‘Let the Great World Spin’ by Colum McCann (2009) – 349 pages

Of all the novels published during the past few years, ‘Let the Great World Spin’ by Colum McCann has probably gone on to achieve the highest standing among book people. Although ignored by the Booker Prize, it later went on to win the National Book Award in the United States in 2009 and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2011.

After I was bowled over by McCann’s latest book of stories ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking’, I decided that it was way past time that I read ‘Let the Great World Spin’.

Most of the novel takes place on the days surrounding August 7, 1974 which is the day Frenchman Philippe Petit did his surreptitious but widely viewed tight rope walk between the two World Trade Center towers in New York City. Although Petit was arrested, the judge in the case dropped all charges, and in exchange Petit was required to give a free aerial show for children in Central Park which he was happy to do. Both Petit and the judge in this case are characters in ‘Let the Great World Spin’.

But most of the story takes place on the ground. In McCann’s words, these are”the ordinary people on the street, the ones who walked a tightrope just one inch off the ground.”

The theme of the novel is that all of us disparate humans down here on Earth are in this life together, and we all better do our best to help each other along. If we do help each other, wonderful things might happen. We have a selfless monk from Ireland, a black mother and daughter who work as prostitutes, and a group of upper-class mothers grieving over their sons or daughters lost in Vietnam, as well as the tightrope walker and the judge.

At first I thought these characters were somewhat shameless stereotypes. We could just as well have had a selfless black nun and two Irish male prostitutes. However by the end of the novel I came to understand why McCann wrote the novel as he did.

“The world spins. We stumble on. It is enough. “

Sometimes ‘Let the Great World Spin’ has been referred to as a 9/11 novel, perhaps because the tightrope walker is walking between the two WTC buildings. However there are no direct 9/11 scenes, and I don’t believe 9/11 is ever mentioned.

Although most of the novel takes place back in 1974, the last part occurs in 2006. This final section moved me to the point that I had tears in my eyes. To me, that is the sign that I’m reading an exceptionally fine novel.

Grade: A

‘Thirteen Ways of Looking’ by Colum McCann  (2015) – 242 pages

Colum McCann’s writing style in the novella ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking’ is close to poetry, but most poetry isn’t this much fun.  This novella is probably the finest piece of writing I have read this year.  The other stories in this collection are good solid moving stories, but it is ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking’ that hits it out of the park for a grand slam home run.

So many of the lines in this novella are not complete sentences but are nonetheless evocative.  The prose here is lyrical and hypnotic, like nothing I have ever seen before. We are inside a man’s mind, and his thoughts are not usually in full sentences.

“Car horns blaring everywhere.  A terrible sound, really.  Isn’t the snow supposed to deaden the sound?  How is it that my hearing gets worse but the awful sounds get louder day after day? A cacophony.  That’s the word.  The pianist playing the contrabass.  The saxman on the violin.  The flautist on the horn so to speak.”  

In the above excerpt there are only three complete sentences and six sentence fragments, yet the language totally evokes the effect of all the car horns to this old man’s mind.

The chapters in the novella alternate between the reflections of a retired judge and the notes of a police procedural.  Thus the judge’s impressions may wax poetic, but the police statements keep us tied down to earth.  The actual story here winds up to be an intriguing murder mystery.  It says a lot about the ubiquitous cameras which are in our lives today.

The other three stories in this collection do not have this exceptional lyrical aspect, but they are well-written stories nonetheless.   In one story, “Sh’khol” a mother adopts a boy with fetal alcohol syndrome and gives him for his birthday a wetsuit to use swimming in the ocean off the coast of Ireland near their home.  In another story, ‘Treaty’, a nun confronts the man who raped her many years ago.

At the end of the collection there is a note from the author stating that the novella and these stories were “completed in 2014 on either side of an incident that occurred in New Haven, Connecticut, on June 27 where I was punched from behind and knocked unconscious, then hospitalized, after trying to help a woman who had also been assaulted on the street.”  McCann then gives us the following line:

“In the end, though, every word we write is autobiographical, perhaps most especially when we try to avoid the autobiographical.”

The novella ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking’ is a particular delight.  It will cast a spell on you like nothing you have read before.

Grade:   A