Apokalypsis
American War by Omar El Akkad is a novel not immediately identifiable as an apocalypse story. After all, apocalypse needs a pandemic, zombies, a meteorite, or aliens, not just a normal human war.
Apocalypse is also usually global, as seen in the other books I’ve discussed: Future Home of the Living God, Station Eleven, and probably eventually in the world of The Year of the Flood. So why can American War still be labeled apocalyptic despite lacking the mentioned components?
The word apocalypse has become synonymous with “the end of the world,” but that is not what it literally means. In the Greek, apo- means “off, away from” and kalyptein means “to cover, conceal” (from Online Etymology Dictionary and Merriam Webster). So, the word apocalypse means “to uncover, disclose, reveal.” That doesn’t sound like nuclear fallout to me!
My inference is that the word came to mean what it does now because of the contents of the Book of Revelation in the Christian Bible. John of Patmos' Apokalypsis became our Revelation, and so the word came to describe the imagery in the book, the imagery of John’s vison, and not the act of having a vision itself.
The New York Times quotes Jacqueline Hidalgo, chair of religion at Williams College on the original Greek: “It’s not just about the end of the world…It helps us see something that is hidden before” (New York Times).
If we take the original meaning of the word, it becomes clear that American War could be apocalyptic in more than just its barren, war-torn landscapes. So, what is the story revealing that was “hidden before”?
Is it something about victims of torture and trauma, as seen in Sarat?
Is it about how people, especially young people, can become radicalized for a cause?
In a broader sense, is Akkad revealing the depth of the divisions between the south and north as he sees them today?
Akkad may not have had a true vison of the future, but his story serves as a warning about one possible timeline we all want to avoid, along with any zombies.
