Helpful Score: 1
In all, a decent novel and written intelligently. I liked that it focused not on the spectacle, the person most obviously attracting the attention (who did manage to snag the book cover), but instead about the anonymous people below. McCann wrote about the little people (smaller, even, when one is suspended a quarter mile in the air) who hold this world together, who give it that spin and keep it spinning while only a few observe from above. But a warning: below is an ugly place.
The people populating this story were anything but beautiful, anything but small, and anything but simple. The priest, the prostitutes, the drug-addled artistall were flawed and difficult to look at in the light McCann shined on them. I couldn't connect to any of the characters and truthfully, I found Gloria's voice saccharine and full of threadbare metaphor. It's a shame because in theory, she's the one I should have most liked. Tillie's voice grew tiresome and false, too.
I'm unsure as to McCann's intention with the characters - did he want us to hate them? Did he want us to connect with any of them? Part of me thinks no, but part of me thinks that the point of the novel was explaining that we can and do connect with each other as humans in the face of all things, good (an unexpected tightrope walker) and bad (the Vietnam War). Why couldn't I connect with these people, then? I'm willing to give McCann another chance, though. Perhaps I'll like this one better after Book Club discusses it.
The people populating this story were anything but beautiful, anything but small, and anything but simple. The priest, the prostitutes, the drug-addled artistall were flawed and difficult to look at in the light McCann shined on them. I couldn't connect to any of the characters and truthfully, I found Gloria's voice saccharine and full of threadbare metaphor. It's a shame because in theory, she's the one I should have most liked. Tillie's voice grew tiresome and false, too.
I'm unsure as to McCann's intention with the characters - did he want us to hate them? Did he want us to connect with any of them? Part of me thinks no, but part of me thinks that the point of the novel was explaining that we can and do connect with each other as humans in the face of all things, good (an unexpected tightrope walker) and bad (the Vietnam War). Why couldn't I connect with these people, then? I'm willing to give McCann another chance, though. Perhaps I'll like this one better after Book Club discusses it.
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