The first story in
Let The Great World Spin was so...ugh...I can't find the right adjective to describe it! It was beyond incredible, and completely defied my expectations. I seriously did not think that this story would affect me so much. I mean, it's been like a two days or so since I finished it, and I still get shivers!
This story starts in Ireland with two brothers that live by the sea in the 1950s with their single-parent mum. Their dad is a complete coward who has no contact with them whatsoever except for the little bit of child support money he sends. The story is told in the viewpoint of the older brother, who remains unnamed in the story, but the story revolves around Corrigan, the younger brother with the wild spirit. Corrigan, Corrigan, Corrigan! This kiddo was like 7 and his precocious heart was already at work. At night, when it was really cold, he would wake up and walk out with a blanket to the street full of homeless people, and then he would return without it. When he was 13 he would hang out with bums after school and drink whiskey with them just to feel closer to God through their unfulfilled dreams and talk of hope.
"What Corrigan wanted was a fully believable God, one you could find in the grime of the everyday. The comfort he got from the hard, cold truth-the filth, the war, the poverty-was that life could be capable of small beauties. He wasn't interested in the glorious tales of the afterlife or the notions on a honey-soaked heaven. To him that was a dressing room for hell. Rather he consoled himself with the fact that, in the real world, when he looked closely in the darkness he might find the presence of light, damaged and bruised, but a little light all the same."
Unfortunately the brothers' mother died of cancer when they were 19 and 17. Their father came to them days before their mom died. He had known something was wrong when she stopped cashing the checks. This is where I rant on how much I hate this man. He comes into the scene expecting his sons' respect. "Go on now, shake my hand like a man" he says to Corrigan. Then that night he sleeps over at their house. The thing is that he tried to sleep in the mother's room (which would have been his room too when he was married to her) but Corrigan stopped him. To me this shows the intentions of this man. He just wants to come back and take a pedestal in the lives of his sons after he's been absent by choice for the majority of their lives, sending in a child-support check does not entitle him anything. One of my favorite scenes is when Corrigan storms out of the house with his father's old suits, which his mother had conserved in the house, while his dad is behind him screaming his head off. Corrigan then goes on to distribute all of the suits to homeless men, you gotta read it to get it.
The story then moves to New York when the older brother has dropped out of college and is moving to NYC where Corrigan lives. He is shocked by the poverty he finds where his brother lives, and is even more disturbed when he sees prostitute after prostitute in the streets. Corrigan is happy here.
In order to shorten this post, I will go through this as quickly as possible.
- Corrigan belongs to a religious order in NYC
- He helps his prostitute friends by allowing them to refresh and use his apartment bathroom
- Corrigan works as a van driver for a nurse home where he takes elderly people to different destinations like church or the park
- His older brother does not approve his "naive actions" such as helping the prostitutes and getting beat up by their pimps
Corrigan has a strong fondness for the night-walker friends, especially two, Jazzlyn and Tillie. He cares so much about them that at one point I thought he was in love with one of them, but he wasn't-not with them. I like that he accepts them. Not many would do that because many think of prostitutes as horrible beings that have brought their own misfortune upon themselves. Perhaps some have but after all they are human, and that's what Corrigan sees, their human side while others just see dark skinned women smoking cigarettes in bright neon bras. This can be seen with the contrast of the older brother and Corrigan. The brother was surprised when Corrigan told him that Jazzlyn was a mother of two. I think it slapped the brother with the reality that these women are not just prostitutes. They are mothers, sisters, and daughters too.
From the time that the story comes into NYC, the reader gets the feeling that something is wrong with Corrigan. For the longest time I thought he was in love with Jazzlyn and that it pained him, but no. He was indeed in love, but with someone else. Adelita, a beautiful Guatemalan nurse that works at the nursery home. She is a single mother of two that immigrated from Guatemala after a civil war broke out in that nation in the '60s-'70s. Corrigan's brother is highly suspicious of the escapades that Corrigan takes. He even comes to believe that Corrigan must be doing things like heroin. The truth is that Corrigan is off spending quality time with Adelita and her kids. The reason why he is distress is that he feels trapped between love and his celibacy vow. For pages, Corrigan goes off with how it pains him. I dislike this because I see no reason why he should not be able to love Adelita in every aspect. If it was lust then I would see why he shouldn't, but it's love. Adelita brings him so much joy and inner-peace, that it is painful to see them separated by religious vows. When he's with Adelita and her kids it is easy to feel that peace. However, in a way, the celibacy vow made their love even purer.
The good die young, yes sir. Corrigan passes away. Yeah, sorry for the spoiler, but I warned ya in my last post. This isn't a review but more like my rantings and insights. Okay, so the prostitutes get taken by cops and Corrigan if off to rescue them. He feels especially obligated when they take Jazzlyn because that means her two kids will abandoned. He goes off to fight for Jazz's cause in the court. After a long battle he is able to bring her back, but they crash. Jazzlyn dies instantly and Corrigan is taken to the hospital where he dies slowly.
Truth be told, I got teary. The way the author, Mr. McCann, described the whole scene as Corrigan died while at the same time his brother was with the nursing home elders was so palpable. I felt this strong connection with Corrigan because although at times I hated his naïveté and supported his brother when he attempted to turn him into a cynic, I was still touched by his kind heart. It was so refreshing to read about a character that gave it all to everyone, and thought of himself last. I feel that in our generation it is all about "me, me, me, me!" And we forget to give. Give to those less fortunate, even if we don't have much or even if they do not appreciate it or whatnot. After all, Corrigan is right, God is in the smile of the poor and sadden , not in the screeching laughter of the wealthy. Some may say that Corrigan didn't yield the salvation of those prostitutes. Well first of all, that wasn't his goal and second he brought kindness into their lives. A light of hope in them, whether they liked to admit it or not, he changed them inside a little bit, and that's more than most than those who talk about going to a heaven have done. Yeah, they didn't stop being prostitutes, they didn't stop being addicted to heroin, but they experienced kindness and hope and felt human again, that should count for something in the whole getting-to-an-after-life thing.
Corrigan will definitely be a character that I will remember for the rest of my life. His kind heart and hopeless love overwhelms me. This
is a short story, but it is a short story that booms with a roaring voice. I definitely recommend everyone to read this short story, if not the whole short-story collection.
I'm excited to read the next story and see what I will gain from it, so yeah.
Au Revoir!
Serge
