It’s not every day you read a book review like this one;
On my first read, I stayed up through an entire night, finished the whole 768-page novel and wept for a full 15 minutes, then turned back to page one and started again. I personally bought, oh, maybe 50 copies of the book and gave them away to friends, pressing it upon them with the fervor of a mad evangelist. I try to read the book once a year, as a reality check and a spiritual bracer. I made two trips from California to interview Helprin in his New York home, trying my damnedest to understand the mind where this colossal, towering work of the imagination originated.
Until now, though, I’ve never written about Winter’s Tale, out of abject fear. I was unsure that I could do the book justice, as was critic Benjamin DeMott in the New York Times Book Review, who wrote, “I find myself nervous, to a degree I don’t recall in my past as a reviewer, about failing the work, inadequately displaying its brilliance.”
I picked up a paperback version of WT in a resort gift shop many years ago. My experience was very similar – I read it virtually from beginning to end, and for the next two days, walked about in a dream state.
It’s difficult to explain what Winter’s Tale is about – the review goes a long way in capturing its essence, though, so read the whole thing.
A word of warning to aspiring fiction writers – Helprin at his best, as in Winter’s Tale (and in equal measure, Soldier of the Great War) can be a deeply demoralizing experience. Or as someone I know put it, after reading Soldier. “I don’t know how I can go back to reading other authors after this.”
Thanks for posting this. I have an interview with Mark Helprin saved on my favorites list which I go back to and reread whenever I feel the need to hear a voice from the wilderness.
http://www.affdoublethink.com/archives/2006/07/26/interview_mark.php
On being a conservative in the literary world:
“But I was aware of this 25 years ago, or more, I knew the process, and I had to make a decision. Do I shut up or do I simply act as if it weren’t that way? And I thought that I could never live with myself if I shut up. I know plenty of people who I wouldn’t ever give away who are actually conservatives but who live in deathly fear, so they’re in the closet. It’s amazing. It’s really astounding. I say, “How can you survive?” They say, they don’t know.”
I’ll get a used copy from the local book exchange on your recommendation Kate…I like the fact that this is compared to CS Lewis..( a favorite author) and I just love a well crafted “tale”…but the idea of magic flying horses and cloudlands kinda puts me off…but we shall see, thanks for the tip… I can’t understand how a novel this big got past my radar but sometimes life gets in the way of my reading pursuits.
Thanks Kate.
Any book that can induce humility in a critic needs to be read. The clincher is the reviewer’s comment:
“It contains no postmodern angst; existential irony; dissolute deconstructionism or tortured interior monologue.”
I’ll buy it, sight unseen.
And I assumed you only read the bible and ‘Elle’. Goodness gracious!
“I can’t understand how a novel this big got past my radar but sometimes life gets in the way of my reading pursuits.”
The answer lies probably somewhere in the great lexicon of the MSM Literati, succinctly encapsulated in the fundamental expression: “huh?“.
I was just thinking this morning that a useful addition to SDA would be a weekly book report so that erudite posters could discuss the various tomes they have been devouring. An inveterate bookworm myself I’m always interested in what others have been studying. As for “Winter’s Tale” I pretty well lost my appetite for fiction after reading “The Weather Makers”. A healthy dose of “State of Fear” was the preferred antidote. In any event, a bit of literary discourse would serve to discredit WK’s theory that all SDA posters are actually Nazi troglodytes conspiring to bring down his shining idea of civilization. Sieg heil everyone!
A schoolmate once questioned my reading and rereading of Richard Farina’s book, “Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me.” “Are you sure you’re reading it for the right reason?” he asked. I had no answer.
With “Winter’s Tale” I know why. It continues to lift me up so high, just as it did when I first read it 20 odd years ago. Mark Helprin has given us a gift of great value.
It is a book to be cherished.
“WK’s theory that all SDA posters are actually Nazi troglodytes”
I listen to Classical music (no, its not Wagner’s Ring Cycle) and study Latin and Greek. I’d love to compare WK’s literary and musical oeuvre to confirm what a lightweight he is.
“I was just thinking this morning that a useful addition to SDA would be a weekly book report so that erudite posters could discuss the various tomes they have been devouring.”
Against Civilization, by John Zerzan. Screw that Neolithic fiction crap.
Actually the book is extremely disappointing, and comical in its pathetic attempts by its authors to score chicks (“Hunter gatherer societies were egalitarian and devoid of organized violence blahblahblah”, etc.) at their subsequent public appearances and book tours, but the matter at the root of the discussion is fascinating.
Well, there you go, eh Dilettante? Learn something new every day.
Here’s another – I’ve never read the Bible.
And there crashes another much loved leftosphere assumption…
Read Kate’s link to a piece on Helprin a while back and was very impressed by his resolute individualism — how comfortable in his skin he seemed. I like his “I’m not shuutin’ up for anyone” — a motto very close to my heart.
I’m envious of people who can read a 768 page novel over night. I’d be lucky to read 150 pages. I read mostly in the morning over two mugsa coffee and most of my reads are multi-week.
Echoing WL Mackenzie Redux, surprised I didn’t know about this. Reminds me of a Robert Fulton piece a few years back referring to the three greatest novels of the century: Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past [check, 3 times] Joyce’s Ulysses [check 4-5 times], Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities [what?] which I bought in a boxed 2-volume hard cover set, read but, alas, with nearly zero comprehension vis a vis the overarching theme.
Mind you, your reach should exceed your grasp, eh?
Bible: Still haven’t read it, but all educated men [old meaning] should really read it to unlock a veritable goldmine of literary allusions.
Hey dilettante, just because one thinks that gay sex is against the laws of nature, or that unborn children should be given a chance at life, does not mean that the person is a bible thumping Christian. I rejected my Catholic upbringing over 30 years ago, and I am an avowed atheist. Yet I still think that most leftoid concepts are idiotic. Go figure.
Once again, the stereotyping bigotry of a moonbat has presented itself!
PATHETIC!
I just started reading “Soldier of the Great War” thanks to a previous recommendation on this site. Easily the finest piece of writing that I’ve encountered in many years… it can’t be praised highly enough. I know I’ll be searching out a copy of “Winter’s Tale” next. Thanks to SDA for turning me onto Helprin.
dilettante:
Kate may correct me on this, but as I recall, she’s publicly stated elsewhere that she is an atheist.
And as Me No Dhimmi has noted, regardless of your beliefs, an educated person includes someone who’s read the Bible. Without it, most English literature (and a great deal of Western philosophy and legal theory) makes very little sense indeed. When I was an undergrad in Uni, my English prof noted that there was an almost ironclad direct correlation between people who did really well in his class and people who were familiar with the Bible. They got the literary allusions — everybody else had to have them painstakingly explained to them.
Horse by J.Edward Chamberlin
only partway thru, but so far interesting.
“Anthem” by Ayn Rand
Highly recommended.
Book reviews? Readings? Assessing authors? What the hell is going on here? I thought we were the guys who burned the books.
Can’t we get back to big parades with torches and all that stuff?
And I wanna carry the flag.
Thanks, Kate, for putting that out there for us. Mark Helprin is a treasure. I remembered that he had a very interesting background – from wikipedia: he went to Harvard and Oxford, served in the British Merchant Navy and both the Israeli infantry and Air Force. I loved “A Soldier of the Great War.”
I discovered Martin Amis last year. “House of Meetings” and “Korba the Dread” are both small Stalin period masterpieces, the first fiction, the second not. The second book is a expose of Stalin’s crimes written so grippingly that even if you knew how bad it was from another source it’s still a shock. It’s also an expose of the elite literary and academic defenders of Communism including Christopher Hitchens.
Oh, and, dilettante, I’ve provided for you the 4 year undergraduate reading list for St. John’s College, the “Great Books” college in the US, fourth oldest college in America, whose liberal arts curriculum is considered one of the finest, it might change your perception on who reads the Bible, see if you can spot the Bible:
http://www.stjohnscollege.edu/academic/ANreadlist.shtml
a man must serve his time to every trade
save critics who come ready made
politically helprin is in the podhoretz mold
stylistically he’s in the bellow mold
thematically he can’t escape a folksy rabbinical mysticism
personally..when i wish to be elevated in an uncomplicated forthright manner i turn to robert conquest
Yay!, for buy with one click. Thanks for the lead. Got Winter’s Tale on Amazon for $3.29. You guys are the best.
“an almost unheard of ambitious reach..the rapid reduction of and communication of a personal metaphysic”
“his eye is precise and his spirit compassionate…we are rewarded with that astonishing catalyst, art”
“an aesthetic tension..the quivering polarities between passion and reason…that instantly signals the presence of ART!’
hmmmmm…sounds too good to be true…being promised something with more Omphalic Zing than the old testament ?…and of course it is….sorry…definitely not the stuff of a freshman englishlit course circa 2050.
and penny ?…forget about Amis fils…he ain’t fit to sharpen his dad’s pencils…..a more longwinded conceited elliptical havering wavering intellect hasn’t offended my sensibilities since …well….since ever really….one keeps turning the pages…hoping to be apprised of exactly WHAT this gnarly toothed twit truly believes…he has a penchant for making the reducible utterly and irredeemably abstruse and convoluted.
i’m convinced English is certainly NOT his first language.
Thanks, Kate. I too still read it every few years, and give it away to people. Having searched for similar works (A Soldier of the Great War is a massively beautiful love story), I have finally found someone whose work give me the willies like MH – Neal Stephenson! Read the Baroque Cycle first (Peter and Jack are similar characters), and then the Cryptonomicon.
Best,
Steve
john begley – what can I say, you are a tough guy to please.
john begley – if you’ve read all these great works of literature, how is it you’ve never learned to capitalize?
“regardless of your beliefs, an educated person includes someone who’s read the Bible”
Even Christopher Hitchens has made that point — about the importance of the Bible to English literature. So, even an agnostic has to have read it.
I’m not much of a fiction reader, but will read Winter’s Tale on your word and comment.
From the Democratic Underground:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=208×10806#10807
john begley – if you’ve read all these great works of literature, how is it you’ve never learned to capitalize?
kate mcmillan: ever read e.e. cummings?
Really hate to disagree with non-capitalized penny but I must concur with john begley on Martin Amis. I read his book written backwards (Times Arrow), and also the dreary and pointless London Fields. Maybe not fair to judge on just two books. But I’m probably biographically biased too having seen him interviewed a few interviews: a pretentious shit I thought.
Oh, I’ve tried reading the Bible several times. Couldn’t stay with it.