±1±: Now is the time This Side of Brightness: A Novel Order Today!
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Over All Rating Reviews : Great Deal : $8.41
Date Created : Jun 23, 2010 04:15:18
At the turn of the century, Nathan Walker comes to New York City to take the most dangerous job in the country. A sandhog, he burrows beneath the East River, digging the tunnel that will carry trains from Brooklyn to Manhattan. In the bowels of the riverbed, the sandhogs—black, white, Irish, Italian—dig together, the darkness erasing all differences. Above ground, though, the men keep their distance until a spectacular accident welds a bond between Walker and his fellow sandhogs that will both bless and curse three generations.
±1±: Best Buy Truly one of the great writers of our time. This book carried me to the highs and lows of life itself. I cannot recommend it highly enough! on Sale!
±1±: Now is the time Let the Great World Spin: A Novel Order Today!
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Over All Rating Reviews : Great Deal : $7.56
Date Created : Jun 16, 2010 06:04:59
In the dawning light of a late-summer morning, the people of lower Manhattan stand hushed, staring up in disbelief at the Twin Towers. It is August 1974, and a mysterious tightrope walker is running, dancing, leaping between the towers, suspended a quarter mile above the ground. In the streets below, a slew of ordinary lives become extraordinary in bestselling novelist Colum McCann’s stunningly intricate portrait of a city and its people. Let the Great World Spin is the critically acclaimed author’s most ambitious novel yet: a dazzlingly rich vision of the pain, loveliness, mystery, and promise of New York City in the 1970s.
Corrigan, a radical young Irish monk, struggles with his own demons as he lives among the prostitutes in the middle of the burning Bronx. A group of mothers gather in a Park Avenue apartment to mourn their sons who died in Vietnam, only to discover just how much divides them even in grief. A young artist finds herself at the scene of a hit-and-run that sends her own life careening sideways. Tillie, a thirty-eight-year-old grandmother, turns tricks alongside her teenage daughter, determined not only to take care of her family but to prove her own worth. Elegantly weaving together these and other seemingly disparate lives, McCann’s powerful allegory comes alive in the unforgettable voices of the city’s people, unexpectedly drawn together by hope, beauty, and the “artistic crime of the century.” A sweeping and radical social novel, Let the Great World Spin captures the spirit of America in a time of transition, extraordinary promise, and, in hindsight, heartbreaking innocence. Hailed as a “fiercely original talent” (San Francisco Chronicle), award-winning novelist McCann has delivered a triumphantly American masterpiece that awakens in us a sense of what the novel can achieve, confront, and even heal.
±1±: Best Buy This is a very good book. Don't get me wrong. It was a very enjoyable reading experience and I would recommend this book to anyone. That being said, I started reading this book with sky high expectations and I have to say at the end I was kind of disappointed. The book did not succeed in blowing me away, and I think I know why.
McCann is a superb writer and he really has a way with words. His imagery, diction, and the way he can so seamlessly slip into the heads of characters from different walks of life is pretty amazing. In this novel, he writes several spectacular short narratives and then falls short on cohesiveness when attempting to tie all the threads together at the end.
We've got some great characters: the heart-wrenching Corrigan, the warm, generous Gloria, or the painfully stiff and slightly pathetic Claire, who all arouse sympathy and are flushed out with mastery in their introductions to the story. They really come alive under Mccann's pen, but as the narrative moves forward their stories are swallowed by the confusion of characters McCann has constructed in his ambition. There are too many characters, and McCann did not do all of them justice. I read five pages of superb , profound prose about a graffiti tag photographer, and then he is never mentioned again save under a photograph-- clever, but unsatisfying. Three tech kids working in California appear in one chapter and then disappear forever. What's confusing is McCann picks and chooses the characters he wants to give endings to like he's playing favorites, and never gives a reason as to why some characters get a huge hunk more exposure than others.
Needless to say, this made the reading experience slightly disjointed, and I was disappointed that only some characters' stories were revisited. Note to author: If you're only interested in these characters, stick to them, or give everyone equal facetime at least. Of the stories that were flushed out, however, McCann does a great job at building intrigue, but he sometimes veers off into the realm of cliche and convenience. Many of the coincidences and connections between the characters in the novel seem improbable, and McCann's wish to make everything in the plot do double duty ends up making parts of the narrative seem forced and constrained.
Another thing that bothered me about this book was it's failure to draw up strong emotion. This may be cliche, but I usually know I've read a good novel when I've laughed, cried, and forgotten to eat too. I think i did chuckle while reading "Let The Great World Spin," but for such an ambitious, atmospheric title, the novel fell short on emotional delivery. There could have been so many emotional high points, with the turmoil and insanity of these character's lives, but I never felt tears well up in my eyes in empathy for any of these characters, and I found that extremely odd. This may have had to do with the too-many-characters-too-little-time-for-everybody problem that I mentioned earlier, but usually by the end of a great novel my breath is caught in my throat and goosebumps are running down my spine. I was disappointed that with "Let The Great World Spin," neither were the case.
Additionally, sometimes wording is awkward and plot development uncomfortable, with the last paragraph being extremely awkward in this regard as McCann describes an unlikely encounter between a certain important young woman and an Italian man. The chapter made me feel sleazy and a bit skeptical, especially with McCann's awkward brushing over of the sex scene as if he's not quite sure what to do with himself. Many other instances like that in the novel had an unpleasant jarring effect on the reading experience.
Of course, I'm being nitpicky here. I gave the book four stars and it deserves all four; McCann has written a very good novel that is much better than a lot of the other stuff out there. It deserves all the recognition it has gotten, and I only focus on the negatives in these reviews to put some of the over-praising odes into proportion. In my opinion, this novel was good, but not great. If you want an extraordinary book on 9/11, one that will blow you away and make you fall in love head over heels, read Foer's "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close." This book tries, but in the end only partially succeeds. on Sale!
