Overall, I would have to say that I liked this book. There were things I liked more than others, but overall I liked it.
What I most liked about this story were the short, episodal, first person narratives. The way McCann jumps into the head of some of these people is beautiful. I really felt their emotions, their pain and grief. Sometimes the characters seemed to speak to me personally and intimately as if it weren't McCann writing, but a grieving mother or a priest that has lost his faith. It was like McCann had somehow stolen the raw, unfiltered emotions of all these vivid characters. It gave the book a very intimate feel. Even if some of the material was depressing and dark, the emotions an the psychology embedded in McCann's writing was astounding. The part when the rich Matron in Manhattan wakes up at night opening and closing the refrigerator trying to connect with her son through the electricity was a good example of this. I really felt her grief, and I pitied her at the same time. Only a truly gifted author can chronicle such a dark and idiosyncratic old women, and leave me feeling empty and lonely.
Another thing I liked about this novel was the writing style. Different people had different language, diction, and sentence structure. For example the prostitute, Tillie, has a large portion of the book that was just short paragraphs. I thought this mirrored perfectly her broken, and impulsive life. Some of the longer paragraphs had more developed ideas about love and her daughter; subjects that she had spent some time thinking about and feeling. Others paragraphs were one word, usually her wallowing in self pity or contemplating suicide. Other characters demonstrating the same changes in writing style. The rich matron had a very nervous and anxious feel to her writing(short and choppy sentences), even though she was obviously educated from her vocabulary. McCann's ability to switch his writing based on the perspective of a character was incredible. Even if the subject matter was dark and left little room for optimism, I was still blown away by the different first person narratives.
One thing I didn't like about this book was some of the content. Much of the novel was dark and gritty. Although that isn't necessarily a bad thing, I was left feeling relatively empty. I had to ask myself "why did McCann write this novel in the first place?" Was it to search for those beautiful moments amidst the chaos of the world? Was it to find beauty in the twin towers before they fell? Or was it just a dark novel describing the harsh, inclement conditions in New York? There was little room left for reconciliation at the end of the novel. There was the glimmer of hope with Jazzlyn's daughters and Gloria and Claire reuniting, but this is too far overshadowed by all the pain and suffering of the rest of the novel.
One more thing. I read this book while on my backpacking trip. It was a very curious book to bring on the trip. After I finished reading about the priest, I put the book down and didn't return to it for about 1 and a half weeks. It was so sad. And I was missing home, and having trouble adjusting to my own very harsh conditions in the wilderness. However, after that initial push through the fog of depravity, I ended up reading this book very quickly. Like I said, Overall I liked this book. It was nice to have the beautiful writing to think about during the long days of hiking.
3 comments:
Yo hi all aka hi sam.
Overall, I really enjoyed the book. There were parts of it I loved. Sam and I were just talking this evening about it over skype since we are such elite literary SNOBS. Not really, but anyways. I too liked the way McCann jumped into the different brains of his characters, especially Corrigan, who I felt was the main character of the novel and the one with whom I was able to feel the most sympathy and admiration. Oddly enough, he was one of the only characters who didn't have his own narrative voice. Maybe this is why I felt the closest to him--he was always portrayed with tenderness through the eyes of the the other personajes (Tilly, his brother,?). If he had had his own voice, we would have seen more clearly his own inner flaws.
The only other character without his own voice was the tightrope walker. Unlike the personal, tender portrayal of Corrigan, the tightrope walker to me was fascinating, yet the 3rd person omniscient narrator created a more distant and cold character. In a way, however, both the tightrope walker and Corrigan, despite their very different life callings, to me they are both untouchable. Corrigan in his angelic, martyr-like existence, and the tightrope dude with his machinistic, single-minded concentration and physical genius.
Anyways, just sort of babbling. But one criticism that Sam and I both shared was that this book is labeled a 9-11 novel. WTF? For me, this completely confines the reach of the book's message and stretches what I perceived as McCann's real commentaries. True, the photo of the twin towers with the plane in the background is shocking and powerful because of our 9-11 consciousness, but does a novel set in the 1970s have to send a message related to 9-11 just because the twin towers are mentioned? I think its interesting to be able to draw parallels between the novel and today's reality without having them forced. The last narrative from Jaslyn's perspective seemed like this forced commentary. Though it may have ended on a darker tone, I would have liked it if the novel had ended with Tillie or Claire. These two characters to me were so vivid and had the most relevance today.
Also, Sam and I talked about the theme of Justice in the novel. Criticism of the justice system-its arbitrariness, inefficiency, unfairness-, the injustice of racism, fate? do people get what they deserve?, etc. If anyone wants to comment on this let me know.
Also, the author's interview in the back of the book left me disappointed and disillusioned after I finished the book. I recommend not reading it and just leaving with your own personal impressions of the novel--they're probably more meaningful.
Anyways, my rambling thoughts.....
Hello all, Sara here. Here are my thoughts and impressions of this book.
This is one of those books that stays with you for a long time, you keep thinking about all the layers and nuances and wonder about the characters. The book was unique in that it was a series of short stories about 8 characters that were either interconnected in a very real way or tangentially. Initially, it was very difficult for me to get into the book…I loved the very beginning where Corrigan’s brother sets the stage by describing his childhood in Ireland, his mother, and his special brother, John Corrigan…but it rapidly became quite difficult and painful for me to read when the story moved to the poverty and hopelessness of the Bronx projects in the 1970s. It took me several weeks to get through the “vignette” in the voice of Corrigan’s brother, primarily describing Corrigan’s life helping the prostitutes and old people in the nursing home. The hopelessness, loneliness, and vicious lives these people led depressed me and felt heavy and painful to read.
OK, having said that, I finally got through that first part and fell in love with the characters and the way they interconnected with each other in such surprising ways. Sam and Lauren talked about the different “voices” of the characters in the book—McCann channeled the characters like a ventriloquist with his unique and creative writing style. Sometimes it worked brilliantly—the writing for Claire was spectacular: the short, nervous, anxious writing captured the essence of her grief for the death of her son and affected me deeply…yes, I cried at this part. A mother who loved her son so much and in her grief tried to connect with her dead computer genius son through electrical currents was very powerful. The staccato and abrupt writing in the central portion of the book devoted to Tillie was initially distracting to me, but as I kept reading, I realized this captured her essence and humanity, making her more than just a caricature of a black prostitute and portrayed her broken life perfectly.
I also loved the tangential/sub stories: the tightrope walker’s single-minded training for his Twin Tower performance in the snow in the rocky mountain west and the 1970’s computer hackers desperately calling pay phones for information were intriguing—so different that what would happen today with the instant barrage of information that would be circulated via cell phones.
Gloria was my favorite character in the book and her story intersected with all the other main characters: ordinary and extraordinary lives overlapping and converging with each other, fate and redemption, hope for the new generation, maybe there is some purpose to our lives after all….and the world keeps spinning and spinning and spinning. The ending of the book was truly spectacular with Jaslyn coming back to New York City and giving us a tantalizing glimpse of what happened in the lives of these people. I did not find it empty or lonely…it gave me hope.
In a way I understand why this book might be labeled a 9-11 book. The tightrope walker created something beautiful and unforgettable that day at the Twin Towers. Thousands of people stopped what they were doing for 45 minutes to focus on the Twin Towers while Phillipe Petit performed his daring high wire walk 110 stories above the city of New York and the lives of people below were changed forever, as they were in 2001.
One criticism I had of this book was I felt McCann was sometimes a little too demanding in hammering home his themes and it was kind of trite for the black prostitute to read Arab poetry and Tillie to go to opera. Was he trying to make these characters more appealing to us White Folk? I don’t know what you all think, but it seemed contrived to me. But all in all it was a beautifully written book.
This is a post from Ammi.
"Imagine a globe spinnng. The interior is densely packed with infinitely small spiders'
silky filaments, so that any movement in one creates vibrations in the surrounding
web. The globes's movement creates these vibrations. The writer describes in
fascinating historical detail the vibrations and their effects."
"I am fascinated with this world and moved to speculate on my globe and the intricate and
retrospective view of its story. It is the intriguing historical context of my past world, pictured
so faithfully and in such interesting detail, which makes this story so especially alive for me."
"And I wonder how the family understands and feels that past world which preceeded and
helped shape them"
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