Thirteen Ways of Looking: A Novella and Three Stories

"Thirteen Ways of Looking" (I listened to the audio CD, narrated brilliantly by McCann) is right up there with "Let the Great World Spin" and "Transatlantic." It’s smaller, in some ways. It doesn’t have that big sweep. It inhabits moments, exhilarates in tidbits. "Thirteen Ways of Looking" is the title story (a novella) and three short stories, “What Time Is It Now, Where You Are?,” “Sh’kol,” and “Treaty.”In the title story, McCann fractures a fairly straightforward detective yarn—the murder of a prominent judge on a New York City street—into pieces.We don't know this will be a crime story; not at the outset. First, we meet the victim and realize a bit about what he's been through, though there is much more to come. McCann slows the moment down. He freezes it, lets it thaw, freezes it again. We are introduced to the judge and his routines, his past and his accomplishments. We get to know the judge and then we learn he’s, in fact, dead and that this is a crime fiction of a sort. And while we learn more about him, he reflects on the many times he was “born” and thinks about the many times his life started or started over.We follow detectives as they review, peruse, study, rewind through video from various camera angles—webcams, security cameras, etc.—that captured the murder and McCann comes right out and says the detective work is like the work of a poetry. “The detectives scrub through the footage from the previous days too, in case they can find something in the pattern of time that will propel them toward a critical epiphany, a mid-verse logic. A meter. An emjambment. Or a rhyme.”The detectives watch the world at fast speed and slow speed, McCann zooms in and out. The effect is kaleidoscopic (a McCann trademark?), powerful. The detectives are looking for the smallest detail, the bit that will crack the case. “They play it again in their minds, in light of everything they already know. It is their hope that each moment, when ground down and sifted through, examined and prodded, read and re-read, will yield a little more of the killer and the world he, or she, has created. They go forward metrically, and then break time again. They return, judge, reconfigure. They weigh it up and take stock, sift through, over and over. The breakthrough is there somewhere in the rhythmic disjunctions, in the small resuscitations of language, in the fractured framework.”As Wallace Stevens did with his poem, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Blackbird,” McCann wants us to see what we don’t ordinarily see. We need to stop. We need to look. We need to listen. (And maybe realize we’re being watched? All the time?) McCann narration is ultra-omniscient, telling us the story from 30,000 feet up at first and then swooping down to the street view, inside restaurants and back halls where we don’t always go. The narration is the camera. It captures various angles and attacks on the story. It’s cold and indifferent, matter of fact. There is truth here somewhere, in the amalgamation of all the information. If only somebody will stop and take a look, take time to piece it together. There is truth, that is, but maybe no firm answers. I’ve never quite read a story that stayed in one place for so long, dwelled on one moment and yet managed to keep you wondering. And I’m not even touching on the themes or randomness, immigration, family and class.In “What Time Is It Now, Where You Are?” McCann writes a short story while thinking about writing a short story. Well, we watch it come together. (This reminded me of Ron Carlson’s "Ron Carlson Writes A Short Story." Highly recommended if you want to “watch” a short story come together.) The themes here echo the title story—loss, family, distance, time.“Sh’kol” is my favorite among these, an increasingly tense and harrowing story of a translator, a single mother named Rebecca, who is raising her son in a remote Irish village. The son was adopted from Russia when he was six and is now 13. He’s deaf. The story opens on a Christmas morning. She has given her son his first wetsuit and the next day, he goes out for a swim alone. “Sh’kol” has already won a Pushcart Prize and has been included in the just-released collection of short stories edited by T.C. Boyle. Pure terror on the page, but McCann never stoops to cheap sentiment or cliché.“Treaty” rounds out this collection and it’s another gem, a nun contemplating revenge over her torture and rape 37 years ago when she suddenly realizes, thanks to a news report, that her tormentor is alive—and masquerading as somebody else.McCann’s prose is seductive, smooth and supple. The stories inter-relate in a host of ways, including leaps of time and distance and underlying issues with family. In “What Time Is It Now…” he makes it clear he’s making this up as he goes along. In his author note in the book and in interviews about "Thirteen Ways" he has described out how this volume was inspired by an incident when he was attacked as he tried to help the victim of an assault in New Haven, Connecticut. At the time, he was writing a novella about a man who gets randomly punched in the chest.Art and life, closely intertwined. For a guide to these connections, it doesn’t get much better.

I really like Colum McCann's writing and found his previous novels to be structured around a series of connected stories, any of which could be short stories on their own. 'Thirteen Ways of Looking' is a short story collection. I particularly enjoyed the title novella and its multiple reveals, as well as the central character's capacity for love, humanity and compassion, while some of his (well-filtered) thoughts were brutal. Each of the stories had a sinister (or foreboding) undertone - I like 'sinister' provided there is an outcome, which is this collection, there is. However, what I most enjoy about McCann's work is his writing - it's fresh and fluid, occasionally ambiguous, and always moving.

I haven’t read a short fiction collection in a while. I am glad I read McCann’s selection, so well crafted: the writing tight and visceral, the tactile vice of tension, painting authentic characters, framing the motivations of action that make the stories meaningful and memorable. McCann writes carefully, selects his words like a poet, so these stories sound like prose poems. There is clear architectural planning and confident writing. We read masterworks.

The authors keen powers of observation of casual details and human emotion, and his ability to weave his insights intoa set of narratives that will draw you into their world and sooner or later touch you deeply is almost spooky. Anyone whohas lived life can not help but recognize something of themselves in the characters he creates. This is one of those rareand delightful works that transport you to other places and times (but in this case, with always a common thread) andleaves you yearning for more.

It is as series of short stories. I had tried to read this many times, but finally on a trip go through the first chapter for the first time. I struggled with voice, the character, an older ailing man not in the best of physical form and facing death, although not exactly how he believed. Anyway, once I got through that, the story just elevates to this level of insight into the human condition and an objectivity that can only come with old age. I loved this story and wished it were the entire book. The second story, I remember enjoying but not the details. The rest was forgettable. It was worth the price just for the one story.

Four short stores by this acclaimed Irish-American author. The first & longest story, for which the book is named, is a novella that follows a retired NYC judge on the last day of his life. A character study, poignant, funny at times, it covers many themes and is also a who-dun-it mystery. Sometimes a sentence was so beautiful, I had to shut the book to catch my breath. New author to me but I will read more of his works. Highly recommend.

This was my first exposure to Colum McCann's writing. I will definitely be reading more of this young writer's work. His writing brings to mind Saul Bellow, one of my favorite American writers: complex stories, with lots of the story occurring in the protagonist's mind. Multi-dimensional characters who provide us with rich perceptions of the world. Perspectives we would not imagine ourselves, without the help of a writer such as Colum McCann.

It's a fairly frequent occurrence that I find a book that has so much going on that future rereadings will continue to reveal. It's not so frequent that you find an author you simply must follow. I look forward to reading his prize-winning novel and his collections. Top notch.

Column McCann has become one more predictable, manipulated, artificial New Yorker concerned more with his swagger than his soul. What happened to his Irish legacy...the gift of storytelling without calculated device....I worry a bit for his students at Hunter.

Absolutely loved these short stories.

I did not enjoy this

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant! A novel that leaves you rewarded for picking it up.This is the first time I have read this author's work. Rarely do I experience such excellent prose for the entire duration. The writing is a perfect example of : "economy of language", "complex yet simple", "elegant prose".This book is the reason I read. In fact, it is also the reason I, myself, write. His pacing of the reader is genius.I found this book inspiring, stirring, rousing, stimulating and much much more.And a few more things: sensitive, beautiful, soul-shattering, poignant and disturbing.Loved it.Sergiu Pobereznic (author)

I can’t remember the last time I read a book and longed to return to the beginning in other to study it from a scholarly perspective. What can I say? Brilliant writing.