书名：Let the Great World Spin转吧，这伟大的世界

作者：Colum McCann
出版社名称：Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
出版时间：2010
语种：英文
ISBN：9781408801185
商品尺寸：12.9 x 2.2 x 19.8 cm
包装：平装
页数：368

在一个夏末的晨光里，下曼哈顿的人们鸦雀无声地站着，难以置信地盯着世贸双子塔。这是1974年8月，一个神秘的走钢丝者在双塔之间，在离地四分之一英里处，跑着、舞着、跳着。在下面的街道上，芸芸众生的平凡日子，也为之不凡起来。

Let the Great World Spin《转吧，这伟大的世界》是美国小说家（兼爱尔兰籍）科伦·麦凯恩（Colum McCann）的作品，曾获得美国国家图书奖、都柏林国际文学奖。作者以其如椽之笔，将纽约城和纽约人，以人们未曾见过的方式，联系到了一起。

本书捕捉到了过渡时期的美国精神：非比寻常的希望；还有回首当中，那令人心碎的纯真。此书也唤醒了我们对于小说的认识，让我们看到小说可以达成怎样的成就，形成怎样的冲击，实现怎样的疗治。

媒体评论：
“多年来扣人心弦、深刻厚重的小说之一。《转吧，这伟大的世界》是一部感情充沛的力作。它是令人心碎的书，但并不令人沮丧。”——《纽约时报》

“现在我替科伦•麦凯恩担心了。写出这么一部鸿篇巨制、令人心碎、形同交响乐的大作之后，他怎么办？纽约没有哪个小说家在写作上如此高峰入云，却又这般深不见底。”——弗兰克•麦考特

“《转吧，这伟大的世界》中的每一个人物形象……都好像抓着你的喉咙，令你必须关注。麦凯恩踩着钢丝弹奏炫耳的复调音乐，获得了巨大的成功。”——爱玛•多诺霍

“如果一个作家的天职是想象成为‘他者’会如何，那科伦•麦凯恩就是我们当中的巨人——无畏，心怀宽广，时时刻刻都是个诗人。”——彼得•凯里

“居然让一个爱尔兰人，写出了一部关于纽约的伟大小说。《转吧，这伟大的世界》每一页都充满激情、幽默和纯粹的生命力，让你眼花缭乱，目眩神迷。”——戴夫•艾格斯

It's New York, August 1974: a man is walking in the sky. Between the newly built Twin Towers, the man twirls through the air. Far below, the lives of complete strangers spin towards each other: Corrigan, a radical Irish monk working in the Bronx; Claire, a delicate Upper East Side housewife reeling from the death of her son; Lara, a drug-addled young artist; Gloria, solid and proud despite decades of hardship; Tillie, a hooker who used to dream of a better life; and Jazzlyn, her beautiful daughter raised on promises that reach beyond the skyline of New York. In the shadow of one reckless and beautiful act, these disparate lives will collide, and be transformed for ever.

Review
“He is a fearless writer, experimenting with narrative styles, leaping from one story to the next”--Ruth Scurr, Daily Telegraph

“An exceptional performance by a writer whose originality and profound humanity is evident throughout this highly original and wondrous novel.”--Douglas Kennedy, Independent

“This is what a great work of fiction can be. A beautifully written novel, it is an audacious and heart-stopping feat of imagination.”--Liz Calder, Observer

“A wonderful book that puts its author right at the front rank of contemporary novelists”--Sam Mendes, Observer Books of the Year

Let the Great World Spin《转吧，这伟大的世界》的场景设在1974年8月某日的纽约曼哈顿。那是水门事件欺诈横行、越战美军死伤惨重的年代，也是世贸中心落成典礼的第二年。那天早晨街上行走的人们，惊奇地发现一位男子在世贸中心南北塔楼问的钢索上，行走蹦跳、悠游自得。通过巧妙的构思和多变的视角，小说又把目光从云层高空转向地面仰视的人群。作家用细腻、抒情的笔触，串连起十位社会底层普通百姓的生活画面，他们中有修士、妓女、护士、青年画家、酒吧侍者、早期计算机黑客、阵亡士兵的母亲等。他们心灵孤独，向往交流，寻求救赎。

这部小说既是一幅七十年代纽约社会的生活画卷，也可看做是预示今日美国现实的寓言佳作。

科伦·麦凯恩，1965年2月生于爱尔兰都柏林，后移居美国。他的主要作品有《卓丽》、《舞者》、《这个国家的一切都必须》、《光明那面》、《歌犬》和《在斯卢·布莱克河上捕鱼》等。其中，《转吧，这伟大的世界》获得度美国国家图书奖。

Colum McCann,originally from Dublin, Ireland, is the author of five novels and two collections of stories. He has won numerous international literary awards, including the inaugural Ireland Fund of Monaco Princess Grace Memorial Award. His film Everything in This Country Must was nominated for a short-film Oscar in 2005. Zoli, Dancer and This Side of Brightness were international bestsellers and his fiction has been published in twenty-seven languages. He lives in New York.

THOSE WHO SAW HIM HUSLIID. On Church Street. Liberty. Cortlandt. West Street. Fulton. Vesey. It was a silence that heard itself, awful and beautiful. Some thought at first that it must have been a trick of the light, something to do with the weather, an accident of shadowfall. Others figured it might be the perfect city joke—stand around and point upward, until people gathered, tilted their heads, nodded, affirmed, until all were staring upward at nothing at all, like waiting for the end of aLenny Bruce gag. But the longer they watched, the surer they were. He stood at the very edge of the building, shaped dark against the gray of the morning. A window washer maybe. Or a construction worker. Or a jumper.

Up there, at the height of a hundred and ten stories, utterly still, a dark toy against the doudy sky.
He could only be seen at certain angles so that the watchers had to pause at street corners, find a gap between buildings, or meander from the shadows to get a view unobstructed by cornicework, gargoyles, balustrades, roof edges. None of them had yet made sense of the line strung at his feet from one tower to the other. Rather, it was the man- shape that held them there, their necks craned, torn between the promise of doom and the disappointment of the ordinary.
It was the dilemma of the watchers: they didn’t want to wait around for nothing at all, some idiot standing on the precipice of the towers, but they didn’t want to miss the moment either,if heslipped, or got arrested, or dove, arms stretched.
Around the watchers, the city still made its everyday noises. Car horns. Garbage trucks. Ferry whistles. The thrum of the subway. The M22 bus pulled in against the sidewalk, braked, sighed down into a pot-hole. A flying chocolate wrapper touched against a fire hydrant. Taxi doors slammed. Bits of trash sparred in the darkest reaches of the alley ways. Sneakers found their sweetspots. The leather of briefcases rubbed against trouserlegs. A few umbrella tips clinked against the pavement. Revolving doors pushed quarters of conversation out into the street.
But the watchers could have taken all the sounds and smashed them down into a single noise and still they wouldn' t have heard much at all: even when they cursed, it was done quietly, reverently.
They found themselves in small groups together beside the traffic lights on the corner of Church and Dey, gathered under the awning of Sam's barbershop; in the doorway of Charlie's Audio; a tight little theater of men and women against the railings of St Pauls Chapel; elbowing for space at the windows of the Woolworth Building. Lawyers. Elevator operators. Doctors. Cleaners. Prep chefs. Diamond merchants. Fish sellers. Sad-jeaned whores. All of them reassured by the presence of one another. Stenographers. Traders. Deliveryboys. Sandwichboard men. Cardsharks.Con Ed. Ma Bell. Wall Street. A locksmith in his van on the corner of Dey and Broadway. A bike messenger lounging against a lamppost on West. A red-faced rummy out looking for an early-morning pour. From the Staten Island Ferry they glimpsed him. From the meat packing warehouses on the West Side. From the new high-rises in Batery Park. From the breakfast carts down on Broadway. From the plaza below. From the towers themselves.