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korrick 's review for:
Let the Great World Spin
by Colum McCann
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.