Jaslyn and Lara

I was wondering, toward the end when Jaslyn visits Ireland, how she feels about Lara. Did anyone else wonder about that?

The Coyote

Okay, for anyone who finished the book, anyone have any ideas of the symbolism of the coyote who appears in traffic towards the end?

Let the Great World Spin--Thumbs Up; Thumbs Down?

Did you like the book? If so, why? If not, why not?

Let the Great World Spin--Opening Quote

The author opens the book with a quote: “All the lives we could live, all the people we will never know, never will be, they are everywhere. That is what the world is.” How is this quote significant to the story? Why do you think the author chose it? (BTW, if you've never read The Lazarus Project, I highly recommend it.)

Let the Great World Spin--Time

We skip forward and backward through time as we move from chapter to chapter. And yet, the passage of time and its effect on the characters is an important theme in the book. We experience Tillie's life in its entirety but only a few minutes of Sam's life. How does the author use time as a narrative device? Is life just a series of moments frozen in time that we can revisit, like Adelita and her memories of Corrigan? Or, is it an unstoppable force, forever marching forward, like Jaslyn describes in the final chapter: “We stumble on, thinks Jaslyn, bring a little noise into the silence, find in others the ongoing of ourselves. It is almost enough. … The world spins. We stumble on. It is enough” (p. 349)?

Let the Great World Spin--Setting

New York City plays a central role in the story. As Judge Soderberg describes it: “... it was a city uninterested in its history. Strange things occurred precisely because there was no necessary regard for the past. The city lived in a sort of everyday present. … No, the city couldn't care less about where it stood. He had seen a T-shirt once that said: New York Fuckin' City. As if it were the only place that ever existed and the only one that ever would” (p. 247). Could the book have been set in any other city? Why did the author choose New York? Do you think the author's own perspective as an outsider influenced the way he portrayed the City?

Let the Great World Spin--Characters

The book was filled with a diverse cast of characters with very different experiences, motivations, etc. Do you think there was one central character who stood out from the rest? How did the characters' experiences of New York differ based on whether they were from somewhere else or from the City itself? The tightrope walker is the only character in the book never given a name—is this significant? Is he symbolic of something greater than himself?

Let the Great World Spin--Themes

The book featured several recurring themes—e.g. passage of time, interconnectedness of people's lives, outsider vs. insider perspective, death and its impact on the living, belonging, etc. Was there one central theme that seemed to be carried throughout? Was there a moral to the story? Did the author have a message he was trying to convey or was he simply capturing moments in time?