long time, brutally honest and unafraid to delve into the shadows. It's not as if the characters weren't relatable... before long, I felt so close to Nuri and Afra's experience it was as if I was journeying alongside them. And it's not as if the events that unfolded were unrealistic. The novel spoke of a situation so harsh and yet given the author's history of volunteering with refugees, irrefutably realistic.
Eventually I realised that the reason this novel didn't upset me wasn't in spite of these reasons, but because of them. In most fiction, I'm able to fully surrender myself to the pain of the characters' experiences because they are just that – characters. Characters in a fictional world. But The Beekeeper of Aleppo transcended this disbelief. I was reading this novel as the Taliban gained control of Afghanistan, and day by day the story felt increasingly like a mirror held to reality.
I had to close myself off from this novel, and take in the story as an observer. It was the only way I could finish the story, and stay by Nuri's side to the end – in a far less extreme but otherwise parallel way to how he and Afra managed to persist and, eventually, reach their destination. Despite the horrors they had witnessed, and the tragedy they'd left behind.
“But in Syria there is a saying: inside the person you know, there is a person you do not know.”