Thirteen Ways of Looking by Colum McCann

Source of book: Borrowed from the library.

 

I have previously read and reviewed two Colum McCann books, Let the Great World Spin, and Trans Atlantic. This book was good, but I didn’t find it as compelling as the other two, perhaps because of the subject matter, or because as a novella plus three short stories, it felt somewhat disconnected in subject matter. Again, it was good, but the other two were outstanding. 

 

Two thirds of the book is taken up by the title story, which is novella length, but feels like an extended short story. The title comes from Wallace Stevens’ poem, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” which is one of my favorites of his. Each of the thirteen stanzas is given at the start of its own chapter. 

 

The basic plot of the novella is the last day in the life of an elderly retired judge, Peter Mendelssohn. At first, I did a double take, because he sounds very similar to a character in Let the Great World Spin. I wondered if it was the same person. On further examination, they are different people, but with some similarities. There are two basic ideas in the book, the most dramatic being that Mendelssohn is murdered at the end of the day. The second is that, since most of the story is told from Mendelssohn’s own perspective, we see his own frustration with growing old and frail and forgetful. 

 

My feeling about the novella is that the murder didn’t always mesh well with the rest of the story, at least in tone. Although, I suppose, there is nothing implausible about that odd juxtaposition in real life. McCann’s writing is so good that the seams don’t show that much, but they still feel there. At its best, though, his language and empathy are amazing. 

 

A couple of quotes stood out, although I could have chosen many more. 

 

The years don’t so much arrive, they gatecrash, they breeze through the door and leave their devastation, all the empty crockery, the broken veins, sunken eyelids, aching gums, but who is he to complain, he’s had plenty of years to get used to it, and he was hardly a handsome Harry in the first place, and anyway he got the girl, he bowled her over, he won her heart, snagged her, yes I was born in the middle of my first great love.

 

The part of the seam between the two elements of the story that works the best is his ongoing simile between the art of poetry and the art of detection. Both are a journey of discovery, yet guided by craft and skill. Here is one of those crossover moments.

 

Poets, like detectives, know the truth is laborious: it doesn’t occur by accident, rather it is chiseled and worked into being, the product of time and distance and graft. The poet must be open to the possibility that she has to go a long way before a word rises, or a sentence holds, or a rhythm opens, and even then nothing is assured, not even the words that have staked their original claim or meaning. Sometimes it happens at the most unexpected moment, and the poet has to enter the mystery, rebuild the poem from there. 

 

Perhaps because McCann understands poetry so well he is able to write such poetic prose. 

 

I also liked this quip by Mendelssohn:

 

“Give life long enough and it will solve all your problems, even the problem of being alive.”

 

I was surprised to find I had written down so little from this book, and realized that it was because I was just immersed in the story, and didn’t want to interrupt the flow. 

 

Overall, I thought this story, standing alone, was quite good. The short stories were very different from each other and from the novella. 

 

The first one is “What time is it now, where you are?” My main complaint with this one was the cloyingly post-modern device of being about the writing of a short story, a story for New Years, and about a mother and soldier calling home from Afghanistan. Not a bad story, and it is hard to begrudge McCann a little room to experiment. Just not exactly my thing. 

 

The second short story is “Sh’khol,” a rather harrowing story of a mother’s horror when her 13-year-old son slips out to swim in the ocean, and disappears. To make things worse, he is deaf and has difficultly communicating. (This is why we are never sure whether he is also autistic or otherwise cognitively disabled.) The “what ifs?” dominate the story, the recriminations, the regrets, the horror of loss. McCann is in many ways at his best in stories like this, which reminded me of situations in both of his other books, where there are no good answers. They invite true empathy: just sitting with the characters and being there as they suffer without cure. 

 

The final story is “Treaty.” In a total departure from the others, it is about an elderly nun, who nearly four decades previously was kidnapped, raped, and imprisoned by right-wing militia members while living in South America. Fast forward to the present, and she sees her rapist on television, now negotiating a ceasefire on behalf of a leftist group. She travels from Texas to London, ostensibly to visit her brother, but really to find and confront him, which she does. The most powerful moment in the story is when he finally acknowledges who he is and that he knows her - and also gives an indication that he hasn’t changed in any positive way. 

 

The best line from this story is the description of the protagonist stepping out of the London Tube after falling asleep on a piano bench. 

 

Outside the light pours down hard and clear and yellow. 

 

All of these are thought-provoking stories, well written and unusual. While I liked the other two books a bit better, this one is good in its own right, and confirms my opinion of McCann as one of my favorite contemporary authors.