Let the great world spin by Mc Cann

Introduction

This paper aims to discuss the Novel “Let The Great World Spin” by Colum McCann. McCann was born in Dublin, Ireland, in February 1965. He won the 2009 National Book Award for “Let the World Spin”. . Let The Great World Spin weaves together and celebrates the intimacies - 'small beauties' - of human life whilst vividly capturing the effervescent spirit of an age. The novel is a representation of issues of social class and culture and gender.

Discussion

Novel Theme

This novel is a social novel which presents a number of short stories of outstanding and yet normal people's lives. It tells that how people interconnect among each other with time and how our life can be completely changed in few seconds by some unknown persons. This novel presents the truth that our past, circumstances and background may have influenced us positively or negatively but, it is we, who are accountable and responsible for who we actually become despite the influences. It does not matter that we are sad or our heart broken, the people, the world does not stop for our sorrow so it is very important to understand and appreciate the happiness, love and joy around us.

McCann's work is socially and culturally inspired. He has illuminated topics that ranged from homeless people in the subway tunnels of New York, to the Troubles in Northern Ireland, to the effects of 9/11, to a poetic examination of the life and culture of the Roma in Europe.

This novel presents the life of New York City, underlining the variety of its areas and its people and how individuals in a city can be related to each other in interesting ways. The novel engages issues of social class and culture. The author talks about some substantial topics, like the Vietnam War, addiction, and faith, through the eyes of ordinary people. This is a social novel that looks at the ongoing nature of people's lives, how the accidental meets the eternal.

Structurally, the novel is a tour-de-force. In general, it is structured around the tightrope event and by all of the narrative voices of the characters. Sometimes McCann chooses to use third-person narratives for the chapters. But the novel's structural strength, I believe, lies in the very unique voices of individualized narrators.

McCann, in no uncertain terms, is a genius. He fictionalizes a real historical event—the famous tightrope-walking stunt of a French aerialist who precariously balances himself as he walks between the two Twin Towers—and uses that event as the narrative ground around which he creates a host of characters you will not quickly forget. Even the tightrope walker, who “believed in walking beautifully,” is given a strong fleshed-out identity as a man who loves illusion, a daring character whose tightrope magic holds a crowd of New York City watchers spellbound as he lives out his epic moment of fantasized self-dissolution.

He is also a disciplined artisan who becomes a craftsman of illusion by balancing umbrellas on his nose, juggling pins, ...