It’s me again, back with yet another book review. When I restarted my blog back in 2019 I really didn’t picture myself typing up so many reviews, but here we are. I love reading, escaping to other places and learning more about the world and the people in it, whether the characters or just what people are capable of creating, it all fascinates me. Two days ago I finished reading The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri, this is a book that I have been meaning to read for a very long time. I remember seeing it on the shelf at Waterstones when it first came out and wanting to read it but between my university essays, lack of money and general dislike of hardbacks I decided not to buy it and wait for the paperback. Then recently I just kept seeing it all over instagram and it reignited my desire to read it, and I do not regret it. I really cannot stop thinking about this book, which is why I’m writing this review so soon after finishing it.
The Beekeeper of Aleppo is as you may have guessed, about a beekeeper from Aleppo. It follows Nuri and his wife Afra as they try to travel to the safety of England away from war torn Syria. Their journey is a story of struggle, and hardship and it is heartbreaking because it is so real, we know there are so many in the position of Nuri and Afra who are just desperate for somewhere safe to live and call home. This is a difficult book to read because it really provides an insight to the desperately sad struggle of asylum seekers, the painful things they experience before leaving their country and the horrific journeys that they endure.
Lefteri’s writing is beautiful, from the way she describes the sceneries around the characters to the way she depicts how Nuri sees other characters, it is stunning. However, when I say that it is beautiful I also mean that it is incredibly sad, like seeing the ruins of an old house in the sun with plants growing from within, there is something beautiful there but there is also a deep sadness.
One of my favourite things throughout the book is the flashbacks, I have never read a book that does flashbacks like Lefteri. Every chapter starts off in England, with Nuri and Afra’s asylum process, and then flashes back to Syria or their journey to England. However, Lefteri will pick one word, in the first chapter it is “bronze” to flip between the present and the past, here it was the colour of a watch reminding Nuri of the bronze of Aleppo, and the sentence continues as if part way through a memory. I really enjoyed it as sometimes in books flashbacks can feel quite forced but this made it seem quite natural, I know that in my own experience I will be reminded of something from something else that seemingly doesn’t connect, but I thought it was a beautiful device to move the story along.
One thing I kept writing over and over in my reading journal was that this book is heartbreaking, and it truly is, but it needs to be. Lefteri’s target audience is privileged, we are not fleeing war zones, we are not fleeing persecution and it can feel very removed from our own reality, her writing draws you into it and is just heart wrenching. She makes you feel for the characters, you want them to succeed, and as more and more of their journey is revealed you feel even worse for them and all they’ve gone through. Lefteri does not shy away from difficult topics, that is clear throughout the book, but then I think that she, as the daughter of refugees, is trying to do justice to the incredible difficulties faced by refugees.
However, as sad as the book is there are also real moments of light and joy, in the B&B with the other refugees, or sometimes in the flashbacks we see to when Nuri was beekeeping with his cousin Mustafa, or playing with Sami, and how he and Afra used to be before the war. I think these moments are important, they remind you that the characters had a life before the war and that it was like our own. The bees are also such a symbol of hope for Nuri that they become incredibly important, and the writing surrounding them is just beautiful, I’d never known the complexities of beekeeping before, but it is worked in flawlessly and is really intriguing.
Going forward in this review there will be some major spoilers! You have been warned!
One of the things I found really interesting was how moving through the story you realise that Nuri is not a completely reliable narrator. I knew that something about Mohammed’s character was wrong, and I had guessed that he had not made it off the boat, but the twist that he had never existed at all really threw me. It made complete sense when I thought about it, but it was unexpected for me. You also realise that your own interpretation of characters has been blinded by his own issues, for this I am mainly thinking of Afra and her blindness and general self, towards the end of the novel you see her come to life in the way we had only previously seen through Nuri’s memories of her before the war, you see that she has been struggling more than Nuri has let on, and that he thinks of her struggles differently than she does.
When Afra says “You think it’s me who can't see” I loved it, because you realise as Nuri does that she has been seeing, not in the physical sense, but she sees their problems better than he does, because he is consumed by guilt. I think it is heartbreaking, from this tiny phrase they start to forgive each other and themselves and move forward. I think Nuri needed it, there are some harsh truths for the characters themselves and this is one of them. I think that throughout the book Lefteri handled the mental health aspect of Nuri’s character fantastically, from the little seeds that tell you he has PTSD, to his denial and finally his acceptance of it. It’s brilliantly told.
Overall, I think that this is a book that everyone should read. It has helped me understand more about someone I know and what he may have gone through, and I think it is so important as it is impossible not to feel empathy for not only Nuri and Afra, but most of the refugees they meet on the way. It is an important book, especially in a growing anti-immigration climate. Please read it.
Love,
Carey
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