Wednesday 28 March 2012

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann


In New York August 1974, a man is tightrope walking between the newly built Twin Towers. At the same time the lives of strangers are going on below and include a radical Irish monk working in the Bronx, a Upper East Side housewife reeling from the death of her son, a drug-addled young artist and a prostitute who is trapped in her situation. The novel uses the chapters to focus on each character as each of their lives ‘spin’ towards each other.
Let the Great World Spin is a great read, the author manages to tie up all the various threads in each of the storylines without making the novel seem forced or contrived. The characters all carried their own burdens and the life’s of the rich, poor and tragic are well drawn without being sentimental. The author does not try to deliberately pull on the readers heart-strings or push some kind of agenda (which given the characters and setting would be very easy to do) but instead lets the lives’ and the stories play out and the characters fall where they fall.

Overall while it’s not a novel that I would read again, it was very enjoyable and I would read more of this authors work.
Verdict 4/5
Posted by Jess

10 comments:

  1. I enjoyed this one. I even picked it as one of my faves the year I read it. I liked how all the stories came together. Some people felt it a bit slow but I was okay with the pace.

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    1. I didnt find it that slow, I mean its hard to be slow with multiple stories really isnt it? I liked the pace too

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  2. I loved this book! It was a combination read/listen for me and the audio really added another dimension. Like Ti, I enjoyed how all the pieces came together in the end. The audio production was extremely well done.

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    1. I imagine the audio was good with different actors, I almost imagined it as a film while I was reading it.

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  3. I really liked this book and how all the stories were tied together. I can see what he was trying to accomplish with the tightrope walker, but not sure that part of the story was really necessary.

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    1. I think the story needed something else to tie everything together or something else like the court room might have to take a more prominant view. Interesting though that the author decided to pick a thread that did not impede on the characters lives at all.

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  4. I liked this book as well.

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  5. I have had this book for probably a year but haven't gotten to it yet.

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    1. I think I had it knocking around for about a year as well, it was even a hardback!

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