Customer Reviews

Let the Great World Spin

5 star:		(184)
4 star:		(76)
3 star:		(42)
2 star:		(39)
1 star:		(26)

 

 

This is a brilliant book; lyrical, poignant and powerful. It is that rarest of books, the kind that you know will reside inside you for a very long time and will have changed you in some profound way that words can not address. It is a book that, when you reach the last page, will leave you feeling stunned and not sure whether to take a deep breath to digest it all or turn to page one and begin all over again.

In a sense this book is an homage to the city of New York. It begins with a true historical event, when Philippe Petit walked a tightrope between the twin towers of the World Trade Center in 1974. It is a marvelous sight. It was "one of those out-of-the-ordinary days that made sense of the slew of ordinary days. New York had a way of doing that. Every now and then the city shook its soul out. It assailed you with an image, or a day, or a crime, or a terror, or a beauty so difficult to wrap your mind around that you had to shake your head in disbelief". (p.247)

Several people look up to see this tight-rope walker and this shared act of perception is the glue for this book. In some way, each of their lives are inter-connected and will remain connected through time.

There is Corrigan, very religious in a social/political/and theological sense, who is struggling between his faith and the woman he loves. Corrigan's love is a Guatamalan nurse, hoping that he will choose her over his God. Ciaran, whose life is in flux, is Corrigan's brother. Tillie is a prostitute in trouble with the law and hoping that the legacy of prostitution will not be passed down to her granddaughters as it has been to her daughter. Claire lives on Park Avenue but also lives in a world of grief, forever mourning her son who died in Vietnam. Gloria is Claire's friend who has also lost sons in the war and wakes up every day to the violence of the Bronx city projects. Soloman is a judge, Claire's husband, who has lost his idealism as he deals with the criminals in his courtroom and tries to please the bureaucracy he is a part of. And then there is Lara, attempting to rebuild her life after a tragedy forces her to look more closely at herself.

The book deals with two very powerful themes. One theme is that things occur by utter chance. "Things happen. Things collide". (p.133) There is also the idea that things might happen for a reason.

"We have all heard of these things before. The love letter arriving as the teacup falls. The guitar
striking up as the last breath sounds out. I don't attribute it to God or to sentiment. Perhaps
it's chance. Or perhaps chance is just another way to try to convince ourselves that we are
valuable." (p68)

In this novel, the inter-connectedness of people and events is played out in a way that could be interpreted as either eerie, spiritual, or just plain chance. New York is there, always, in the background. It is a city of crime, love, hate, justice, peace, war and beauty. The city is personified to contain just about every human emotion I can think of. The people are a part of this city and they, too, are a mixture of good and evil, beauty and ugliness. As McCann says in the book, people can be half good sometimes, a quarter bad at other times, but no one is perfect.

This book is near perfect. I found the first 25 pages a bit slow but don't let that stop you. This book is a treasure, one that opens up more and more with each page. It is one of the best books I have read in a long time.

Colum McCann's "Let the Great World Spin" follows the lives of a group of individuals immediately before and after Philippe Petit walked a tightrope between the World Trade Center on August 7, 1974. Although the book does not feature Petit as one of its central characters, the lives of all of the main characters intersect with Petit's walk in a key way, creating a neat puzzle around the event. The book looks at people from all walks of life in NYC in the 1970s--from Bronx hookers to a Park Avenue matron. As the lives of each of these people comes together you wonder who will survive this vicious city, where people and souls seem to be eaten alive.

This was the first work I had ever read by McCann, and wow, was I impressed. McCann is a master storyteller and the way he weaves words together creates such vivid pictures, you feel like you can smell the smoke from the burning Bronx. While this novel wasn't my typical style--it is much darker and rawer than what I typically read--McCann's literary gifts can only leave a reader in awe. I did have a few problems with the structure of the novel--the jumping from character to character sometimes felt jumpy and abrupt, but I think this technique was intended to jar the reader--mimicking the realities of life in 1970s New York. The ending also felt out of place to me.

While this is not exactly light summer reading, I would definitely recommend this book to fans of great english literature. This work has marked McCann as one of the greats of the modern world, and I can't wait to see what else he produces.

On the morning of August 7, 1974, Philippe Petit strung a wire between the new, not entirely occupied, twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. He proceeded to step out onto the wire, a quarter of a mile above the pavement, and walk across, eight times, for a period of 45 minutes, while office workers, commuters, and police looked on in wonder, admiration, and consternation.

Colum McCann tells the story of this aerial crime, enriching it with the stories of ten people who saw or were affected by the aerialist's action that day, including an Irish-born "street priest" in the South Bronx and his brother; Petit's sentencing judge, his wife, and son; mother/daughter hookers; and computer programmers on the West Coast. The reader is treated to a series of narratives that could stand alone as short stories, but that are, in the end, interconnected on the day of Philippe Petit's performance.

The novel introduces a stunning variety of social and historical issues that played out in the decade of the 1970's. The breakdown of social class is seen in the coming together of a group of mothers, mourning the loss of their sons in the Vietnam War, while celebrating their lives. The effects of poverty and drug addiction on women and children are illustrated by the "family business" of prostitution. The power of interlinked computers and telecommunications was in its infancy and creating excitement among the programmers who were thinking and dreaming big. The Vietnam War, moving towards its close in 1974, divided friends and family in New York City and elsewhere. The World Trade Center towers, newly constructed and occupied, represent a beginning in this novel, rather than the iconic destruction and terror we associate with them today.

Reading this novel, I was struck by the vast changes in communication between 1974 and the present. The Manhattanites on the sidewalk looking up at Petit paused in their busy lives to try to figure out what was happening 110 stories above them. They could not check CNN or their smart phones, as we would do today. They couldn't go online when they got to work to learn about what they'd seen. Computer programmers on the West Coast, who heard rumors of Petit's stunt, hacked into the phone system and began calling pay phones in New York City, hoping someone would pick up and tell them what was happening. In the era of the 24-hour news cycle and the Internet, it is hard to imagine how slowly, just 35 years ago, a sensational story could develop.

This book is extraordinary -- for its writing, for its depiction of 1970's New York, and for the way it captures the emotions of the lives being lived in its pages.

Let The Great World Spin was published last year to rave reviews. Descriptions included magical, sweeping, brilliant, poignant and the perfect New York novel. I am definitely out of step when it comes to current fiction because I missed the magic here - finding this book more style than substance.

The book is a set of vignettes chronicling a loosely connected set of Manhattanites in August of 1974. In the background are the Vietnam War, Nixon's resignation and Phillipe Petit- a man who stretched a cable between the World Trade Twin Towers - 103 stories up in the air - and went for a stroll - successfully.

Our cast includes two Irish brothers; one a catholic priest, who lives among and befriends a pack of heroin addicted prostitutes; a grieving mother who lost her son in the Vietnam War; and a young married couple trying to break into the NY art world in between cocaine binges. Not the most original or creative set of characters, but with a good story to guide them great novels are made. Unfortunately, and this is the biggest fault I had with Let The Great World Spin, the author doesn't tell us their stories - he explains them. Therefore the characters never became real to me - just their dialogue seemed surreal - and the narrative simply overwhelmed any and all of the underlying stories.

Think of watching a movie sitting next to someone who has seen it before and feels the need to keep whispering in your ear - detailing plot twists and characters' actions. At some point you simply want to yell, "Shut up!" I had the same experience/frustration reading this book, hoping - vainly - that the author would remove himself from the narrative. I know I'm in the minority here - but pass on this one.

McCann writes with an authoritatively bold yet tenderly compelling voice. He captures the rhythms of NYC - the cadences of its different boroughs, and before the reader knows it, she has surrendered herself to McCann's magic. `Let The Great World Spin' immediately embraces the reader, speaks to her mind/body and with a gentle urgency entreats her to read on.

It is only fair to warn anyone reading this that I, unequivocally, loved this book. The writing is utterly beautiful, as well as convincing. It is populated with some of the most colorfully nuanced characters a reader could hope to meet. McCann connects some of these characters in uncanny ways and breathtakingly displays their humanity. The use of the word `spin, spinning, spun' is nicely salted throughout the book. He is a writer's writer who is able to encapsulate everything that a novel should be. There is music within these pages - some elegiac and some rather joyful.

It is August 1974 and a tightrope walker is attempting to walk his wire between the Twin Towers. A crowd gathers to witness history. It has been stated that this event is allegorical of 9/11, as well as being the thread that weaves the tapestry of very different characters' stories. Perhaps, this is so. Perhaps, it is a harbinger of things to come.

We first meet the brothers Corrigan in Dublin sometime in the mid-1950's. It soon becomes apparent that the younger Corrigan is drawn to life's underbelly. He later becomes a monk and finds his way to the south Bronx. Many a synopsis states that Corrigan has `demons.' However, McCann writes the following: "Corrigan told me once that Christ was quite easy to understand. He went where He was supposed to go. He stayed where He was needed. He took little or nothing along, a pair of sandals, a bit of a shirt, a few odds and ends to stave off the loneliness. He never rejected the world. If He had rejected it, He would have been rejecting mystery. And, if He rejected mystery, He would have been rejecting faith." [page 20] Corrigan may have been attempting to do his Lord's work in the manner in which he saw this to be.

Corrigan befriends an unlikely trio of prostitutes who frequently use his spartan apartment's bathroom. As the novel progresses, the reader learns to care for Tillie and Jazzlyn, as well as Jazzlyn's two small children. Their journey is one a reader should not miss.

McCann introduces us to a mother's support group. They lost their sons in Viet Nam. An unlikely alliance is formed between Claire and Gloria. [Gloria steals the heart! States she, "Everything falls into the hands of music eventually." Page 314] Wealthy meets poor meets middle class. Grief and pain know no boundaries.

Lest anyone think that McCann cannot write with a softly subtle, but oh so tragic sense of romance, this reviewer refers to Adelita and an all too brief section called, 'Centavos.'

All this reviewer is left with is exactly what any reader would want to inherit from a novel. We have the understanding that man endures, indeed, he prevails. He has a soul and spirit. `Let The Great World Spin' allows the reader to recognize how inspiring and uplifting a book may be. McCann's gift is that he leaves the reader with the understanding that in the face of adversity, we have the ability to demonstrate courage, hope, compassion, and sacrifice in order to prevail. These are the qualitites that this reviewer believes connect mankind.

McCann is a majestic conductor whose symphonic work will capture the reader's attention, pierce his heart and reach his soul. `Let The Great World Spin' is a masterpiece. It deserves much praise and is most highly recommended reading!

Let the Great World Spin is a novel structured as a series of mostly interesting short stories each focusing on different characters. Some of the stories overlap a great deal and some are more tangential. I enjoy short stories so I like this organizational concept as well as the overlaid theme of the tightrope walker that binds them all together.

However, a short story is a very concentrated and demanding form and is not at all forgiving of errors. The stories vary in tone, style, narrative mode, and use of language to reflect the different personalities. This makes an interesting mosaic but the quality also varies greatly so there are some stories here that succeed and some that fail. Sometimes the author even caricatures and stereotypes people and places.

The quality of the writing itself is inconsistent even within chapters. The author is obviously very skilled at choosing words and constructing interesting phrases and sentences. However, there are entire sections of chapters where the words or thoughts expressed by the characters are very unnatural or inappropriate and the reader is distracted by the clumsiness. Similarly, the author is quite capable of setting a scene and describing details effectively yet sometimes utterly fails to convince. I was surprised to learn that the author actually lives in New York City, which is the setting for most of the novel.

While the overall framework works well, there are structural problems on a smaller scale. There are bursts of sentence fragments and while they are effective in small doses, when extended or frequently repeated, they become tedious. One chapter has similar staccato bursts amplified into disjointed paragraphs and they fail in telling what is an interesting story. There are other distracting stylistic choices such as different ways of formatting dialogue, sometimes with quotes and sometimes with dashes. Sometimes the effect is of a rough draft or outline of a story rather than of a finished work.

In the end, I felt shortchanged and frustrated by the author's failure to consistently live up to great potential. These are interesting stories not always told well.

Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin may just be the best book I've read that I didn't like. Winner of the National Book Award for fiction last year, McCann's novel reads more like a collection of short stories about various residents of New York City whose lives are connected by a single event in 1974 - the day a tight-rope walker decided to walk between the World Trade Center towers.

First, what I did like. McCann's writing is beautiful - poetic at times. Two examples:

"Family is like water - it has a memory of what it once filled, always trying to get back to the original stream." (pg. 57)

"I gave them all of the truth and none of the honesty." (pg. 303)

And the writing is dense - it has weight. But what was lacking for me was an emotional connection to the characters - at least most of them. Keeping to the things I liked, I loved the character of Claire. Claire lives in a Park Avenue apartment (she refuses to call it a penthouse) and is married to an esteemed and Jewish judge. They lost their only son in Vietnam, and in a desperate attempt to connect with women who have experienced her level of loss, answers an ad in the paper. She invites her new club - which includes a black woman who happens to be the one Claire is drawn to the most - to her home and frets over ensuring that each one is made welcome and treated well.

The energy that comes from her story is powerful. Her desperation to mourn her son and have him known, her anxious need to be accepted by these women, it is poignant and bittersweet. The tight-rope walker intersects Claire's story on the morning of the gathering at her house. One of the ladies saw the walk on her way in, and the mothers chide the idea that a son would be so reckless with his life. An insightful story and interesting connection to the common thread.

If only the other stories had been the same for me. Another primary character is Corrigan, an Irish celibate living in poverty in keeping with a religious order. He keeps a minimal apartment with no locks so that the local prostitutes can use it to have a clean place to use the bathroom and freshen up. As his intentions are misunderstood by the girls' johns, he is frequently beaten up.

From Corrigan's story, we meet Tillie and Jazzlyn - mother/daughter prostitutes - Corrigan's brother, the girl Corrigan falls in love with and a couple of hippie artists enjoying a drug binge. But I just didn't care about these folks - for whatever reason, the emotion wasn't there.

I think the idea for McCann's book is really good, and some would obviously say well executed. But for me, it didn't hit the mark. I read this one for my book club at work, and had it not been for that, this may have been one I decided to put down.

I was very excited to read this book after I read a lot of great reviews of it. Perhaps I was built up for it a tad too much, because I just felt disappointed with the results. McCann is a great writer, capable of spinning some beautiful prose, but he is also capable of clunky schmaltz. Every time I came across a particularly flowery sentence I just wanted to groan -- which is not a great recommendation for a book. There are moments of brilliance, but they get bogged down in stories that are wildly varied in terms of quality. It is also disappointing that the centerpiece of the collection -- Philippe Petit's walk between the towers -- feels so marginal and insignificant in parts. I frequently felt disinterested in the stories and the lives depicted, so it took me a long time to slog my way through. Ultimately, I can see why people like this book, but I am surprised that it has garnered as much praise as it has. It's good, but in my opinion it is definitely not great.

Grade: C

I wrote the following email to a friend regarding this book, and realized that it could also serve as a fairly detailed all-purpose review on a site like Amazon. So here it goes ...

I've been meaning to send you a quick message to let you know what I thought of Let the Great World Spin, which I finished a few weeks ago. It's definitely worth a read, but with a number of caveats.

First, I felt like it took quite a while (at least 100 pages) to really get into the book, and even then, the structure of the book (which consists of various interconnecting narratives) results in a rather uneven read. For example, a full chapter in "Book Two" (albeit only eight short pages in length) is devoted to a character that contributes essentially nothing to the novel; those eight pages are almost like a stand-alone short story (and not a great one at that) that the author felt compelled to include in the novel merely to show off his literary skills (see second criticism below). There are a number of additional characters and/or passages in the book that feel similarly tacked on.

Second, while McCann's prose in some instances blew me away with its lyricism / insight / beauty (like: WOW! I would reread passages and just be stunned), at other times, I felt that the writing was just plain pretentious -- like a Harvard English major straining to write a novel that would be taken seriously as literature. I recognize that the line between these two things is not necessarily that well defined (and certainly highly subjective), but at various points in the novel, *whole pages* worth of prose would just get beneath my skin, and I can not recall having a similar reaction to any other novel I have read in the past 10 or so years.

Third, while the novel's "payoff" (or takeaway or theme or message or whatever) is pretty intellectually compelling (it's really a reflection on 9/11, which the author manages to achieve without ever mentioning 9/11, even after the novel transitions to the present in the final "Book"), at the same time, I also felt like the story was simply Crash taking place in NYC in the 1970s, told in a more highbrow literary vein (see my second point) with a *slightly* shifted (and slightly more subtle) thematic focus. And while I was, I admit, a fan of the movie Crash, I also thought it was ludicrously overrated and that most criticisms of it were well deserved; I ultimately feel the same way about Let the Great World Spin.

I have seen the documentary, "Man On Wire" and agree that Philippe Petit's feat of spanning the distance between the Twin Towers on a tightrope was the best and highest art in the last forty years. But McCann's inclusion of it hardly recommends his overly chatty, and underly believable, characters.

They talk too much, delivering their thoughts and motivations in rambling spews and never come close to resembling anyone you might meet in real life. The hookers are all attractive, sassy and thin; the old folks are witty, brilliant and foul-mouthed, and the cops are one-dimensionally cruel and bullish. "Flat" is the word I'm looking for I think.

But some of the writing is good and the metaphor spot-on -- referring to nostalgia as a "museum of memory" for example. But in the end, a clever turn of phrase will not save this book from loving itself far too much, leaving the reader feeling as if she's being patted on the head. It left me cold and tired from screaming at the page.

Not recommended.