Let The Great World Spin by Colum Mccann

   This book that I am currently reading is called Let The Great World Spin by Colum Mccann. I'm finding it pretty interesting especially since it starts with a person walking across a tight rope between the World Trade Center (note that this is 1974). Right now I have finished the first chapter and so far it talks about two brothers, born in Ireland, who have moved to New York and how they are dealing with life. Corrigan, the younger of the two brothers (by two years) is a person who is very dedicated to God and spends his life aiding others even to the expense of sacrificing his own needs. _______ (it is written in first person so I do not know his name yet since he is the person that goes I...) , the older one, dropped out of university and is now sort of drifting around (already in his thirties), not impressed with the way his brother lives (in a run down apartment with gangs and drunks everywhere) and wants to go back to Ireland.

  This book, I find, is very real. Real as in how it connects with the way life works. For example, in the first chapter, Corrigan is struggling to remain the dedicated person he is but is also battling love, and feeling as though God had abandoned him, no longer listening to his prayers and thoughts. I find this real since it comes so often that you want one thing but don't want to lose the other, while at the same time knowing that you can't have both. It seems that he feels lost and frustrated, just like how every one of us feels when it comes to situations like that. Knowing that no matter how you choose, guilt will somehow catch up to you.  Having one friend that hates the other, craving a job your parents disapprove, seeing the world in ways no one else does but not wanting to change yourself. Sometimes only words written on paper can assure us that we are not the only ones who can't seem to choose.  

  It always amazes me that no matter how much you love something, there will always be something you don't love about it. Ex. Corrigan, is so very much dedicated to God but doesn't like God's voice or "this logical God" (quoted from the book). You may love your purse but not like the price,  love chocolate cake but not like the calories, love your mirror but not like what you see in it each morning. Nothing is a hundred percent GREAT, and that's okay since if it were that great, it wouldn't be real.

  I also think that one of the deepest things about this book is the title. Let The Great World Spin. Yep. That's about all we can do sometimes, just letting things unfold the way they're supposed to. In fact its amazing what the world has in store for us. Surprises, good or bad, happen every day. Can we control them? Sometimes. Is it fate? Who knows? All we do know is that we can only act upon the moments that have happened already. Perhaps that's where "that's life" comes from, and for the most part, it is.