Between vacation and illness and then lack of motivation, I’ve fallen a bit behind on book reviews. So to catch up I’m combining two reviews into one post.
First up is a book that I really enjoyed, Colum McCann’s Let The Great World Spin, winner of the 2009 National Book Award. The book tells multiple stories and McCann weaves all of them together in various ways. The majority of the novel takes place in New York City in 1974. A central event tying all of the characters together is the tightrope walk between the World Trade Center Towers that was performed by Philippe Petit in 1974. This was a real event, but McCann never actually names Petit in the novel and instead just describes the walk and in flashbacks describes the tightrope walker’s fictional preparation for the daring feat.
While McCann never explicitly mentions the World Trade Center disaster of 2001, it’s impossible not to think of that as he describes the New Yorkers looking up at the towers waiting for disaster to strike and the tightrope walker to fall. There is even a real picture of Petit walking between the towers with a plane above disappearing into the corner of the photo; an eerie sight to be sure.
What I found really interesting was McCann’s use of different narrators from all different backgrounds. From an Irish immigrant priest, to a jailed African-American prostitute, to a Jewish judge, and a grieving mother of a Vietnam soldier killed in action, each voice is believable and each sympathetic, while at the same time being tragically flawed. The main theme of the book seems to be that things happen (for better or worse) and the world is just going to keep on moving forward. And it’s how the various characters deal with the losses that life deals them that ultimately makes this a compelling read.
I probably haven’t done the story justice, but it’s incredibly well written with complex characters. I highly recommend this book and it might get me to check out another McCann novel in the future.
Next is a book I didn’t like all that much, The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford. The book was written in 1915 and tells the story of the complicated relationships of two couples, John Dowell (the narrator) and his wife Florence, and their friends, Edward Ashburnham and his wife Leonora. The story involves love, betrayal, fake illnesses, adultery, and suicide, which makes it seem like it would be a fascinating read, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case for me.
Dowell tells the story in no particular order, and several times during the book discusses how confusing it might be for the reader. And it was confusing. But more than that, it was boring. I have no problem with a story being told by jumping back and forth in the sequence of events, but at no point did I think there was any reason for how the story was being revealed. And the most problematic thing was that none of the characters seemed to have any redeeming qualities. I was never invested in any of the relationships, and at the end I didn’t find myself caring about what happened to any of them. I don’t think anyone was rushing out to read this anyway, but needless to say I don’t recommend wasting your time.
Next Up: A review of The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson
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