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3.98 AVERAGE
3.98 AVERAGE
I would put this in the category of books I admire more than enjoyed. Admired because McCann manages to write convincingly from the heart as characters as different as you can imagine. But there were times when I thought maybe this was a creative writing assignment: "Write from the point of view of 8 different characters." (McCann would get an "A"). I didn't enjoy it because it felt like short stories, and I'm not a big fan. Some chapters worked really well (the priest), but others I couldn't wait for them to end (the phone phreakers). The phone phreakers were so repulsive and repetitive that I almost stopped reading the book there. Not only were they repulsive, but they only seemed to be there as a gimmick so the author could do a "man on the street" type description of the tightrope walker. The rhythm of a book of short stories doesn't appeal to me. To me, as soon as the story gets good, it's over, and a new story starts.
The tightrope walker was another problem: I consider Philippe Petit's tightrope walk one of the greatest achievements of a human being. Somehow I didn't think it got the respect it deserved in this book, essentially a prop to hold the book together, and not even the main prop. That sort of nagged me the entire book. Ultimately, the book failed for me because its characters were much less interesting than the event they revolved around.
If you haven't, you must see "Man on Wire".
The tightrope walker was another problem: I consider Philippe Petit's tightrope walk one of the greatest achievements of a human being. Somehow I didn't think it got the respect it deserved in this book, essentially a prop to hold the book together, and not even the main prop. That sort of nagged me the entire book. Ultimately, the book failed for me because its characters were much less interesting than the event they revolved around.
If you haven't, you must see "Man on Wire".
Have you ever heard Gershwin's 'Rhapsody in Blue'? That first low note of the clarinet that increasingly vibrates on the ground before it jumps high, high to land with a soft boom of drums and a smooth backdrop of horns, a building for the clarinet to continue on with trills and soars, till finally the zenith is reached and the horn sounds its own quavering, the robust tone completing that architecture first sounded by the leaping thrills of the lone clarinet.
I am hardly the first to see this piece as a musical caricature of New York, but it is certainly a first for me to be reading and find my mind setting down notes as quickly as my eyes can scan in words. In addition, I have never even been to New York. So, what does it mean when an author is able to convey through simple prose the pulse of a city by appealing to a piece of work that, while in a separate sensory dominion, is as evocative as that far off metropolis whose sheer force of character gives it more personality than can sometimes be believed? It means they have a rare talent indeed.
But, in my mind, this book is better than the music, and that's not just my heavy inclination towards literature talking. Gershwin certainly conjures up the city, but it is New York at her best and brightest, just as it was masterfully portrayed in Fantasia 2000's animated rendition. As cheering and catchy as that sort of persona is, it is not nearly all of New York. I may have never walked the streets, but I believe that the author created each character that does with thoughtful consideration, and more importantly, empathy.
Vagabond priest, graffiti connoisseur, prodigy computer, mathematician griever, tortured artist in the least cliché sense of the phrase, the very embodiment of the words 'doomed by forces beyond one's control', and so many others. All drawn together by the wire-keeper, the sky-walker, the acrobat that took a city by storm and followed a passion that, as whimsical as its beginnings, had by its end reverberated its way through the hearts of millions and the pages of history books. This event may be the cornerstone, ferocious in its freedom and exuberant in its sheer existence, but the archway that encompasses it is filled with others whose raisons d'être are no less complex or beautiful in their individual craftships.
While the tightrope artist's story is inspiring, it is also a single side to the jewel of New York. It takes the stories of all those caught up with the single event to showcase all the other emotions and turns of fate that the city has at its disposal. Love, loss, pursuit of the broken dream, denial of the empty fate, conforming to ones lot life in every second that passes, judging others with every breath and not even the bare minimum of context. Finding, despite all that, a small measure of closure, one that the author neither saturates for emotional impact, nor biases in order to pass along personal prejudices.
Before I end this, I must admit that I didn't expect all this from a book highly lauded by the public eye. Shows how much I know. In fact, this book easily fits the bill as a gateway drug for the more esoterically architectured pieces of literature, the ones with endless streams of sentences and many plots scurrying around a story that is more concerned with structure and themes, and yet still has time to lovingly craft the characters sailing along the lines of print. So, if you have an eye on those larger-than-life tomes but are hesitant on committing to them too soon, try this one. Chances are, it will sing out in a joyous harmony for you as much as it did for me.
I am hardly the first to see this piece as a musical caricature of New York, but it is certainly a first for me to be reading and find my mind setting down notes as quickly as my eyes can scan in words. In addition, I have never even been to New York. So, what does it mean when an author is able to convey through simple prose the pulse of a city by appealing to a piece of work that, while in a separate sensory dominion, is as evocative as that far off metropolis whose sheer force of character gives it more personality than can sometimes be believed? It means they have a rare talent indeed.
But, in my mind, this book is better than the music, and that's not just my heavy inclination towards literature talking. Gershwin certainly conjures up the city, but it is New York at her best and brightest, just as it was masterfully portrayed in Fantasia 2000's animated rendition. As cheering and catchy as that sort of persona is, it is not nearly all of New York. I may have never walked the streets, but I believe that the author created each character that does with thoughtful consideration, and more importantly, empathy.
Vagabond priest, graffiti connoisseur, prodigy computer, mathematician griever, tortured artist in the least cliché sense of the phrase, the very embodiment of the words 'doomed by forces beyond one's control', and so many others. All drawn together by the wire-keeper, the sky-walker, the acrobat that took a city by storm and followed a passion that, as whimsical as its beginnings, had by its end reverberated its way through the hearts of millions and the pages of history books. This event may be the cornerstone, ferocious in its freedom and exuberant in its sheer existence, but the archway that encompasses it is filled with others whose raisons d'être are no less complex or beautiful in their individual craftships.
While the tightrope artist's story is inspiring, it is also a single side to the jewel of New York. It takes the stories of all those caught up with the single event to showcase all the other emotions and turns of fate that the city has at its disposal. Love, loss, pursuit of the broken dream, denial of the empty fate, conforming to ones lot life in every second that passes, judging others with every breath and not even the bare minimum of context. Finding, despite all that, a small measure of closure, one that the author neither saturates for emotional impact, nor biases in order to pass along personal prejudices.
Before I end this, I must admit that I didn't expect all this from a book highly lauded by the public eye. Shows how much I know. In fact, this book easily fits the bill as a gateway drug for the more esoterically architectured pieces of literature, the ones with endless streams of sentences and many plots scurrying around a story that is more concerned with structure and themes, and yet still has time to lovingly craft the characters sailing along the lines of print. So, if you have an eye on those larger-than-life tomes but are hesitant on committing to them too soon, try this one. Chances are, it will sing out in a joyous harmony for you as much as it did for me.
The core reason for it all was beauty. Walking was a divine delight. Everything was rewritten when he was up in the air. New things were possible with the human form. It went beyond equilibrium.
He felt for a moment uncreated. Another kind of awake.
A great recommendation from one of my favorite Holy Cross English scholars. Very well written.
What an amazing book - I wish I could read a whole book about each of the characters. It ended way too soon, but beautifully.
I suppose that the narrative technique of weaving together loosely-connected plotlines has become a trope now. It still works for me, though. Much of the book takes place on the day that Philippe Petit did his walk between the WTC towers, so we get to see that through the eyes of many of the characters.
Spoiler
What made this book a nice change from some of the other things I've read recently is that it was a lot less bleak and a lot more hopeful. I loved seeing Gloria and Claire's friendship. I think the whole book is actually about how Jaslyn's life falls into place, and I love that.
The imagery in this story is fantastic, it made me feel as though I were in New York while reading this. I made it half way through the book and loved Colum McCann's writing so much I went out to buy Transatlantic. I really enjoyed how the characters' stories intertwined together around one single event. I was left a little unsatisfied with the end chapter though. I wish it wasn't added, it seemed a bit too 'tidy' of an ending for this book.
One of the most poignantly beautiful books I've read this year. Although my favorite section was Corrigan's, the lyricism of McCann's writing carried me through the rest of the book, unwrapping and weaving the many threads (there were almost a dozen distinct narrators) into a luminescent whole.
A great piece of literature... delicate, intricate, fragile, sinewy strong.