Staying in Place Traveling

A couple of days ago I finished Trans Atlantic by Colum McCann.  While reading it, the New 
York Times published two book reviews, one favorable, the other more cautious.  Where do I come down?

I think the first chapter soars stylistically and with humming literary tension as the first transatlantic flight from Nova Scotia to Ireland takes place in 1919.  McCann showcases his best turn of phrase and selection of the perfect word, two attributes that I find most often in the Irish, including TC Boyle.  This selection carries forward McCann's up in the air as a feat of human excellence, continuing the Petit and the Twin Towers adventure.   But adding more complication and interweaving of characters, McCann goes beyond people connected in NYC in As the Great World Turns to spanning generations as well as oceans.

You could almost get jet lag if you tried to count how often McCann moves his characters between the Old Sod and the New World.   I found myself inventorying how often I flew across the Pond ... four times.  First to Paris with a high school friend a few years out of college; next the vacation of a lifetime with my mother, three weeks in Switzerland, Austria and northern Italy, staying at only the best of hotels in Venice, Lucarno, et cetera; and then finally, the relevant trips back to Ireland, once before and once after I married my Orange husband.

While McCann uses the women across four generations to tie the book together, it is his chapters on men that I find more enticing.  The post World War II pilots for their adventures and the human side of George Mitchell who said in a role of anonymity throughout the cease fire negotiations so two extremes of human excellence, when the result is more memorable than the actor.

When McCann is at his best, his words soar like tightrope walkers and daredevil pilots.  On balance, Trans Atlantic is a tad too earthbound, even if that weight is peat