Category: Blog Postings

“For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.” – Leonardo da Vinci

After reading the prologue, this was the first thing that came to mind. For years this quote by Leonardo da Vinci has rang through my head whenever I had felt lost or was at a standstill in my life. As the people of Manhattan watch a man tightrope between the Twin Towers, some had their faces pointed directly at the sky watching the fate of this foolish man and others were too absorbed by their daily tasks. My biggest question for those that could not spare a moment to look is, why? Why be so consumed with your routine that you have to miss out on the spectacular things occurring around you? This makes me come to the conclusion that maybe these people have not truly experienced flight because if they did they would try to be apart of the world around them. McCann even describes the setting by stating that the man was visible from all parts of the city as if being the focal point from which everything else expanded from.

The first chapter begins with two brothers and their mother that live in Dublin, Ireland. After their mother’s death, Corrigan finds himself joining the Order and stationing in an apartment in the Bronx while the narrator remains in Dublin. They eventually meet up again and this is where we get an in depth look at the person that Corrigan really is. All his life he has preferred to live and be surrounded by the unfortunate people of society such as hookers, junkies, and vagrants. I connect most with this character as he reminds me both of myself and my very religious aunt. As a frequent Criminal Minds and Law and Order viewer, I know that the world offers many threats; however, just as Corrigan tells his brother that he is not worried by the “tough looking” people I feel the same exact way. My aunt basically gives her life to God and because of this her and Corrigan share many similarities. This has caused me to lose a connection with the narrator since I know that he does not have a full understanding of what what his brother is trying to do. From the moment he gave his blanket away to when he saved Jazzlyn from the Tombs, his life is sacrifice which is why I idolize him.

1. In the prologue there was a lot of suspense and thrill, as the reader we were unknowing as to what was really going on just like the watchers on the street. The key piece of information that we all knew was that the scene took place in New York City and that a man was seen on the edge of a skyscraper. At the end we all found out that it was a tightrope walker about to start his walk. In the beginning of the first chapter we were taken to Dublin, Ireland where the brothers of the story originate. Then they both meet again in New York. I would say that the social environments were similar between Dublin and New York because Corrigan had always surrounded himself with a specific type of people who his brother would not want to associate himself with.
2. So far I feel sympathy and pity for most of the characters in this chapter. I find the chapter itself very stirring and emotional, this piece was one of those that is hard to put down because you always want to know what is going to happen next. I find all of the characters intriguing, they all have this sort of mystery to them and you can’t really pinpoint why they behave or act the way they do. When Corrigan and his brother talk and his brother tries to talk him out of helping the girls, Corrigan doesn’t really respond or give us much of his reasoning but we all assume why he does what he does. Or when Corrigan is faced with the issue between his religion and Adelita we don’t really know why he does what he does. With that being said the author gives us enough information to guess ourselves why each character is the way they are. I can not say that any of the characters feel most alien or baffling. It’s like you can put yourself into their shoes and see their perspectives.

The first chapter of the book introduces us to the two brothers from the isolated by the oceans and rainy area of Dublin, Ireland. The elderly one being the narrator, and the younger one Corrigan. It is important to note that the younger brother’s name is John Andrew, however he goes by Corrigan. The older brother’s name is not yet revealed and it very well may never be revealed throughout the whole book if that is the author’s intention. The only way Corrigan does refer to him is simply as “elder brother”. It is not rare for authors to not have a name of the protagonist revealed in order to try to convey an idea and have the reader be better immersed in the atmosphere and the feelings the narrator experiences. The most recent book which I read that had the same way of delivering the position of the main character is Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. It draws a better connection to the character since there is no actual name that applies. It takes away the feeling of being a spectator of the story and forces you to take in primarily only what the protagonist experiences.

In this case the emotions of frustration and helplessness is what speaks out to me by seeing what the narrator goes through. The lack of the ability to change Corrigan and just watch society take advantage of his selfless nature adds to the dark and abusive nature of the Bronx from the elder brother’s eyes. It is a tragic flaw of brother Corrigan and it is something that many people can relate to. Blinded by love towards everyone, Corrigan seemed to never have enjoyed life’s moments as seen from the narrator’s perspective.

Not to repeat what Geevanesam had already explained in the earlier-posted blog post very clearly in terms of relating to the characters and how being a foreigner in NYC might feel like at first, I would like to add some hypotheses of what the author might have for us in later in the book. By setting a negative tone and a feeling of helplessness and having the protagonist be presented in such a way, we the readers might become more prone to believing that we truly have a connection to this character and that his perspective on life – is our perspective also. However, as the book goes on, we might be later challenged to these initial views which we gain from the first chapter.

Interestingly enough, perhaps the Colum McCann is trying to tell us his personal by keeping the uncertainty of knowing who exactly is the elderly bother in the story since he is also from Dublin.

A tightrope walker, on top of the world trade center in New York City arises an interest in the city’s pedestrians as everyone stops to find a suitable view to witness either the death of this brave man or the success of a skilled athlete. Let The Great World Spin’s author, Colum McCann, brings the reader to a wild day in New York City in its prologue. The actual story though, takes place in Dublin, Ireland as the narrator recounts his childhood with his brother, Corrigan. As their parents pass away and both brothers grow up, they eventually meet again in Bronx, New York where this specific location has altered both of their lives and developed their characters in one way or another.

 

The prologue allows the reader to become a viewer of the man walking the tightrope. Instantly, I feel as if I am in New York watching this figure stand on top of the world trade center wondering if he is going to fall and die or live and become a huge success. However, as the story of Corrigan and his brother unfolds, I feel more emotionally connected to the narrator rather than Corrigan. He is seen as the more innocent brother trying to help Corrigan out. This is also expressed when he moves to New York and starts locking Corrigan’s apartment door as a method of helping Corrigan clean up his life. Corrigan’s drinking and smoking is what mainly repulses me, however, through this I am also able to see that he is just a human trying to cope with his absentee father and tough life. When he grows up and moves to New York it is clear that he genuinely wants to help others, perhaps at a cost to himself. For example, he wants to help the hookers by leaving his apartment unlocked but he also gets hurt. I feel sympathetic towards him because of his generosity even if it is not portrayed in such a clean manner. I would like to believe that I am a little religious, and it is mainly in this form that I can relate to Corrigan the most. Finally, his love for Adelita arises an internal conflict in Corrigan between their love and his vows as a monk show that he falls into temptation and must resists as much as he can due to his faith reveals the type of man he is. This is what makes his death incredibly unsettling to me.

As I began to read chapter one, my mind still lingered on the strange man balancing a thin bar in his hands just about to walk across the towers on a thin cable . I had a series of unanswered questions  both about him and his audience: did he make it? Did the people in the crowd who shouted “just jump” cheer him on? Why didn’t the author tell us what happened? These unanswered questions began to fade as I was transported from the busy streets of Manhattan to the somber neighborhood in Sandymount, Dublin. The geography and social environment allows the reader to recreate their own perception of the setting through the author’s description. I was no longer a part of the anxious crowd preparing to watching a circus act, instead I was in a home with two young boys listening to their mother playing the piano. I felt the warmth radiating from the small family as the mother held her two young children in her arms and kissed their cheeks. The bitterness of solitude took over me as I visualized the two boys sitting against the back of the closet, letting the suits their father had left behind, along with them, brush against their face.  I found myself growing attached to Corrigan as I read Ciaran’s expressive descriptions of him. In some ways he reminded me of my younger brother. How they both had a selfless nature, carefree in their own unique little world knowing no bounds. Corrigans behavior never matched with his age, not only his recklessness but also his ability to sympathize with others, “Corrigan wanted other people’s pain. He didn’t want to deal with his own,” (McCann 31). Corrigan’s personality drew me closer to him, I found myself wanting to become the person he was. I too wanted to engage with others, know about their life stories and troubles and not just stay inclosed in mine. As the two brothers grew older and reunited in Bronx, New York the story took a sudden turn. I expected Corrigan to be his usual self living in an area where he had people to help, but the ending blew the wind out of me. I sat there angry and frustrated as I was left yet with another question: why does it always have to be the good ones?

Feelings

The first chapter shows how fast a lifetime goes by in the eyes of an outsider. I understand Corrigan’s desire to help others that need whatever he has more than he does, but his prolonged exposure, in his apartment in the Bronx, to the underbelly of the city is doing more harm to him then is worth it for the meager offerings he can dish out to those he has elected himself to serve. His brother attempts to rescue him, but doesn’t understand any reason to endure the smog of lust, greed, and literal living to simply survive however possible, when his own survival thought is screaming at him to leave. The two brothers resemble the two tear drops from the yin yang symbol, one of which is shed in response to an event seemingly unrelated.

 

Geography

The prologue begins with a man taking the attention of passerby in Manhattan by walking a tightrope between the Twin Towers. The chapter begins in the hometown of two brothers in Dublin who live with their mother. After her death, the charitable brother joins an organization he refers to as the order, and is sent on a mission to Naples, then rerouted to New York City, settling in an apartment in the Bronx. The first brother, also the narrator, stays in Dublin, leaving only after a bomb went off near him, and soon after he lands in JFK airport to meet his brother. Corrigan takes him back to his apartment. The apartment is not a home, it is a vessel through which Corrigan tries to, as non-invasively as possible, take on the haze of the world threatening to smother those that work at street corners late at night by providing, but what seems like an afterthought makes all the difference to those treated like the merchandise they sell themselves as. Corrigan takes his brother to the hospital at which his duty is to bring a few of the elderly outside to sunshine and open air. Here the narrator meets the woman his brother is smitten by, also the woman who caused him to drive to Long Island while contemplating his feeling for her, and the conflict potentially arising from the strict rules, including celibacy, in the order he has aligned himself with.

This book, in 70 small pages, was able to take me on an emotional rollercoaster and a deeper understanding of one’s purpose for living. For one, their purpose can be to find beauty (whatever that means) within the humdrum of our dark, yet boring reality, like Corrigan, while others refuse to accept beauty as a part of life, like the boys’ mother, who even in her las moments on Earth, refused to let any light into her home simply because she believed it would damage her carpet, as if light is a deteriorating factor rather than a rejuvenating one.

This book and its meanings can be broken into two separate parts. The first is its geography and it how it affects the characters who inhabit it. When put very simply, the prologue and the end of chapter one, filled with the evils that are brought upon by the extreme pressures and influences of city life are bridged together by a more simplistic lifestyle that is created by the more relaxed environment of Dublin, Ireland. However, there is more meaning of this placement that simply placing a more relaxed environment (Dublin) in between two city-life environments. In fact, what it really shows is how two environments that appear to be the antithesis of each other at first glance can actually create similar emotions and actions of the people that inhabit these places.

Though New York City seems to be full of chaos, where days aren’t made official until the daily noise of sirens, as mentioned in the prologue, Dublin possesses evils of its own, where its relaxed mood isn’t always a good thing, as it seems as if the environment itself doesn’t even care about itself enough to even try to get out of its own grayness (Chapter 1). Here, McCann is trying to suggest that two completely opposite environments can cause similar experiences and all lead back to the same road filled with impiety and depressive stages. Nonetheless, each environment gives people the chance at their own escape from reality, from the heroin users and prostitutes of New York City to the drunks of Dublin along the shore line, as if their only hopes are for that very shore line to sweep them away to a new and better life, one they know will never come. Hey, I never said these escapes were great either. In essence, McCann suggests that no matter the society we live in, even the escapes that are given to us only create a new environment filled with as much evil and hopelessness as the last. We just don’t know it yet.

The next part of the book I want to get into is my feelings towards the characters of this book. First off, let me say I felt a deep connection to most of these characters, as I see myself or many of my close friends and family in almost all of these characters. The boys’ mother reminds me so much of my own mother, who is also very sweet and kind in her own right. Yet, what baffles me about the mother is why she seems to be so disconnected to life, from hiding her feelings when the boys decided to put on their father’s clothes, to not allowing light into her own home to prevent the carpet from getting ruined. The narrator is the one who feels most alien to me as he seems to look more at other people’s lives rather than focus on his own. It’s almost as if he lives his life through others.

Finally there is Corrigan. At first, I wasn’t really sure how to feel about him. t first, I thought of him as that annoying little brother who always gets all the attention from strangers because he is simply “too cute.” Then, I realized there was something much more philosophical to Corrigan’s lifestyle, from trying to find beauties within all the war and poverty in the world, to the charity he did all on his own without ever “sponsoring” a religion with a Bible, a collar, or any other religious symbol. This really proved to me that Corrigan was truly trying to create a beautiful world, something that can never truly be achieved, because what is beautiful to one, like what Corrigan saw in his last moments, can be total nonsense to another, like with what Adelita thought Corrigan was describing. From this, we must ask ourselves: how beautiful is beauty?