I knew watching the same fairytales countless amount of times would come in handy in life one day. Other than giving me unrealistic expectations of men and an obsession with happy endings, these fairytales also come into play when novels I read in college make allusions to them. In Let the Great World Spin, “Miró, Miró, on the wall, who’s the deadest of them all?” (McCann 112) is a more morbid version of “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” asked by the Queen from Snow White. Joan Miró was a Spanish artist and Surrealist, and it is a piece of his art that is on the wall of Claire’s house, which she zoned in on while smiling uncontrollably when the sergeant brought the ultimate bad news. Here’s another fun fact: There’s an instrumental called “Miro, Miro On The Wall” by Hugh Buckley, who was actually born and raised in Dublin!
Speaking of real-life human intersections, there’s quite a lot of them in the book (I lost count at 50). This reminds me of the word sonder, which is defined by The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows as “the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own… an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.” This book does an excellent job of depicting this word, leaving me amazed at the interconnectedness.
One such human collision is the one between Lara and Ciaran, which really intrigues me. How can he fall in love with her, the very girl who was involved in the accident that killed his brother? Even given that she wasn’t the one driving and that she tries to atone for her guilt, it is quite fascinating that Ciaran falls in love with her. This reveals how in reality, almost nothing is black or white, but a gradient of grays. I admire how well McCann illustrates humanity and humanness.
I liked your mention of “sonder.” I find myself experiencing this often, and LTGWS in a perfect example of it. Each character feels like they could be ripped off the streets of New York.
Your post was very interesting. I guess it’s true what they say: great minds think alike. Being the hopeless romantic I am, I do understand why Ciaran still loves her, though I don’t necessarily agree with what he does. I just understand it. You’ll be surprised at how much people will give up and forget in the name of love. As dumb as this may sound, the accident is in the past. It’s history. We all know history belongs in the pages of a book, but the emotions we feel for a person belong deep in our hearts. Good luck trying to suppress that.
While reading through your post, I realized that the word I was struggling to remember in my post was “sonder” because it perfectly describes the feel of how the characters are interacting with each other and how each story is happening simultaneously, or at least close to each other geographically and time-wise. The flow of your post is also very smooth, it reads as if it was a conversation.
Before reading your blog, I did not know the piece of art Claire was staring at was made by Miro. I was able to make a better connection between this chapter and the artist thanks to you!