I don't know if it's just me, but novels seem to be necessarily depressing. They're always dark and brooding. They always seem to capture the very worst side of humanity. When someone can write something that's bright and cheerful and make it interesting I'm always impressed.

This book is laugh out loud funny. I found myself guffawing on various modes of public transportation while reading this. It's really impressive that he can write physical slapstick humor and have it be funny. Halprin has a More...

Ok, I did not read the whole book. Around page 125 I called it quits. Funny, yes, but not enough to endure 500+ pages with the knowledge in the back of my mind that Helprin wrote speeches for Bob Dole. Plus, everything I know about the British royals came from the film The Queen, so I lack the background to fully appreciate the subject matter here. I'll eat crow at bookgroup next month when others report how well they liked it. Onward...

I read Winter's Tale a few years ago, and thought it was beautifully if over- written, with a much too threadbare plot to hold up its many pages. Still, I liked it enough to pick up Freddy and Fredericka, which I began to read on a whim. Boy am I glad I did.

My copy of the book claims in two places that "This is one of the quickest 500-page books you'll ever read!" It's a compliment, I guess, and it's more or less right - but Helprin still writes beautifully, and I wasn't skipping through it to g More...

I loved it. I love Mark Helprin.

It took a while for me to see the plot developing as the setup took a good couple hundred pages, but once you get through the setup -- which is hilarious if you just roll with it -- you get to the good stuff. My favorite thing about Helprin's books is the way he does all this crazy wordsmithing and then out of nowhere condenses it all into a paragraph of precise truth. Those moments leave me in tears. I loved it.

(My thing is precision in language. As a linguist More...

Woooo, doggy, this one was a dense one.

A spoof on the British royal family, Freddy and Fredericka tell the story of the Prince and Princess of Wales, the title characters. They are next in line for the throne, and hopelessly ill-equipped for the weighty responsibilities, traditions, customs, and gravity that come with this position. At least vapid, materialistic, uneducated Fredericka is unready; Freddy has a deep awareness of his destiny, but his over-educated dialog, arcane sense of humor, in More...

Mark Helprin's books would be better if he would cut out some of the wordy, repetitive sections. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed this one. It's about the Prince and Princess of Wales (a thinly disguised Charles and Diana), who, determined as unfit to rule, are sent to America to prove themselves by reconquering the colonies. America is in the midst of a political election between the indecisive Dewey Knott (get it?) and the incumbent Self, a demagogue of an all-too-familiar sort. The ineptitud More...

Yes, this book got off to a slow start. Yes, this book has some painfully slapstick comedy and ludicrous linguistic manoeuvrings. Yes, some parts of it dragged.

But at the heart of Freddy and Fredericka is a deep love of the British monarchy despite (or because of) its absurdities and a deep love of the United States despite (or because of) its fantastical scope. I laughed out loud many times, causing my family anxiety about my mental health when I tried to explain the scenarios that caused my mi More...

Beautifully written and absolutely hilarious. While about the British Royal family in an alternative world pretty much our own, it also is a beautiful love story and a thoughtful reflection on America, power, and class. The title characters are the Prince and Princess of Wales, who, due to some horrible publicity, are sent on a quest to America. Its been a long time since I laughed out loud this many times at a book - think Wodehouse and Tom Sharpe. And it is an intelligent laughter, slapstick a More...

I was already a devoted fan of Mark Helprin when this novel was released, so when I saw it on the shelves I bought it immediately. I expected I would encounter a tale sweeping in scope, full of deeply human characters, and all spun forth in the rich, dazzling prose that is Helprin's inimitable style. And while all these hallmarks are indeed present, Helprin has decided to turn them on their collective ear, and the result is something delightfully unexpected.

To explain, and by way of summary, the More...

I am a great fan of Mark Halperin. I loved "Winters Tale" which was a lyrical, often beautiful fantasy, and "Soldier of the Great War" which I found a moving evocation of love, life and war. So it is with real regret that I have to report that this latest book is nothing but childish balderdash.
Yes I know it comes festooned with praise but someone has to say that the emperor has no clothes. How utterly sad to see a talented writer waste his considerable gifts on this.
The humor is below 3rd grade More...

The premise of the novel is simple and entertaining: what would happen if the prince and princess of Wales were dropped by parachute into the middle of the United States with the task of reclaiming the long lost colonies. All this so they can get a better understanding of how 'normal' human beings spend their time so that when the two eventually return to Buckingham Palace they can better rule the United Kingdom. Most of the royal family are mad, the servants are mad, the English population is m More...

This is probably the most comical book of Helprin's with a number of laugh-out-loud moments in it. But it's not just a comedy. There are a whole collection of beautifully written and inspiring passages. Reaching the ending, I can't help leaving the book convinced more than ever that I've been cheated by my modern education. The reason the two main characters become the heroes that they do is because they are educated (and then proceed to educate themselves further) in a wide swath of history, li More...

The story (a faux Charles and Diana trying to invade and conquer the United States as a means of proving their worthiness to rule) was what caught my interest. The world and relationship dynamics of the Royal Family presented by Mr. Helprin were very well written; I felt empathy for each of the characters and was able to understand their prespective of the world. Once Freddy and Fredricka land in "the colonies", I found myself repeatedly grimacing at their actions and follies. I imagine or like More...

My first encounter with Helprin was with Winter’s Tale, a book which I absolutely adored. On the strength of that experience, I read and enjoyed Memoir From Antproof Case, and Ellis Island and Other Stories, and then went on to be surprised to learn that the author and the idiot pundit were one and the same man. No matter. What I loved in Helprin’s writing -- especially in Winter’s Tale -- was the lyrical use of words and poetic imagery. I browsed it in the library, stumbling across gleeful pass More...

I tried to read both Winter's Tale and the Ant-Proof book but neither book interested me in the least. My husband loves them, and he reads about one novel every other year (when Christopher Buckley writes one, generally) so that about sums Helprin up for me.

However, a friend gave me this for my birthday and I gave it a try. First, I love books about noble struggles, books that combine modern conundrums with ancient solutions, books about finding true love. The opening scene in which Freddy has t More...

I got this book from a booklist at the library, one of those "if you like this, you might like this" sort of things. I can't find what the "this" was that led me to the book, but I quite indeed like this book and I'm thankful for the list for steering me to it.

In an alternate present, the Prince of Wales (Freddy, son of Phillipa, not Charles, son of Elizabeth) is sent by the mysterious Mr. Neil to travel incognito with his glamorous wife to conquer the United States of America. The book skewers More...

Hmmm, well…it took me a very long time to gain any interest in reading this book. Helprin takes an exceedingly long time getting to the rising action of the story. He spends at least 100 pages developing the characters, and considering there were only two in this novel, it moved very slowly for me. I own his three children’s stories (which I highly recommend) and I suppose I went into this novel expecting immediate greatness. The slow pace, coupled with the presence of a bumbling but misundersto More...

http://tinyurl.com/ybmzzb6

After the joy of listening to the Harry Potter audiobooks, I needed something new and asked the tweet-world what I should read next. This was the sole recommendation. (Really? Do you all just not listen to audiobooks or have you all been disappointed by everything you've listened to lately?)

This is odd. A more appropriate word doesn't exist. It's a fictionalized tale of Princess Diana and Prince Charles, replete with parachute jumping, speed-reading dentistry texts, the More...

I. Love. This. Book. I love Mark Helprin. I love his writing, his wit, his genius at crafting a sentence, a paragraph, a novel. And that's all an understatement.

In this novel, Helprin tells the tale of the Prince and Princess of Wales, sent to the United States to reclaim it as a territory of Britain in order to prove their worth for the throne. There's a lot more to it than that, but summed up in one sentence, there's the plot.

Along the way, of course, they learn a lot: about themselves, about More...

I love this book.

Have you ever seen Blackadder? I don't just mean the first season; I mean the seasons that make you realize Mr. Bean can be really sexy with some facial hair. For me, there are two very board and very general types of comedy (okay, there are really lots of comedy genres, but I'm talking very board stokes here). There is mean with the chance it might be funny (Letterman), and there is biting but funny and nice/touching (Blackadder, any British comedy, really). For instance, there More...

It is so challenging to find a contemporary novel that is fresh, not formulaic, entertaining AND thought provoking, but Mark Helprin has done it. I enjoyed this book more than anything I've read in ages.

The publisher's description of this as a "contemporary fairy tale" is enough to distract you from reading this book, but it is a perfect example of something where the totality is much more than the sum of its parts.

It is daft and funny, I laughed out loud many, many times;

It is uplifting and eru More...

In fiction, there is this concept known as "suspension of disbelief." Having something be fiction gives the author certain artistic licenses, but these are at constant tug-of-war with what the reader is willing to discard about what they already know about the world. It's a fine line.

Helprin rides flying unicorns all over it.

Freddy and Fredericka starts out as a ridiculous but astute parody of the English royal family. Camilla Parker-Bowles makes an appearance, as does Prince Charles's rather un More...

Let it never be said that Mark Helprin does not love, or believe in the spirit of, America. Reading this will make you proud to live in such a country, regardless of feelings towards one's fellow countrymen. There were certainly places where Helprin could have trimmed verbosity.

This is all at once a satire of the British monarchy, a fairy tale, a Horatio Algeresque story, and an entertaining piece of fiction about a man and a woman who learn to love each other. Several passages in this almost mo More...

A schizophrenic book about a schizophrenic family. Half of the book and half of the actions of each character are totally silly and nonsensical. All of them, including Freddy, Fredericka, Freddy's father, and occasionally even the Queen, act like total idiots, buffoons, and nincompoops. I wondered how they could possibly fulfill their duties as monarchs. They act like there might have been too much inbreeding of too few royals over the centuries. Some of the nonsense is funny, but most of it is More...

Could Mark Helprin have been channeling Jerzy Kosinski when he sat down to write Freddy and Fredericka? It would seem so, since Freddy begins as a character who could easily have been a distant cousin of Kosinski's Chauncey Gardiner (Chance the Gardner) in his novel BEING THERE. But unlike Kosinskis Gardiner, whose straightforward responses to popular concerns are praised as visionary despite no one being able to comprehend or ascertain what he is saying, Freddy and his Frederika is more the lit More...

I started out thinking, hm, while this is hilarious and juvenile (but so am I), it's also a little troubling in terms of its portrayal of the deceased Princess Diana. Not because I'm a royal-lover (I'm not), but just because Fredericka is so unspeakably vapid (but pretty!). As things progressed, though, I saw where I'd gone wrong. The book is, at its core, a love story, and despite its flaws (Pha Kew?), it's about recognizing strength and beauty where one might have missed it in the past. Freder More...

One of the funniest things I've read in a long time. There's a chuckle on almost every page, and a few golden laugh-out-loud moments of absurdity.

Mark Helprin also waxes serious from time to time, which is where the book is weakest, but it adds a little emotional weight that keeps the novel from turning into a "National Lampoon's The British Monarchy" sort of heartless spoof. You can tell he does care about the Royal Family, even in a critical and often-mocking kind of way.

And for Americans, th More...

I really don't know how to describe this book. It's one of the wackiest books I've read, interspersed with moments of really beautiful writing. It's been described by others as a sort of "comic fairy tale". Basically it's the story of Freddy and Fredericka who are the Prince and Princess of Wales (very thinly disguised Charles and Diana), forced to prove their right to the British throne by being parachuted into the U.S. with fake identities, no clothes and no money, with the task of "reconqueri More...

To be honest, I struggled with this book. It has beautiful lyrical lines and at times is very funny. I feel that its about 276 pages too long. The editor should have tightened up the book. At times, I struggled with odd hard to pronounce and remember names. The American travelogue was enduring, sweet, over-the-top weird, and just plain dumb at points. I skimmed parts of the journey simply because I lost interest. With that said, I finished the the novel in time for my book club discussion. Yeste More...