Let the Great World Spin is the rare kind of a novel which manages not to leave anyone indifferent. It depicts a life as it is with all its joys, pleasures, disappointments, hopes, tragedies and filth. The author fills the novel with a large number of different characters and that helps to show that all of us – rich, poor, good-looking or average-looking, kind-hearted or mean, gifted or without any talent at all – have our own ups and downs. This polyphonic novel tells us about a person, who lives on the edge, in the constantly busy society, in the world, where both horrible and wonderful things happen daily. Let the big world spin is also about insignificance. No matter what happens to us this big world we all live in, it will not stop, it will continue spinning.
Every person has his or her own idea about faith. Someone believes in God, someone hesitates and someone can’t even tolerate any kind of religion. This is clear. Regardless our understanding of faith, we would hardly argue with the fact that John A. Corrigan does have faith in God and does try to be a worthy person. He is a modern saint, the one who manages to bright light to places where it normally never reaches. Corrigan doesn’t hold prejudice against drunks, prostitutes and drug addicts. In spite of his numerous positive traits of character, he starts to seem to be more appealing as a character as soon as readers learn that he is not that flawless. Corrigan breaks his vow to live a lonely life and falls in love with a woman he can’t imagine his life without. This inner conflict makes him to be interesting for readers, no one needs those flawless knights without any fear and any flaw, for we, those who live in this modern society full of stresses and worries, need to know that we are not alone in that battle against themselves.
The novel alludes to Philipp Petit’s famous ropewalk between the two towers of the World Trade Center. Could anyone come up with a better idea to describe a life on the edge? Not simply Petit, but all characters of this novel live on the edge and keep going forward no matter what. If a rope stands for a life, then its end definitely stands for death. All of them have their own reasons to give up and lose lust for life. It is interesting to watch them struggle, it makes readers empathize with them and hope for a happy ending. This story also shows that destiny is quite tricky! Although New York is big enough for them to get lost in it, their paths intercross all the time. That is supposed to make us think about our own actions and their after-effect. One never knows how this or that decision of his/her might influence others. The lesson we, readers, can learn is that it is important to be a human being all the time, to be compassionate with feelings of others.
