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From the Hardcover edition.
Anonymous
Posted Thu Jun 06 00:00:00 EDT 2013
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This is a complex book spanning multiple characters and multiple continents. The writing is rich and inviting. The navigation of jumping from character to character is done with ease. This is a writer who knows how to entertain an audience.
13 out of 15 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted Thu Jun 20 00:00:00 EDT 2013
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Colum McCann is a brilliant author. The way he tells stories that span 150 years and yet does so in a way that is easy to follow and understand it amazing. I loved this book.
5 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.There is a shock of pleasure midway into this novel when one realizes three disparate stories of courageous, capable men on two continents are connected through the women they’ve known. The stories of these brave men are delicious vignettes to be supped upon at leisure…there is no bustle and rush as one story ends and another begins, each as delectable as the last, but that thread of connection is the mystery we struggle to untangle throughout.
Arthur Brown, one of the first transatlantic flight team; Frederick Douglass, former slave and speaker for emancipation; George Mitchell, principal negotiator for Northern Ireland’s peace accords: these men have a faint connection over 150 years and that connection is an unopened, undelivered airmail letter that accompanied that the flight crew on their 1919 ground-breaking flight.
The prose seems to match the stories: when we read of the transatlantic flight, the writing is muscular, propulsive. When Douglass visits the Irish countryside, there is a smoky wistfulness clinging to the pages. And in the section on George Mitchell flying back and forth to Europe from New York, we read the sheer effort in the lines.
The novel then reveals the women that have touched these men, and by weaving in their lives the underlying links are uncovered. It brought to mind the theory of “six degrees of separation” and how closely, yet loosely, we all revolve around one another on the planet. If ever you doubted the reason for “treating another as you wish to be treated,” this is another glimpse into our intimate connection with one another, years and continents apart notwithstanding.
I have not read other works by Colum McCann, though I have of course heard of the much-lauded Let the Great World Spin. That book alone is reason enough to be interested in this novel—to see what the man has come up with now. But I can’t help but think this new novel didn’t quite pull together great truths or leave us with something to cogitate and remember as the years roll on. Somehow literature, or the work of great novelists, should leave us something to consider, to remember, to use in our own lives. If there was anything here, it would be that connectedness—how close we are despite the distance, despite the years—but perhaps there could have been something more to round out the effort of writing (and reading) a long book.
Of course, when one picks real-world figures, one is somewhat constrained by their history, but perhaps it wasn’t necessary to make them living men, just as the women were constructions to suit the work. When I read fiction I assume the writer is not strictly truthful, so placing a real figure in the piece makes the reader question both veracity and the lack of it. Perhaps this is one point?
In any case, I can recommend this book to writers and readers for its organizing concept alone. There is something magical about tracing a thread of connection, however tenuous, over a century or more. It makes an intriguing premise for a novel.
4 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Sat Jun 15 00:00:00 EDT 2013
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I loved the mix of fiction and nonfiction together. The author is a master of blending the two to great effect. Two thumbs up.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Sat Jun 08 00:00:00 EDT 2013
Beautfully written Fully realized characters. Real women. Takes you to Ireland from your sofa.
2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Fri Jul 12 00:00:00 EDT 2013
I'm going to read this again
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Tue Jun 25 00:00:00 EDT 2013
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Author Colum McCann delivers a masterpiece. The story spans 150 years and many characters who are linked in various ways - as revealed as the book goes on. The writing is brilliant. The characters are interesting to get to know.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Four stories are interwoven in this novel of escaping the boundaries of earth and soaring to a peaceful yet ecstatic state of mind and soul. Yet this is the stuff of history so often given noble status and sometimes just ignored as a cog in a wheel. Colum McCann gives all equally dignified and seminal status!
First we read about the first flight in 1919 from England to Ireland of Arthur Brown and his transatlantic team, flying a former bomber plane used in the First World War. One carries a letter that never gets delivered but will show up years and years later to be given dubious recognition.
Then we meet Frederick Douglass who arrives in Ireland in 1845 and again in 1846 to speak and listen about the emancipation of slavery while he observes the beginning of the Great Famine and the hatred between Ireland and England over the fight for Irish independence.
The story of George Mitchell’s diplomatic quest in 1998 for Irish Independence is told from multiple perspectives, but it’s mainly Mitchell’s perseverance and frustration that stands out vividly in a cause with so many points of view and demands that it’s mind-boggling. It feels hopeless yet Mitchell never gives up hope, even as he truly yearns to be home in America with his wife and infant son.
One young woman is inspired by Frederick Douglass’s eloquent speech about freedom and her story is the multigenerational story told for the last portion of the novel. This is a story about women whose strength is what forges great nations behind the scenes and beyond the ephemeral talk and ideas of politicians, poets and storytellers themselves.
It takes a bit of time before one begins to connect the dots in this very fine historical and contemporary novel. It’s truly a timeless classic work of fiction presented in a highly literate yet readable style. While it doesn’t brook foolish theories or deny the negative aspects of people or issues, it dreams larger than the muck it seeks to surmount. For that it deserves great praise and high recommendations!!!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Sun Jul 14 00:00:00 EDT 2013
A tour de force
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.PeggyBrooks
Posted Fri Jul 12 00:00:00 EDT 2013
After reading the reviews of this book, I anxiously awaited the Publisher's release. It was the most disappointing book I have read this year. I am not familiar with the author so did not know what to expect. I feel it was recommended based on the name of the author, and not by the merits of the author's writing. The reviews and recommendations were very misleading. Many authors are able to successfully transcend lengthy periods of time and locations in unfolding a story, McCann's efforts were not. I will think twice before choosing to read a McCann book.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted Mon Jul 08 00:00:00 EDT 2013
I enjoyed the connections made between the characters and the history that came with them. Very entertaining.
tanaNY
Posted Fri Jul 05 00:00:00 EDT 2013
Good book...:)
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.vanlyle
Posted Thu Jul 04 00:00:00 EDT 2013
I like the style of writing used in this book and once you make all the connections the story line is fun to think about. What I didn't like is that hardly any of the connections are made until very late in the book, which makes it just seem like a number of individual short stories interspersed in other short stories. The connections are not even hinted at, so there is no guessing element to it. Each story is fun to read, though, so that make the book worthwhile
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted Sun Jun 30 00:00:00 EDT 2013
Stupid I yold you not to tap here. But ehat evrr the book looks really good.
0 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Thu Jul 11 00:00:00 EDT 2013
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Overview
In the National Book Award–winning Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann thrilled readers with a marvelous high-wire act of fiction that The New York Times Book Review called “an emotional tour de force.” Now McCann demonstrates once again why he is one of the most acclaimed and essential authors of his generation with a soaring novel that spans ...