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In a dazzlingly original work of nonfiction, the award-winning novelist Colson Whitehead re-creates the exuberance, the chaos, the promise, and the heartbreak of New York. Here is a literary love song that will entrance anyone who has lived in-or spent time-in the greatest of American cities. A masterful evocation of the city that never sleeps, The Colossus of New York captures the city's inner and outer landscapes in a series of vignettes, meditations, and personal memories. Colson Whitehead conveys with almost uncanny immediacy the feelings and thoughts of longtime residents and of newcomers who dream of making it their home; of those who have conquered its challenges; and of those who struggle against its cruelties. Whitehead's style is as multilayered and multifarious as New York itself: Switching from third person, to first person, to second person, he weaves individual voices into a jazzy musical composition that perfectly reflects the way we experience the city. There is a funny, knowing riff on what it feels like to arrive in New York for the first time; a lyrical meditation on how the city is transformed by an unexpected rain shower; and a wry look at the ferocious battle that is commuting. The plaintive notes of the lonely and dispossessed resound in one passage, while another captures those magical moments when the city seems to be talking directly to you, inviting you to become one with its rhythms.… (more)
User reviews
A must read for anyone who loves NYC and even for those who don't. You will feel the heartbeat of the city in his lovely prose.
The City, the first essay, serves as an introduction. It is so New York! And yet it could be my own city, where I have lived the longest.
Rain in which the challenges of dealing with rain may be more urgent without a car in the big city; nevertheless they are universal.
Broadway, Is metaphor for the city: hopes and disappointments; brilliance and decadence; beauty and squalor. And both exciting and boring.
Times Square that iconic place. Is that an angel up there; or, is it a 40 foot can of soda? What time is it in Tokyo - oh, there it is. See the ticker tape of the world! Kitschy glitz capital of the world!
Declarative sentences and sentence fragments make up the rhythm of this book of essays, which eventually got too much for me, like eating candy. Otherwise, it is 3.5/5