Goodreads | Winter's Tale

Cristin rated it:

(review of isbn 0156031191)

08/19/08

bookshelves: fiction

Read in April, 2008

So what if Helprin's political views make me want to spew in the nearest barf receptacle? He created Peter Lake, and I don't care about much else.

This is an intense example of magical realism. At times, the reader must willingly suspend his or her disbelief until the very notion of disbelief is shot straight to hell. Still, it is about the journey Helprin takes us on--not the destination we anticipate at the beginning of the story.

Meet Peter Lake: a middle aged, exceedingly clever burg...more So what if Helprin's political views make me want to spew in the nearest barf receptacle? He created Peter Lake, and I don't care about much else.

This is an intense example of magical realism. At times, the reader must willingly suspend his or her disbelief until the very notion of disbelief is shot straight to hell. Still, it is about the journey Helprin takes us on--not the destination we anticipate at the beginning of the story.

Meet Peter Lake: a middle aged, exceedingly clever burglar who is brought into the world under extraordinary circumstances...the rest of his unimaginably incredible life is, in essence, comprised of one miracle after another, until your brain is dangerously close to bursting and your eyes are brimming at the mere thought of him. He's kind of a riot, and possesses an Irish (you'll come to find that while he's not an authentic Irishman, he owns the title for a reason) wit that is inexhaustible, though not overstated.

Peter falls madly in love with Beverly Penn, a beautiful, frail young woman who (despite her few years on Earth) displays the wisdom and sensitivity of someone five times her age...She's almost unearthly, and her love for Peter Lake is like an infinitely blazing star, or rather, a universe of infinitesimal blazing stars that are perpetually waltzing about to a piano...playing softly. Their love story, which is the focus of the first half of this beast of a book, will undoubtedly consume you, much like Life consumed Beverly Penn.

Throughout the majority of the book, Peter Lake is running from the relentless pursuits of the morally corrupt, vacuous band of thieves known as the Short Tails. Lead by the infamous, electric, Pearly Soames, the Short Tails will stop at nothing to end Peter Lake. Fortunately, Peter Lake has a sort of guardian angel in the form of Athansor, the white horse. I’ll save more explanation and mention only that many of the scenes that feature Athansor made me cry–not from sadness, but from appreciation for his sheer beauty.

The rest of the story is far too complex to attempt to explain. Helprin is certainly erudite, among other things...At times, I actually began to shake my head while reading, thinking: “Well, now this bastard is just showing off!” His prose is dense and lyrical, and at times it seems almost magical. How a person so stubbornly conservative can produce work like this is beyond me. Forgive me. I’m prejudiced against conservatives (although I was in a rather intense relationship with one at one time...opposites attract, I guess). I do not mean to suggest that conservatives can’t make first rate artists...or do I?

I just don’t understand how 748 pages of passion could come pouring out of Helprin like some crazy love lava...if the source is, well...So stuffy!

Still, I’m making assumptions, which always makes an ass of me. Here are some of my favorite excerpts from "Winter’s Tale" (aptly named after Shakespeare's play "The Winter's Tale", in which people disappear for long stretches of time and later reveal themselves to be bursting with life). I’ll let the words work their own magic, and quit blundering about with my own clumsy, ham-fisted words.

"There were small shrines and forgotten places that were for Peter Lake like the roadside altars of the Alps---an old doorway lost in shadow and peeling paint, a cemetery tucked between monstrous buildings (though a hundred thousand people might pass in a day, very likely not one turned his head to look in, or hesitated to read an inscription or a name), hidden gardens, house fronts, meaningful views down strangely crooked streets, places that seemed to harbor an invisible presence."

"It was something that he could understand only with the gifts that come of early morning--- one of those things, like a dream, that one cannot always piece together again to remember and feel in sunlight and day. And yet enough early risings and enough work of heart and memory will bring it, half alive, from unfamiliar depths, like a slowly panting fish, hauled on deck, with fading eyes that beg for the sea."

Pretty friggin' awesome, huh?...less

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Chak rated it:

(review of isbn 0156031191)

03/19/08

bookshelves: literary-snackers

Read in May, 2002

recommends it for: Marquez fans, readers in love with writing and not necessarily plot, those who love epic tales

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

There is no better book to curl up with on a cold, winter weekend. The writing is beautiful, poetic, magical, enveloping, transporting. The story is fragmented and surreal - magical realism at its best, but difficult to follow - at times comical and at times heartbreaking. The characters are engaging and many of them are lovable. If you loved 100 Years of Solitude, you will love this book. Just as with 100 Years of Solitude, I don't think I could tell you exactly what this book was about (N...more There is no better book to curl up with on a cold, winter weekend. The writing is beautiful, poetic, magical, enveloping, transporting. The story is fragmented and surreal - magical realism at its best, but difficult to follow - at times comical and at times heartbreaking. The characters are engaging and many of them are lovable. If you loved 100 Years of Solitude, you will love this book. Just as with 100 Years of Solitude, I don't think I could tell you exactly what this book was about (New York, through many ages, does play a significant role), but I certainly count Winter's Tale among a short list of my all-time favorites.

I love quotes from books, so here are a few of my favorites:

Talking to Beverly Penn about her belief in the stars and what they represent. Peter Lake tells her that he believes her.
p. 175 – “That’s only love,” Beverly answered. “You don’t have to believe me. It’s all right if you don’t. The beauty of the truth is that it need not be proclaimed or believed. It skips from soul to soul, changing form each time it touches, but it is what it is, I have seen it, and someday you will, too.”

Mr. Marratta, talking to his son, Hardesty about the values on the golden salver: Honesty, Courage, Sacrifice, Patience)
p. 246 – “Little men,” he once said, “spend their days in pursuit of such things. [wealth, fame and worldly possessions:] I know from experience that at the moment of their deaths they see their lives shattered before them like glass. I’ve seen them die. They fall away as if they have been pushed, and the expressions on their faces are those of the most unbelieving surprise. Not so, the man who knows the virtues and lives by them. The world goes this way and that. Ideas are in fashion or not, and those who should prevail are often defeated. But it doesn’t matter. The virtues remain uncorrupted and uncorruptible. They are rewards in themselves, the bulwarks with which we can protect our vision of beauty, and the strengths by which we may stand, unperturbed, in the storm that comes when seeking God.”

Beginning of the first chapter in book III – The Sun and The Ghost
p. 359 – Nothing is random, nor will anything ever be, whether a long strong of perfectly blue days that begin and end in golden dimness, the most seemingly chaotic political acts, the rise of the great city, the crystalline structure of a gem that has never seen the light, the distributions of furtune, what time the milkman gets up, the position of the electron, or the occurrence of one astonishingly frigid winter after another. Even electrons, supposedly the paragons of unpredictability, are tame and obsequious little creatures that rush around at the speed of light, going precisely where they are supposed to go. They make faint whistling sounds that when apprehended in varying combinations are as pleasant as the wind flying through a forest, and they do exactly as they are told. Of this, one can be certain.

p. 471 – To be mad is to feel with excruciating intensity the sadness and joy of a time which has not arrived or has already been. And to protect their delicate vision of that other time, madmen will jusify their condition with touching loyalty, and surround it with a thousand distractive schemes. These schemes, in turn, drive them deeper and deeper into the darkness and light (which is their mortification and their reward), and confront them with a choice. They may either slacken and fall back, accepting the relief of a rational view and the approval of others, or they may push on, and, by falling, arise. When and if by their unforgivable stubbornness they finally burst through to worlds upon worlds of motionless light, they are no longer called afflicted or insane. They are called saints.

...less

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Helena rated it:

(review of isbn 0156031191)

04/08/07

bookshelves: essentials

Read in July, 2002

recommends it for: any fans of heartbreakingly beautiful prose.

"Ulysses" is the most important book in my life. "Winter's Tale" is my favorite. If "Ulysses" is like that boyfriend/girlfriend with whom you're Totaly Fucking In Love, and with whom you constantly fight, and break up, and get back together, and cheat on or get cheated on by, and break up with again, and get back together with again, and sit in your car outside their house listening to Fall Out Boy and crying and about whom you talk incessantly to your friends about...more "Ulysses" is the most important book in my life. "Winter's Tale" is my favorite. If "Ulysses" is like that boyfriend/girlfriend with whom you're Totaly Fucking In Love, and with whom you constantly fight, and break up, and get back together, and cheat on or get cheated on by, and break up with again, and get back together with again, and sit in your car outside their house listening to Fall Out Boy and crying and about whom you talk incessantly to your friends about what an Impossible Heartless Pointless Slutty Asshole they are and then light up like a schoolchild on Christmas morning when you get a text message from them, then "Winter's Tale" is like the best friend who you kind of secretly want to marry one day.

"Winter's Tale" is an 800 [give or take:] page metaphysical fairy tale about a fictionalized New York City. Its extremely historical and should appeal anyone who, like me, is a geek for anything about the history of Manhattan--particularly in the sections set amongst the gang wars in the five points neighborhood in the mid nineteenth century--and yet, at the same time, the universe in which the book dwells is just slightly removed from ours, a magic realist retelling of the history of New York [and, by extension, America:]. It follows an extraordinarily skilled grand larcenist named Peter Lake, who may or may not in fact be immortal, and through his experience, and the experience of an ever-widening web of those associated to him by degrees, builds a mythology of and for the city in which it is set.
The prose is dense and luxurious, as is the semi-dickensian plotline (There are at least 15 characters who could each support an entire book of their own. I guarantee you will fall in love with SOMEONE depicted in this novel). Unlike many modern authors, who seem to be operating on the assumption that the fewer words you use, the cooler you'll be, Helrpin writes phrases, sentences, and paragraphs like gourmet meals. There are moments in this book so good that they make the reader forget to breathe. It is one of the best literary adventures I've yet had.

Also, I used to own 5 copies of this book, and I currently known none. If you have my copy of "Winter's Tale," please return it, won't you?...less

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Bart rated it:

(review of isbn 0156031191)

07/08/08

Read in July, 2008

recommended to Bart by: Peggy Noonan
recommends it for: Anyone who thinks Pynchon and Tolstoy, mixed together, might be delicious

If it’s possible for a novel to establish its author as a good writer but a poor novelist, Winter’s Tale might be the book to do it. Helprin has great talent for description, good talent for language, remedial talent for storytelling and almost nothing that resembles perspective.

There’s a passage somewhere between pages 600 and 700 where Helprin goes hog wild in his description of the opening shot of a billiards game. The spheres are crashing and the green felt is cowering and...more If it’s possible for a novel to establish its author as a good writer but a poor novelist, Winter’s Tale might be the book to do it. Helprin has great talent for description, good talent for language, remedial talent for storytelling and almost nothing that resembles perspective.

There’s a passage somewhere between pages 600 and 700 where Helprin goes hog wild in his description of the opening shot of a billiards game. The spheres are crashing and the green felt is cowering and the angles are all aligning – and it comes pretty close to being squirmingly bad, a moment when one feels a bit embarrassed for the author. What makes it important to an analysis of Helprin’s work is that it shows that for Helprin words are really the only important elements of writing; that is, the ideas they express are accidental results of the sounds they make and the ephemeral effects they have.

There is a pretty rich story here, though, sometimes. Peter Lake is a likable character, and his romance with Beverly Penn is an intriguing and touching one.

But then we put Mr. Lake away for a long time – more than half this enormous novel – and describe and describe and describe. The rest of the characters, however cleverly named, all look the same. There are some of Thomas Pynchon’s lamentable tricks – including a set of employees named after books in an encyclopedia set – and for a while Helprin seems to dabble in hyper realism. And those detours add up to approximately 350 pages (a full novel, in other words) that a reader regrets suffering through by the end.

Ah, the end. One begins hoping, round about page 500, that the end will explain all the numbing detail and description one has endured and is yet to endure. But the end does nothing of the sort. Helprin can’t seem to figure out how to end the novel, actually. Is the novel about Peter Lake? is it about a giant white horse? is it about a villainous gang? is it about New York City? Yes, yes, yes! No, not quite.

The novel is about love. In fact, the epilogue of this massive work finds the author helpfully instructing the reader to look inside his heart to figure out what the novel is about. For those readers who are annoyed by Tolstoy’s philosophy-of-history lecture at the end of War and Peace, Helprin holds a familiar treat. After almost 800 pages, he feels compelled to do a little summarizing. He even asks the reader if she remembers some of the characters from a month or so back. And the reader responds, understandably aloud, “No, I don’t!”

Were this novel 400 pages long, and concerned only with the Peter Lake and Beverly Penn characters, it would be recommendable. But at its actual length, finally, it asks too much of the reader and reciprocates too little....less

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Michael rated it:

(review of isbn 0156031191)

01/15/08

recommended to Michael by: a former coworker
recommends it for: the National Book Award jury

I have no doubt that there are worse works of fiction in existence, but this is the worst one I've actually read. It is written for people who like the sound of language in their head and want to feel long streams of words washing over them. Judging by the popularity and success of this author, and others like Proulx, there are a lot of those people. But it's a terribly low standard that, in this case, gives us page after page of constructions like this: "Across the river was an eighteen...more

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Stuart rated it:

(review of isbn 0156031191)

03/13/08

bookshelves: the-stuff-of-greatness

Read in March, 2008

recommended to Stuart by: Shana Cohen
recommends it for: Anyone who has ever crossed a bridge, ever looked at a bridge or who is a bridge.

Winter's Tale sat on my shelves for about two years before I started it, taking up far more shelf space than any book has a right to unless it deals with subject matter like the wealth of nations or anatomy, but this book is huge because New York City is squeezed between the covers.

It's a profound book, steeped in love and human emotion, and yet whimsical in a lot of ways.

Hurrah for contradictory introductions to reviews!

Winter's Tale initially flirts with introducing philosophy, lik...more Winter's Tale sat on my shelves for about two years before I started it, taking up far more shelf space than any book has a right to unless it deals with subject matter like the wealth of nations or anatomy, but this book is huge because New York City is squeezed between the covers.

It's a profound book, steeped in love and human emotion, and yet whimsical in a lot of ways.

Hurrah for contradictory introductions to reviews!

Winter's Tale initially flirts with introducing philosophy, like an adult trying to get across the moral of a fable to a child, when the child is only interested in the story. I was only interested in the story. As the book progresses, and the progression is a visceral, lividly descriptive journey, the actions of the characters begin to demand your philosophical understanding if they are to make sense. It lures you into thinking more deeply about what you are reading.

The characters also begin as simple, straight-up-and-down folk, as you might find strolling through fairy tales or myths and legends, but gather layers of complexity and depth around themselves as time passes. And you will love the characters. I was startled when Conrad (my friend, not the Heart of Darkness chap) said he cried at the death of a character in another book...but Winter's Tale brought me close. Very close. Twice.

Come to think of it, all things gain complexity and depth as time passes in this story. The characters, the plot, and the city. But both the complexity and the depth are rich and enjoyable.

I had no idea that the book had a strong vein of magical realism until people started being abducted by clouds, and this put every supernatural occurrence in a novel and charming light, giving them a real sense of magic, like being happily charmed and confounded by a skilled street magician.

Winter's Tale is an awesome book.
It's a jaw-dropper, the kind of book that your mind sinks gleefully into and only emerges from occasionally to check that the body hasn't wandered into mortal peril.

It's not a quick read, but by the end I was putting off finishing it, to prolong the experience.

I loved it.
Plus there is a horsey....less

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Tracey rated it:

(review of isbn 0151972036)

01/30/08

bookshelves: due-for-re-read

Read in May, 2004

recommends it for: urban fantasy, with a love of the turn of the century and language verging on the poetic

I'd had Winter's Tale on my to read list for a while- I'd picked a used copy of it up a few months ago & and an online review reminded me to bump it to the top of the list.

The story's heart is a fantastical New York that never was, spanning the turn of the twentieth century through the turn of the twenty-first, with touches of magical realism and steampunk scattered throughout. The main character is Peter Lake, an orphan, thief and lover. We meet him as he is running for his life from o...more

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Rachel rated it:

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02/05/08

Read in February, 2008

I feel like it took twelvty hundred years to get through this book. I snowplowed (reference intentional) my way through it, refusing to let its length and byzantine density conquer me, which is most likely why I'm disappointed and annoyed. And tired.

To be fair, when Helprin isn't waxing lyrical about 1) snow 2) justice 3) urban planning, the plot chugs along, the fantasy is enchanting, the jokes are funny, and the characters are delightfully anachronistic -- and not just the ones who are qui...more

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Anne rated it:

(review of isbn 0156031191)

03/11/08

Read in July, 1993

recommended to Anne by: Connie

This book has worked its way so deeply into my conscious and subconscious brain that there is no hope I could ever evaluate it critically. Bits and tags of it float back through my mental transom almost daily whether I think to cite it or not; some of Helprin's most descriptive imagery applies almost everywhere I look around me, especially in a city view. While Winter's Tale is a love song to New York, which he adores so much he could hardly stuff the book with enough poets and madmen to ...more

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Laurie rated it:

(review of isbn 0156031191)

05/08/08

bookshelves: fiction

Read in April, 2008

recommended to Laurie by: Greg
recommends it for: Time-travelers, Philosophers, Lovers of Winter & NY, Magical Thinkers, Lost Fans

This novel is pretty dense. It's taken me months upon months to finish, because every time the story/characters/time period changed, I would lose interest.

I like the bits of magical realism and the writing is very beautiful. I was entranced by the beginning, and the gorgeous descriptions of Winter and the Lake of the Coheeries.

However, for me the ending fell flat. I'm not a genius, but I can usually grasp subtleness pretty well. After devoting so much of my life to this novel and spe...more

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1da rated it:

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06/01/08

Read in May, 2008

recommends it for: anyone ready to think their teeth into something you can chew.

I inherited this book when V moved b/c i have to admit that i have a really hard time throwing books away. (yes, i admit it, when i see books in the dumpster, i have a really hard time walking away).

First few pages were "um, ok...shit, i hope it gets better/picks up the pace b/c this book is a monster!" (oh yea, and i also have a prob having a book and not reading it all the way thru). This book is 688 pages and the paperback weighs about 2-3 lbs! Print is huge. Book size is bigge...more

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Kathryn rated it:

(review of isbn 0156031191)

05/27/08

bookshelves: fiction

Read in May, 2008

I'm only halfway through this book, but so far I'm loving it. I had never heard of Helprin before, but a friend gave me this book during Christmas because someone had given it to her, and she wasn't going to have time to read it anytime soon. It has eclipsed my will to read anything else at the moment. I'll refrain from providing specifics until I've finished it.

An update: I have now finished the book, and I think it's going to be one of my all time favorites. We'll have to wait and see; it...more

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Breeann rated it:

(review of isbn 0156031191)

05/31/08

Read in May, 2008

A little slow to start, but once you power through the first section, it is well worth the initial work. Helprin paints vivid word pictures and is contantly playing with the themes of light and time.

"Hardesty Marratta and Virginia had fallen in love in the obsessive and total way of two people who have seen the same truth which they cannot understand" (318).
"Nothing is predetermined; it is determined, or was determined, or will be determined. No matter, it all happened at ...more

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Pdmc30 rated it:

(review of isbn 0156031191)

01/15/08

Read in January, 2008

Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin was recommended to me by a friend and reinforced by its inclusion on a list by the NY Times of the best novels of the last 25 years, so I thought I’d give it a go. (Despite the fact that Helprin is part of the neo-com brain trust) It is a doorstop, 748 pages, but the first part really drew me in, despite the magic realism. Helprin handles the magic realism well like Marquez and Murakami-so that it doesn’t interfere with my enjoyment of the story despite the im...more

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Jonathan rated it:

(review of isbn 0156031191)

11/27/07

Read in November, 2007

recommends it for: people who like magic and words. lots of words.

Boy, I really wanted to love this book. It's got some beautifully-written passages, an acute eye for detail, and utter narrative fearlessness. Unfortunately, it lacks a sense of real-world meaning to back up its monumental linguistic and metaphysical ambition.

This book tries to locate magic and transcendent wonder in the workaday fumblings and intersections of ordinary people and the (truly magical) city they live in, New York (circa 1900 and 2000, but in a universe not entirely familiar). T...more

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Ginnie added it (review of isbn 0156031191)

01/09/08

**** Explanation - Apology

For the first time in my experience the brainy Goodreads computer messed up by losing a review (little voice whispering in ear, are you sure you didn't click the wrong command button? NEVER)

For all of you, and especially for David, this was the letter from the NYT Metropolitan Diary, January 7, 2008 that I had intended for you all to read and smile over.

Dear Diary:

I was having dinner at a bar in a West Village restaurant. I asked the you...more

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Karry rated it:

(review of isbn 0156031191)

09/01/08

This book is 750 pages and could afford to drop at least 150 of them. It has an enormous cast of characters and some of them are kind of lightweight and not all that important. Its ending may strike many as leaving a lot to be desired, because it lacks any one payoff moment that you start to demand after slogging through the previous oh, say, 600 pages. Some may argue about the underlying morals of the story.

But I'm giving it 5 stars for two reasons: a) the book is absolutely epic and b) ...more

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Heather rated it:

08/20/07

Read in July, 2007

this book was simply lovely. before, i said this author has a love affair with the world. that love was so infectious that it kept me reading despite occasionally becoming so laden with metaphor that it was difficult to deduce what'd actually just happened. this was especially noticeable near the end, which is unfortunate since that's when several threads were weaving together.

back to the story. i would call this historical romantic fantasy. it's set, for the most part, in 19th and early 20...more

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Courtney rated it:

(review of isbn 0156031191)

01/10/08

Read in February, 2008

recommends it for: readers

Wow. This book is magic. And I do not mean it is "magical" to read, but that literally it contains magic.

Let me start by stressing that this novel is for READERS. Not people who say they like to read but only do so occasionally or lightly. Or even those who do delve into many wonderful works but only when the stars are aligned. This is a rewarding and wondrous book for those who will actually take time for it and really get lost inside. If you are not that kind of person, than mayb...more

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Jack rated it:

(review of isbn 0156031191)

07/08/07

bookshelves: thebestofthebest

Read in January, 2003

recommends it for: everyone

This is the best book I've ever read. Anyone who has an appreciation for language would fall in love with this book in the first ten pages. Despite it's depth and commentary on the human drama, it is also the most beautiful love story ever written, hands down.

Helprin takes us on a Journey through New York in a fantastic way. Once in what feels like the early 1900's and again in a more modern Manhattan, but both places are of a different dimension altogether, where anything is possible. This ...more

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