Winter's Tale

I don't think I've ever come across a book that has such an abundance of characters and an incredible amount of details. The author remains committed to the very end, providing meticulous descriptions of everything. Just as the title implies, this isn't merely a story; it's a captivating tale that compels you to expand your imagination. I read this book in anticipation of seeing the movie, but I can't envision any way that Hollywood could do justice to either this book or its author. I will admit that it was an enjoyable read. However, if you're not a patient reader, you might find yourself shouting "get on with it" at certain points. At times, it somewhat reminded me of the book American Gods, but overall, it's a highly original work of fantasy.

I've got little chance of meeting my reading challenge this year.

The reason is that I keep reading books that are extremely thick.

This particular one runs to almost 750 pages.

On the back cover, someone describes it as a gifted writer's love affair with language.

Maybe that's a polite way of saying it's a very self-indulgent novel.

Essentially, it's a writer with abundant vitality and mental agility having a great time.

I won't even try to outline the plot because, at best, I only understood it half.

It's an alternative history of New York full of whimsy, like flying horses and psychopathic dwarfs in fancy dress, and rather half-baked philosophy.

But despite all that, it is enjoyable.

Mainly because Helprin writes so well.

You can always clearly see, hear, and smell what he describes.

The visuals are often amazing with many memorable images.

However, it's perhaps a novel of brilliant setpieces rather than one with a compelling narrative drive and consistency.

This is partly due to the excessive number of characters, none of whom are truly riveting.

At times, Helprin reminds me of David Mitchell, with his mischief and vitality, though the former's humour is not as sophisticated.

The novel contains quite a few gratuitous comic sketches, few of which really appealed to me.

I'd rate it at about 3.7 stars.

I read Mark Helprin’s A Soldier of the Great War a couple decades ago and was truly enamored. His descriptive skills left me in awe, and that's why I purchased Winter’s Tale last winter. However, its hefty size and my own buyer's remorse initially kept it gathering dust on the shelf. I was also hesitant, with some vague misgivings. I kept reaching for other books instead. But as winter approached again, I thought, if the story didn't hook me by page 100, I'd abandon it without a second thought.

Thankfully, from the very beginning, I was immediately reassured. The description was not only detailed but also sublime. Another reviewer had mocked Helprin's writing as overblown, but I didn't feel that way at all. He crafts sentences that often span several lines, yet they effortlessly combine to form a single powerful image. He weaves together a series of amazing sensations - tastes, sights, sounds, smells - and unites them organically at the end of the sentence or paragraph, without requiring excessive intellectual effort from the reader. His similes are like works of art, and I was often amazed. What's more important is that they never or very rarely detract from the story.

I can't emphasize enough how much I praise his simile-writing. Have you ever been annoyed by an author who inserts too many similes? Well, Helprin's prose is filled with them, yet they are all beautiful and never jarring. For example, "Mrs. Gamely and Virginia could hear a ferocious jingling as billions of ice fragments shuffled together on the swells, sounding like the lost souls of all the insects that had ever lived." Or "The air was springlike. It conveyed the same buoyant pleasure as walking into a gathering of little children, arrayed like wildflowers, in their colorful hats and scarves." These similes add depth and beauty to the story.

Before reaching page 100, I started thinking about a recently read YA novel, Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor. Helprin's writing in Winter’s Tale reminded me that my criticisms of Daughter of Smoke & Bone weren't necessarily about flaws. I had taken issue with how Taylor structured part of her novel, with a large section being a flashback. But Helprin also uses long flashbacks, and they work. I cared about what was happening even in the past; I was completely immersed. Also, like in Daughter of Smoke & Bone, characters in Winter’s Tale fall in love at first sight, and Helprin makes it believable. Maybe it's because of his amazing description, which not only describes but also builds a world, creates myths, and tells a historical story.

Published in 1983, Winter’s Tale foreshadows Neil Gaiman in at least one way: the treatment of setting. In Neverwhere, Gaiman's London has a shadow London. Winter’s Tale doesn't have that, but its New York City is not our New York City, either now or in the past. At first, this disappointed me, but I eventually accepted it. If you're looking to inhabit New York City through a book, don't read Winter’s Tale. There is magic in Helprin's New York, but it's not the same as the real New York. Later in the book, though, it does seem to get closer to a paradoxical representation of reality.

A horse embodies some of Helprin's magic (along with a cloud front). Since I'm not familiar with horses or cloud fronts, it didn't work for me entirely, but I did come to accept it. Like the horse, other elements of the story didn't click for me right away, especially at the beginning, but enough did. We start with Peter Lake, a thief being pursued. We learn why, and the story digresses to tell us about his upbringing and background, as well as that of Pearly Soames, who wants him dead. There is plenty of excitement and suspense in Helprin's beautiful, knowledgeable description and world-building. It felt long, but I was eager to turn the pages most of the time.

When I reached page 200, I thought the book was all about Peter Lake. But I was wrong. With over 500 pages left, other characters (and time periods) emerged. A single mother from the countryside comes to the big city, and a son of fortune goes it alone. He meets the single mom's mother and offers to help her. Their stories connect to the first one, with Peter Lake. Then even more characters are introduced, and the connections multiply. It's not dizzying or confusing, though some characters get more attention than others. Peter Lake even returns after 200 pages. This is what long novels, epic novels, do, I guess. They interest literary novelists. In a way, Winter’s Tale is a precursor to some of David Mitchell's work, except Helprin's style remains consistent as the narrative moves through various characters and their interconnections over a century or so, mainly in New York City. He shares Mitchell's interest in tying disparate bits and pieces together, but what ties them all together isn't obvious to me. That's why some may describe the book as plotless or unfocused. At first, Helprin's bits and pieces seem less incongruous than Mitchell's, but they're just as puzzling. Ultimately, I enjoyed what I got out of it, but I'm too lazy to be the ambitious reader Helprin might envision, even though I'm interested in many of his themes, like time. Maybe the presentation or structure just didn't work for me in the end.

Given that Mark Helprin was a speech writer for Bob Dole and is a conservative commentator, I was surprised that his vision in Winter’s Tale didn't bother me, especially since I was on the lookout! Benjamin Nugent noted in an article in N+1 Magazine that Helprin may be one of the only Republicans who writes literary novels. He claims that Winter’s Tale reflects Helprin's conservative politics and even calls it a "lyrical, extensively researched, occasionally polemical Republican epic." I didn't really notice this at first, but after reading Nugent's article, I started looking for evidence. What I found was mostly mild and circumstantial, like the fierce independence of some country folk who rescue stranded train passengers and provide for them in a harsh winter. I suppose this could be seen as an example of the "true" giving spirit that exists in independent, hard-working communities, as opposed to the "needless" largess of government "handouts." But if this was Helprin's intention, it wasn't heavy-handed. There are also a few too many self-made, wealthy men in the book whose talents and hard work always pay off, no matter how tough the start. These men are also generous to others and appreciate society. This could be construed as evidence of a "polemical Republican epic," but many novels have characters who are luckier than the rest of us, so I didn't find it overly preachy. However, this passage from late in the novel did sound like an excuse to do nothing when injustice is rising: "We learn that justice may not always follow a just act, that justice can sleep for years and awaken when it is least expected, that a miracle is nothing more than dormant justice from another time arriving to compensate those it has cruelly abandoned. Whoever knows this is willing to suffer, for he knows that nothing is in vain."

In general, I think Helprin's respect for the poor and downtrodden in Winter’s Tale is genuine. His enthusiasm and respect for all of humanity, for nature, for the future and the past, are clear. This is at odds with the shrill lunacy of his political party, especially when it comes to issues like climate change. If more Republicans had the patience to write literary fiction, the necessary contemplation might lead to more substantial ideas and political platforms. That would be a good thing for all of us. Maybe the political discourse in the US would become more rational and hopeful. So I urge all writing teachers to encourage any young Republican writers in their classrooms. Mark Helprin must be very lonely indeed.

Although Winter's Tale is among a small shelf of novels I hold dear, I have never "reviewed" it. This first review stems from my fourth reading, which I initiated as a necessary preparation before seeing the movie. Despite having a hard-earned awareness of the diversity of taste and affection, I'm always surprised when I come across people who don't like the book. Many dismissals are of a peculiar knee-jerk variety, such as "Helprin as a novelist sucks because his politics are different from mine." The idea that a talented novelist must share the reader's politics and worldview is a parochial and closeted phenomenon that's deeply disturbing in a literate society. (I've always wanted to fund a study that would take groups of undergraduate English and Political Science students, none of whom have read any Helprin novel, have them read one and then write an essay explaining with examples the politics of the author. However, I digress.)

Not all criticism is so asinine. I've read reviews that take issue with language, pacing, characterization, and plot. These are fairly made, and even if I'm not swayed by them, I can appreciate them as at least originating from reasoned reflection.

Why have the joys of Winter's Tale only increased in my estimation? I find some measure of understanding in something Robertson Davies once said in a discussion of Thackeray's Vanity Fair: "The great sin... is to assume that something that has been read once has been read forever." Each time I've read Winter's Tale, it has revealed a deeper and, dare I say it, more profound novel. Now, I'm sure that some talented youth could possibly read and understand Winter's Tale in an intelligent manner, but even that would be merely an intelligent analysis not tempered with experience, which is, I think, Robertson Davies' point.

Winter's Tale, read in the full bloom of youth, is an exhilarating experience. The senses are filled with images, language, and emotion. That's part of the pure brilliance of Helprin's art. Although I didn't first read it in the bloom of youth, as Davies warns, I gobbled it up. When I read the book again, it was another gobble, then a third time, which was slower and a richer experience. Yet, the 2014 reading was a completely different experience from 2005. I read slowly, occasionally out loud, clipped quotes, and made notes. This time, it became a radically enhanced book, fuller and revealing a plan and a theme that my gobbling had obscured.

What's diverting about Winter's Tale is the great set pieces of description. The book is in four parts with a prologue and an epilogue. Unlike many modern novels, both the parts and the chapters are titled. We begin with the story of Peter Lake, Beverly Penn, the Short Tails, and the Lake of the Coheeries, then jump through time to the end of the twentieth century and Virginia Gamely's journey downriver to and over the wall of ice. This is followed by Hardesty Marratta and his cross-continental journey. Finally, the first half of the book concludes with the story of Asbury Gunwillow and Christiana Friebourg. Now everyone is together in the city, and the final section, A Golden Age, can begin.

At this point in the novel, it's probably impossible for the first reader to guess where the story will take us. Everything is connected, and the last part of the novel weaves these disparate strands of character together. What's hard for us common readers is to hold that complexity of character and theme together in a coherent whole. I imagine Helprin as a kind of cosmic juggler, keeping all the complexities of the novel aloft. I've discovered that, like many other readers, I initially misunderstood the conclusion and thought it was a tacked-on ending. I know now that nothing could be further from the truth. The ending weaves together threads that are both gossamer fine and thick and sturdy, affirming the theme of the entire book. To detail more would ruin the magic of discovery for new readers. So, in conclusion, let me end with one quote that sums up the aim and aspirations of the novel: "All rivers run full to the sea; those who are apart are brought together; the lost ones are redeemed; the dead come back to life; the perfectly blue days that have begun and ended in golden dimness continue, immobile and accessible; and, when all is perceived in such a way as to obviate time, justice becomes apparent not as something that will be, but something that is.”

This book is truly amazing.

Sometimes when I award 5 stars to a book, it means that the book is outstanding. In this instance, the description "amazing" is entirely fitting. Another word that springs to mind is "astonishing". To me, a significant portion of this book is astonishingly beautiful, especially the ending.

At the same time, while reading this book, the thought repeatedly occurred to me that some readers would really not like or understand this book. Some readers would likely loathe it. Some readers who typically enjoy many of the same books as I do would really dislike this book. And this wouldn't make me think any less of them as readers. This wouldn't be the case with a book like Pride and Prejudice. P & P is a sort of litmus test book. If a fellow reader doesn't like P & P, I'll probably raise my eyebrows and shake my head. (Yes, I am that kind of a book snob.) However, I have no difficulty imagining a kindred reader not appreciating Winter's Tale.

If any of the following are problematic or maddening to you, don't expect to enjoy this book:

Magical realism – this book is filled with an interesting, strange blend of the actual and the impossible. It is full of the absurd. Here is just one very short example: “She had even enclosed in the letter itself a very thin and very delicious cherry pie.” (pg. 419).…What?!?...but I couldn't help but smile.

Length and meandering plot – this book is long. And the plot is a bit meandering. If you read the back of the book, you may be anticipating one story. You will get this story for the first 200 pages or so. And then the story will change. The main characters will disappear. It will be a while before they return. You will wonder how in the world it will all come together in the end. But it does come together, not in some perfect, neatly tied-up way, but in an open-ended yet still wonderfully satisfying way.

Symbolism – this book is chock-full of symbols. I'm still puzzling over them. Honestly, the symbolism often seemed beyond my comprehension – and I really liked that.

On the other hand, I do think most readers of literary fiction will appreciate Helprin's prose. He writes beautifully. He creates lovely images with his words. His vision of a partly real, partly mythical New York City and the surrounding area is very vivid and very strange. I would love to visit the New York City of Winter's Tale.

I just glanced through the reviews of Winter's Tale to get a sense of how it earned its 3.87 star overall rating. Yes, there are some threes and fours, but there are also many fives and many ones. I think this is a love-it-or-hate-it kind of book. I'm in the love camp.

A beautifully written book that goes nowhere.

I finally gave up on this at the halfway point. I never quit on a book, and I'm afraid I have to blame GoodReads for giving up on this one - since I found GR I have more books than I can handle on my list!

The story centres on a number of characters in New York City, in the first half of the twentieth century. But of course it's not quite New York as we know it. One character, Hardesty Marratta, is guided to New York in his search for a perfectly just city. Well, neither the New York that we know, or the one of Winter's Tale, is a "just city". Nowhere in the first half of the book do we get even a suggestion of how it's going to become one (though at least two characters seem to have had visions of it). In fact, it's stated more than once that the poor and the downtrodden are serving a higher purpose. Yuk.

After page 349, I gave up and skipped to the epilogue. I guess they find it, but I no longer care. Having read, and loved, Memoir from Antproof Case, I was totally disappointed by this - even though the fantastic, magical/realist nature of this tale is far more to my usual taste in reading. I can only hope that the fact that this book was written 13 years earlier than Antproof Case means that it failed only because he needed more practice.

Maybe if I had continued reading, I would have found some redeeming qualities. But as it stands, I'm left with a sense of disappointment. The writing is beautiful, but the story just doesn't seem to go anywhere. It's a shame, really, because I had such high hopes for this book.

I think I'll stick to reading Memoir from Antproof Case in the future. It's a much better book, in my opinion. At least it has a clear plot and characters that I can really care about.

Overall, I would not recommend Winter's Tale to anyone. It's just not worth the time and effort. There are far better books out there waiting to be read.

This is undoubtedly the best book I've ever had the pleasure of reading.

For those who have a genuine appreciation for the beauty and power of language, they would find themselves completely captivated by this book within the first ten pages.

Despite its profound depth and incisive commentary on the complex human drama, it is, without a doubt, the most exquisitely beautiful love story ever penned.

Helprin leads us on an extraordinary journey through New York in a truly fantastic manner.

Once, it feels as if we are transported to the early 1900s, and again, we find ourselves in a more modern Manhattan, yet both places exist in a completely different dimension, where the realm of possibility knows no bounds.

This is not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill love story; rather, it is more like a vivid painting that showcases the limitless capabilities of the human imagination.

There are certain pages in this book that I would read over and over again, each time delving deeper into the nuances of the language and gaining a more profound understanding of the art of writing.

His mastery of the English language is that of a contemporary genius, yet it is not so far removed from the mainstream as to be overly high-brow.

Helprin writes from the heart, and with each word, there is a palpable breath and a steady beat that never strays from its rhythm.

I must, however, disclaim that this is a rather substantial book, and the middle section does experience a slight slowdown, especially in the "The Sun and The Ghost" chapter.

But think of it as the calm before the storm, a necessary pause that heightens the anticipation and drama that follows.

I simply cannot endure this book.

I read it way back in the late 1980s and vividly recalled disliking it. Now, I'm re-reading it for my book club. I'm only at 16% and I'm seriously questioning if I'm going to bother persevering all the way through.

My mind has been completely rejuvenated regarding the reasons why I disliked it so intensely.

I think I'm going to reduce my rating from two stars to just one star.

I have a hunch that my dislike has mellowed over the years, along with my fading memory of the details.

Incidentally, this aversion is, so far, actually unrelated to Helprin's politics. I just don't have an appreciation for the way he writes.

The author clearly believes he is extremely witty and that his cartoonish fable version of New York is simply astonishing.

But as I'm reading it, I feel as if I'm listening to fingernails scraping on a chalkboard.

Update: I attempted to read a bit more of this today and subjected myself to yet more verbose, pseudo-profound whimsy.

I truly love my book club, and if I hadn't read this before, I would slog through it. But I have already read it and know it's not going to improve.

In conclusion, I will borrow a reference from Shakespeare, and one that is far more appropriate than Helprin's (it's a real stretch to compare this book to the play of the same title): "It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury Signifying nothing."