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asiarican6's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
4.5
bethpeninger's review against another edition
5.0
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Trade for this free readers edition. In exchange I am providing an honest review.
Colum McCann sparks awe and jealousy in me with his writing. If I wrote fiction I would wish to write "just like" him. He writes with beauty, depth, meaning, intrigue. This is a book of short stories, four in all. I think one of the signs of a successful short story is when the reader finishes it and doesn't feel like it is incomplete or doesn't feel like they haven't gotten their money's worth - so to speak. Each of these stories was complete and well, perfect.
In story one, titled the same as the book title and the longest in the book, we journey along with Mr. Mendelssohn on the last day of his life - we also are privy to the investigation of the last day of his life. So many one liners caught my attention, kept me thinking. The last few lines of the story most of all, where McCann leaves the ending up to the reader. In story two, McCann almost gives the reader a sense of what one must do to write a creative fictional story well and he does it in story form. Because I don't write fiction, only non-fiction, I found this tutorial through story so fascinating. Story three is a mystery never quite solved and it is up to the reader, along with the main character Rebecca, to be okay with that in the end. And finally story four was of an older woman, a Maryknoll Nun, confronting demons in her past with bravery and grace. I liked McCann's Nun, she is real and raw and filled to overflowing with compassion.
I haven't read McCann before but he's caught my attention with this book. I really, really enjoyed it.
Colum McCann sparks awe and jealousy in me with his writing. If I wrote fiction I would wish to write "just like" him. He writes with beauty, depth, meaning, intrigue. This is a book of short stories, four in all. I think one of the signs of a successful short story is when the reader finishes it and doesn't feel like it is incomplete or doesn't feel like they haven't gotten their money's worth - so to speak. Each of these stories was complete and well, perfect.
In story one, titled the same as the book title and the longest in the book, we journey along with Mr. Mendelssohn on the last day of his life - we also are privy to the investigation of the last day of his life. So many one liners caught my attention, kept me thinking. The last few lines of the story most of all, where McCann leaves the ending up to the reader. In story two, McCann almost gives the reader a sense of what one must do to write a creative fictional story well and he does it in story form. Because I don't write fiction, only non-fiction, I found this tutorial through story so fascinating. Story three is a mystery never quite solved and it is up to the reader, along with the main character Rebecca, to be okay with that in the end. And finally story four was of an older woman, a Maryknoll Nun, confronting demons in her past with bravery and grace. I liked McCann's Nun, she is real and raw and filled to overflowing with compassion.
I haven't read McCann before but he's caught my attention with this book. I really, really enjoyed it.
amyreadsgoodbooks's review against another edition
5.0
Colum McCann's style of writing makes any story beautiful and rhythmic. Reading his work is like watching the ballet, the stories unfold in timing, transition, and conclusion. Colum allows the reader to enter the subject's thoughts, creates the characters and allows feelings to blossom. Thirteen Ways of Thinking are three short stories which are not for those who are afraid of life and it's tributaries but rather those who wish to understand and step into a world that is not theirs. Written to be read but to listen to Colum read is a gift as his Irish accent beautifully accentuates the rhythm of his writing. In my opinion, picking up his work is never a bad decision.
miraclecharlie's review against another edition
4.0
Original review available here, at my blog, HERE WE ARE, GOING:
https://herewearegoing.wordpress.com/2015/10/25/reading-colum-mccanns-thirteen-ways-of-looking/
Thirteen Ways of Looking, by Colum McCann, Penguin Random House, October 2015, hardback, 256 pages
This, the first of Mr. McCann’s work I have read, has prompted me to add his earlier writing to my ever-growing TBR pile.
This collection — a novella and three short stories — is suffused with a sense of looming doom, lurking just beneath the surface, around the next corner, right outside the door, in a dangerous world where keeping personal track has become increasingly difficult even as one’s every move might be recorded — by surveillance camera, computer-cookies, spy-drones — and one’s every impulse reported — on social media or from the collection of clicks and images and conversations one has committed on modern technology.
But here, listen what the Penguin Random House website has to say:
About Thirteen Ways of Looking
In such acclaimed novels as Let the Great World Spin and TransAtlantic, National Book Award–winning author Colum McCann has transfixed readers with his precision, tenderness, and authority. Now, in his first collection of short fiction in more than a decade, McCann charts the territory of chance, and the profound and intimate consequences of even our smallest moments.“As it was, it was like being set down in the best of poems, carried into a cold landscape, blindfolded, turned around, unblindfolded, forced, then, to invent new ways of seeing.”
In the exuberant title novella, a retired judge reflects on his life’s work, unaware as he goes about his daily routines that this particular morning will be his last. In “Sh’khol,” a mother spending Christmas alone with her son confronts the unthinkable when he disappears while swimming off the coast near their home in Ireland. In “Treaty,” an elderly nun catches a snippet of a news report in which it is revealed that the man who once kidnapped and brutalized her is alive, masquerading as an agent of peace. And in “What Time Is It Now, Where You Are?” a writer constructs a story about a Marine in Afghanistan calling home on New Year’s Eve.
Deeply personal, subtly subversive, at times harrowing, and indeed funny, yet also full of comfort, Thirteen Ways of Looking is a striking achievement. With unsurpassed empathy for his characters and their inner lives, Colum McCann forges from their stories a profound tribute to our search for meaning and grace. The collection is a rumination on the power of storytelling in a world where language and memory can sometimes falter, but in the end do not fail us, and a contemplation of the healing power of literature.
This book is a marvelous example of the artistry and emotional heft unique to literature. The rhythms of Mr. McCann’s prose limn the layered and leveled experience of being alive, a sentient, contemplative, empathetic and empathic soul, reaching to find meaning in a world gone slightly mad. I say “unique to literature” because the slow build, the circling, the digression of the writing, the recurrence of themes throughout the four offerings within, the look of the words on the page, the seeing of the letters of certain of the language, these offer sensations and engender emotional responses unlike those brought about by music or visual arts or films or theatre — this is the kind of writing that makes Literary Fiction a Fine Art.
But Thirteen Ways of Looking is not some pretentious, impenetrable, too-long tome of twaddle celebrated by those who would have fiction be an invitation-only mess of difficult, tortured phrases, code and trickery clubbily shared by MFA-collecting/selling ogres of elitism, those few thousand insiders whose balderdash and poppycock can only be parsed among them, but who manage to Emperors-New-Clothes the gullible reading-public into going along with their dicta.
No, this is a book you can read. This is a book you can feel. This is a beautifully written book which does not require an “Insider’s Guide To” anything — MFA-speak, trendy-tropes, or the like — in order to understand.
The opening title novella and the final story, Treaty, feature aging protagonists of weakening memory and physical capacity whose stories are propelled by details captured on camera, whose lives are altered by villains hiding hideous secrets of sins they’ve committed, whose late lives are exercises in the self-torments of wondering the whys of the horrifying behaviors of those devils and miscreants of memory: Does evil exist full-blown, created by itself, or did we invite it in? What is our responsibility for these moments of terror?
As someone who has reached an age where often I lose track of names and details, where rights and wrongs — my own, and others — have edges that have become so elided I no longer quite believe anything is ever either/or, Mr. McCann’s meditation on relationships, loss, and the ways in which our own thoughts shape and re-shape reality had intense resonance for me.
Other than to say these stories often flow like poetry, each word feeling completely required, every sentence singing fully composed, many a phrase offering a surprise or an “ahh” or a shock of recognition, I leave the deep exegesis of Mr. McCann’s mastery of language, syntax, and his technical acumen to the Mr. Woods of the world (and The New Yorker) and stick to my specialty, my business as a Constant Reader, or Gentle Reader, who cherishes books and words and the discovery of a brilliant writer new to me with a backlist and oeuvre I am now free to explore.
If you’ve not read Mr. McCann’s work, I suggest you do; especially if you are of a certain age, have parents of a certain age, have children, or have ever wondered to yourself, “Did I make this world or is it making me? Did this happen as I remember it or is my memory making it happen in retrospect in that way?”
The answers are never simple, never — at least in my case — achieved; but how lovely a book like this, Thirteen Ways of Looking, in which the questions are asked with such elegance and beauty.
https://herewearegoing.wordpress.com/2015/10/25/reading-colum-mccanns-thirteen-ways-of-looking/
Thirteen Ways of Looking, by Colum McCann, Penguin Random House, October 2015, hardback, 256 pages
This, the first of Mr. McCann’s work I have read, has prompted me to add his earlier writing to my ever-growing TBR pile.
This collection — a novella and three short stories — is suffused with a sense of looming doom, lurking just beneath the surface, around the next corner, right outside the door, in a dangerous world where keeping personal track has become increasingly difficult even as one’s every move might be recorded — by surveillance camera, computer-cookies, spy-drones — and one’s every impulse reported — on social media or from the collection of clicks and images and conversations one has committed on modern technology.
But here, listen what the Penguin Random House website has to say:
About Thirteen Ways of Looking
In such acclaimed novels as Let the Great World Spin and TransAtlantic, National Book Award–winning author Colum McCann has transfixed readers with his precision, tenderness, and authority. Now, in his first collection of short fiction in more than a decade, McCann charts the territory of chance, and the profound and intimate consequences of even our smallest moments.“As it was, it was like being set down in the best of poems, carried into a cold landscape, blindfolded, turned around, unblindfolded, forced, then, to invent new ways of seeing.”
In the exuberant title novella, a retired judge reflects on his life’s work, unaware as he goes about his daily routines that this particular morning will be his last. In “Sh’khol,” a mother spending Christmas alone with her son confronts the unthinkable when he disappears while swimming off the coast near their home in Ireland. In “Treaty,” an elderly nun catches a snippet of a news report in which it is revealed that the man who once kidnapped and brutalized her is alive, masquerading as an agent of peace. And in “What Time Is It Now, Where You Are?” a writer constructs a story about a Marine in Afghanistan calling home on New Year’s Eve.
Deeply personal, subtly subversive, at times harrowing, and indeed funny, yet also full of comfort, Thirteen Ways of Looking is a striking achievement. With unsurpassed empathy for his characters and their inner lives, Colum McCann forges from their stories a profound tribute to our search for meaning and grace. The collection is a rumination on the power of storytelling in a world where language and memory can sometimes falter, but in the end do not fail us, and a contemplation of the healing power of literature.
This book is a marvelous example of the artistry and emotional heft unique to literature. The rhythms of Mr. McCann’s prose limn the layered and leveled experience of being alive, a sentient, contemplative, empathetic and empathic soul, reaching to find meaning in a world gone slightly mad. I say “unique to literature” because the slow build, the circling, the digression of the writing, the recurrence of themes throughout the four offerings within, the look of the words on the page, the seeing of the letters of certain of the language, these offer sensations and engender emotional responses unlike those brought about by music or visual arts or films or theatre — this is the kind of writing that makes Literary Fiction a Fine Art.
But Thirteen Ways of Looking is not some pretentious, impenetrable, too-long tome of twaddle celebrated by those who would have fiction be an invitation-only mess of difficult, tortured phrases, code and trickery clubbily shared by MFA-collecting/selling ogres of elitism, those few thousand insiders whose balderdash and poppycock can only be parsed among them, but who manage to Emperors-New-Clothes the gullible reading-public into going along with their dicta.
No, this is a book you can read. This is a book you can feel. This is a beautifully written book which does not require an “Insider’s Guide To” anything — MFA-speak, trendy-tropes, or the like — in order to understand.
The opening title novella and the final story, Treaty, feature aging protagonists of weakening memory and physical capacity whose stories are propelled by details captured on camera, whose lives are altered by villains hiding hideous secrets of sins they’ve committed, whose late lives are exercises in the self-torments of wondering the whys of the horrifying behaviors of those devils and miscreants of memory: Does evil exist full-blown, created by itself, or did we invite it in? What is our responsibility for these moments of terror?
As someone who has reached an age where often I lose track of names and details, where rights and wrongs — my own, and others — have edges that have become so elided I no longer quite believe anything is ever either/or, Mr. McCann’s meditation on relationships, loss, and the ways in which our own thoughts shape and re-shape reality had intense resonance for me.
Other than to say these stories often flow like poetry, each word feeling completely required, every sentence singing fully composed, many a phrase offering a surprise or an “ahh” or a shock of recognition, I leave the deep exegesis of Mr. McCann’s mastery of language, syntax, and his technical acumen to the Mr. Woods of the world (and The New Yorker) and stick to my specialty, my business as a Constant Reader, or Gentle Reader, who cherishes books and words and the discovery of a brilliant writer new to me with a backlist and oeuvre I am now free to explore.
If you’ve not read Mr. McCann’s work, I suggest you do; especially if you are of a certain age, have parents of a certain age, have children, or have ever wondered to yourself, “Did I make this world or is it making me? Did this happen as I remember it or is my memory making it happen in retrospect in that way?”
The answers are never simple, never — at least in my case — achieved; but how lovely a book like this, Thirteen Ways of Looking, in which the questions are asked with such elegance and beauty.
obri0333's review against another edition
3.0
Colum McCann has a very particular writing style that is not for everyone. In the first story of this collection, which was about half the book, the extreme detail of the inner thoughts of the main character got a bit heavy. The stories are all well written, the characters and scenery well developed, but I wouldn't say this was my favorite of McCann's books.
mhpotter's review against another edition
4.0
Man, can this guy write. So many thoughtful and beautifully crafted sentences. So lyrical.
Titular novella gets 5 stars, hands down. But the short stories that followed left me slightly more lukewarm, hence the 4 stars overall.
Titular novella gets 5 stars, hands down. But the short stories that followed left me slightly more lukewarm, hence the 4 stars overall.
valparaiso's review against another edition
3.0
The eponymous first story in this four-story collection is a fictional, first person retrospective of the life of a Brooklyn judge in his old age through the filter of his physical decline and dementia, all taking place on the last day of his life before his murder. While I can relate to the setting in Manhattan, having spent time in the city over the years, it’s not the storyline or setting that I find appealing. Rather it’s the stream of conscious, staccato delivery of McCann’s writing. He delivers from the protagonist a play-by-play riverine flood of thoughts and feelings from his long life, triggered by what he’s experiencing in each current moment. I could do without McCann’s vulgarity, which is not necessary for a story like this to unfold. I found an occasional pithy insight that lingers. Like this one, as Mr. Mendelssohn contemplates his abundance of free time: “Odd thing, time. So much of it now and we spend it all looking back.” We all have an inner dialogue playing on loop inside our heads. Much of it we wouldn’t share with anyone. It’s compelling to see McCann explore this voice in this story.
saklarich's review against another edition
4.0
The subject matters of these stories aren’t particularly interesting, but as ever, I thoroughly enjoy reading them because of McCann’s story telling and writing styles. Especially the titular story, they feel like exercises in the art. I always feel his characters deeply. 3.5.
josephinecatherinem's review against another edition
3.0
2.5 - 3 stars
The final story in this collection, 'Treaty', was stellar - harrowing and heartbreaking. It was such a difficult read, but captivating nonetheless.
However, I did not enjoy the rest of Thirteen Ways of Looking. If it weren't for 'Treaty' this would have been 2-2.5 stars. But I will say that my problem is mainly with the titular story, with the following two being mediocre. The writing was simply pretentious, with the 'insights' not being in the least bit insightful. The first story was character-driven, which I am completely okay with BUT, to successfully execute a character-driven story, you need to give the audience a connection with the character(s), whether that be a positive or negative connection. There were moments that made me see the story's potential, where I would feel what the story could have been, but it just was not enough.
This was not badly written, not at all, but rather badly crafted. I would be interested in reading his work in the future being that I loved 'Treaty' as I did.
Sorry if this review was inarticulate and weirdly passionate!
*After the second read, I appreciate it more.
The final story in this collection, 'Treaty', was stellar - harrowing and heartbreaking. It was such a difficult read, but captivating nonetheless.
However, I did not enjoy the rest of Thirteen Ways of Looking. If it weren't for 'Treaty' this would have been 2-2.5 stars. But I will say that my problem is mainly with the titular story, with the following two being mediocre. The writing was simply pretentious, with the 'insights' not being in the least bit insightful. The first story was character-driven, which I am completely okay with BUT, to successfully execute a character-driven story, you need to give the audience a connection with the character(s), whether that be a positive or negative connection. There were moments that made me see the story's potential, where I would feel what the story could have been, but it just was not enough.
This was not badly written, not at all, but rather badly crafted. I would be interested in reading his work in the future being that I loved 'Treaty' as I did.
Sorry if this review was inarticulate and weirdly passionate!
*After the second read, I appreciate it more.