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The Pacific and Other Stories
A dazzling collection of short stories by Mark Helprin, bestselling author of Winter's Tale , which is now a major motion picture starring Colin Farrell, Jessica Brown Findlay, Russell Crowe, William Hurt, and Jennifer Connelly
The Pacific and Other Stories is a collection of sixteen stories that display the remarkable scope, incomparable wit, and deft prose that have come to be Mark Helprin's signature. A British paratrooper jumps into occupied territory; the 1958 New York Yankees gain an unexpected teammate in a puny, teenaged Hasidic Jew; a September 11th widow receives an astonishing gift from the contractor working on her new apartment—these and other stories exhibit the constantly changing variety of the ocean itself, the peaks and troughs of life. Lighthearted, glittering fables are met with starker tales that sound the depths of sacrifice and duty. The Pacific and Other Stories is a resplendent, powerful collection of lasting substance and emotional import.
The Pacific and Other Stories is a collection of sixteen stories that display the remarkable scope, incomparable wit, and deft prose that have come to be Mark Helprin's signature. A British paratrooper jumps into occupied territory; the 1958 New York Yankees gain an unexpected teammate in a puny, teenaged Hasidic Jew; a September 11th widow receives an astonishing gift from the contractor working on her new apartment—these and other stories exhibit the constantly changing variety of the ocean itself, the peaks and troughs of life. Lighthearted, glittering fables are met with starker tales that sound the depths of sacrifice and duty. The Pacific and Other Stories is a resplendent, powerful collection of lasting substance and emotional import.
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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1173 people want to read
About the author
Mark Helprin
39 books1,692 followersMark Helprin belongs to no literary school, movement, tendency, or trend. As many have observed and as Time Magazine has phrased it, “He lights his own way.” His three collections of short stories (A Dove of the East and Other Stories, Ellis Island and Other Stories, and The Pacific and Other Stories), six novels (Refiner's Fire, Winter's Tale, A Soldier of the Great War, Memoir From Antproof Case, Freddy and Fredericka and, In Sunlight and In Shadow), and three children's books (Swan Lake, A City in Winter, and The Veil of Snows, all illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg), speak eloquently for themselves and are remarkable throughout for the sustained beauty and power of their language.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 162 reviews
September 11, 2023
[Revised, spoilers hidden 9/11/23]
Sixteen short stories, several set in times past, many during WW II. I thought the two best were the bookends; the first and the last. In the first story, Il Colore Ritrovato, an Italian opera agent, approaches a young couple who are street singers. The young woman has great talent but the agent, getting on in years, has regrets about how his actions changed people’s lives -- maybe not for the better. To illustrate the strength of the writing, here are a few lines taken just from this first story:
“I didn’t go to Venice of my own accord. I was sent there, forced to go, by that…that woman…”
“I asked one of her colleagues, a woman who looked distressingly not so much like a Picasso as like Picasso himself. “
“And, whereas in Milan beauty is overcome by futility, in Venice futility is overcome by beauty.”
“People are clever, and just as they find comets and shooting stars of more interest than simple pinpoints of light, they wisely ignore the fixed points of a career in favor of its trajectory.”
“[he had] that masterful English bearing that Italians find entertaining even though they consider the same quality in Germans insufferable.”
In the story Monday, a contractor gets his workers, other contractors and suppliers to fix up a condo for free for a 9/11 widow.
Perfection set in 1956 uses magical realism. A frail, bookish Jewish boy who at first does not even know what baseball is, becomes obsessed with “The House of Ruth,”
In Vandevere’s House, a master of the universe spends more time with his palatial house than with his wife. He watches as the problem finally solves itself.
A Brilliant Idea and His Own is a WW II story of a soldier who parachutes in behind enemy lines. He is hurt on his landing.
In Mar Nueva, an old man revisits an unnamed Caribbean country where he grew up. The dictator at the time extracted a horrendous toll on the old man's family for some flippant words said to him.
In Passchendaele a British Columbia rancher has loved his neighbor’s wife almost all his life. The farmsteads are so distant that he sees her just once a year with only time to say hello.
In Jacob Bayer and the Telephone, set at the time of the introduction of the phone, Jacob is an itinerant Jewish scholar. He rails against the new technology at a community meeting but we start to realize
Sail Shining in White features an 82-year-old man who decides to sail a small boat out into a hurricane knowing he will die. He is still fascinated by memories of the days when he sailed with his beautiful wife who has died.
Last Tea with the Armorers is set in Israel. An elderly Jewish widower wants his daughter to marry so she won’t be alone after he dies. Some lines I liked:
“You do want me to marry, don’t you?”
“Of course I do, and it’s not too late.”
But, still,” Annalise said, “it’s almost a matter of minutes.”
The Pacific, the title and final story, is set in WW II. A young couple in California is deeply in love. The woman works in a war factory; the husband is away in the Navy, out in the Pacific which she can see from where she lives. Every day some women get accompanied from the factory work floor to the office and we all know what news has arrived. Her only prayer is that her husband return.
Here are a few other lines from various stories that I liked:
“I now was in love with her in the way that old men can briefly be in love with youth, which is like standing on the platform as an express train that doesn’t stop at your station goes by at full speed. It’s exciting, the wind comes up, your clothes whistle in the air, you awaken, and then it’s gone, without even having seen you.”
“Her peculiar beauty was so strong that it was almost frightening.”
“The most difficult of the dinner parties I ruin are usually around Christmas, and always those of younger members of the firm.”
“[I] encourage them to do well and spend more time with their children than I spent with mine. They won’t. I didn’t. They can’t. I couldn’t.”
One of the author’s strengths is the concrete detail he infuses into every story. In a past life you feel that he must have been a cattle rancher mending fences, a WW II parachutist, a condo construction contractor in NYC and an Italian opera agent.
The quality of the stories is mixed as in any collection; a couple of yawns, but no real duds and some gems as noted. You can see from my quotes that I was really impressed with the writing.
The author is probably best known for his 1983 novel Winter’s Tale.
Top photo from wallpaperup.com
The author from theparisreview.org
Sixteen short stories, several set in times past, many during WW II. I thought the two best were the bookends; the first and the last. In the first story, Il Colore Ritrovato, an Italian opera agent, approaches a young couple who are street singers. The young woman has great talent but the agent, getting on in years, has regrets about how his actions changed people’s lives -- maybe not for the better. To illustrate the strength of the writing, here are a few lines taken just from this first story:
“I didn’t go to Venice of my own accord. I was sent there, forced to go, by that…that woman…”
“I asked one of her colleagues, a woman who looked distressingly not so much like a Picasso as like Picasso himself. “
“And, whereas in Milan beauty is overcome by futility, in Venice futility is overcome by beauty.”
“People are clever, and just as they find comets and shooting stars of more interest than simple pinpoints of light, they wisely ignore the fixed points of a career in favor of its trajectory.”
“[he had] that masterful English bearing that Italians find entertaining even though they consider the same quality in Germans insufferable.”
In the story Monday, a contractor gets his workers, other contractors and suppliers to fix up a condo for free for a 9/11 widow.
Perfection set in 1956 uses magical realism. A frail, bookish Jewish boy who at first does not even know what baseball is, becomes obsessed with “The House of Ruth,”
In Vandevere’s House, a master of the universe spends more time with his palatial house than with his wife. He watches as the problem finally solves itself.
A Brilliant Idea and His Own is a WW II story of a soldier who parachutes in behind enemy lines. He is hurt on his landing.
In Mar Nueva, an old man revisits an unnamed Caribbean country where he grew up. The dictator at the time extracted a horrendous toll on the old man's family for some flippant words said to him.
In Passchendaele a British Columbia rancher has loved his neighbor’s wife almost all his life. The farmsteads are so distant that he sees her just once a year with only time to say hello.
In Jacob Bayer and the Telephone, set at the time of the introduction of the phone, Jacob is an itinerant Jewish scholar. He rails against the new technology at a community meeting but we start to realize
Sail Shining in White features an 82-year-old man who decides to sail a small boat out into a hurricane knowing he will die. He is still fascinated by memories of the days when he sailed with his beautiful wife who has died.
Last Tea with the Armorers is set in Israel. An elderly Jewish widower wants his daughter to marry so she won’t be alone after he dies. Some lines I liked:
“You do want me to marry, don’t you?”
“Of course I do, and it’s not too late.”
But, still,” Annalise said, “it’s almost a matter of minutes.”
The Pacific, the title and final story, is set in WW II. A young couple in California is deeply in love. The woman works in a war factory; the husband is away in the Navy, out in the Pacific which she can see from where she lives. Every day some women get accompanied from the factory work floor to the office and we all know what news has arrived. Her only prayer is that her husband return.
Here are a few other lines from various stories that I liked:
“I now was in love with her in the way that old men can briefly be in love with youth, which is like standing on the platform as an express train that doesn’t stop at your station goes by at full speed. It’s exciting, the wind comes up, your clothes whistle in the air, you awaken, and then it’s gone, without even having seen you.”
“Her peculiar beauty was so strong that it was almost frightening.”
“The most difficult of the dinner parties I ruin are usually around Christmas, and always those of younger members of the firm.”
“[I] encourage them to do well and spend more time with their children than I spent with mine. They won’t. I didn’t. They can’t. I couldn’t.”
One of the author’s strengths is the concrete detail he infuses into every story. In a past life you feel that he must have been a cattle rancher mending fences, a WW II parachutist, a condo construction contractor in NYC and an Italian opera agent.
The quality of the stories is mixed as in any collection; a couple of yawns, but no real duds and some gems as noted. You can see from my quotes that I was really impressed with the writing.
The author is probably best known for his 1983 novel Winter’s Tale.
Top photo from wallpaperup.com
The author from theparisreview.org
July 30, 2022
I've read a few of Mark Helprin's books and for the most part greatly enjoyed them. He does though have a tendency towards verbosity and editorially is on the self-indulgent side. The form of the short story provides a welcome restraint to his predisposition to ramble. Another characteristic of his is to veer towards an idealisation of his characters. He's not interested in what makes people mean, greedy, competitive, selfish. He likes to stand them in relation to love and death. This is often the case here too. My favourite stories were of men facing death, and the dignity and generosity of feeling they sought to bring to the experience. 4+
June 15, 2025
The Pacific and Other Stories is the magical compilation of sixteen imaginative and varied stories emphasizing why Mark Helprin is one of my favorite writers as he presents this glorious and richly written collection taking place various locations such as in New York City, Canada, Italy, France, Israel and in an orange grove on the Pacific Coast. First published in 2004, many of the stories had previously appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Esquire, The Wall Street Journal, and in Forbes ASAP.
Some of my favorite stories included the richly imaginative and entertaining story about a young Hasidic boy from 1958 Brooklyn making his way to the Bronx, believing that only he will be able to save Mickey Mantle and the New York Yankees. It is a glorious tale of baseball mixed with faith and magical realism that elevates Perfection. But one of my favorite stories was Monday, the story of a contractor when realizing that a former client had lost her husband on September 11, is determined to renovate her new home at no cost. What transpires in this beautiful and haunting tale is one of love and loss and the power to do good in the face of evil. Other stories in this remarkable collection include tales exploring loss, regret and retribution. But many of the tales are tender and moving such as Passchendaele, Last Tea with the Armorers, and Prelude. And another beautiful story of a life of a sailor coming to a close in the unforgettable Sail Shining in White. This was a lovely and unforgettable collection of stories by one of our most talented contemporary writers.
Some of my favorite stories included the richly imaginative and entertaining story about a young Hasidic boy from 1958 Brooklyn making his way to the Bronx, believing that only he will be able to save Mickey Mantle and the New York Yankees. It is a glorious tale of baseball mixed with faith and magical realism that elevates Perfection. But one of my favorite stories was Monday, the story of a contractor when realizing that a former client had lost her husband on September 11, is determined to renovate her new home at no cost. What transpires in this beautiful and haunting tale is one of love and loss and the power to do good in the face of evil. Other stories in this remarkable collection include tales exploring loss, regret and retribution. But many of the tales are tender and moving such as Passchendaele, Last Tea with the Armorers, and Prelude. And another beautiful story of a life of a sailor coming to a close in the unforgettable Sail Shining in White. This was a lovely and unforgettable collection of stories by one of our most talented contemporary writers.
“In the gondola, on the Grand Canal, I felt that I was borne back toward where I had started, not by the power of the gondolier and not merely with the gentle flow of the tide, but as if on a river that, though running into darkness and oblivion, was running swift and bright.”
“And as I passed over the waters and heard this song that she sang on a side street, it said to me that no matter where you lead or you are led, no matter how the waves may break upon you, and what sins you may unknowingly commit, it is true that by the grace of God you can sometimes make amends.”
“That they could move on that day almost as airborne as angels was because the idea that France would be free was more beautiful even than the idea of France itself.”
“What had happened was but a single, lovely note in an always urgent song that he had been brought up to sing, like those before him, in protest of mortality, hope of survival, and love of God.”
“But as he walked under the summer stars—of June, 1913–his memory of the redness of the rose made his heart as light as moonlight, and floated him above all disappointments.”
“The lamp on that blonde table, and the photograph of his wife, had become the center of a life that found itself migrating more and more toward the sea. She was gone, but he loved her so much in memory it was if she were an angel perpetually rising from the waves.”
June 12, 2013
I realize that there are other readers here who have commented on how Helprin overwrites or overdescribes things. But that is only a problem if you are in a hurry to get somewhere. It is not a problem if you are willing to stop, like Jacob Bayer, and ask why there is a need to hurry in the first place.
This is a little book that contains some stories that are just perfect, but there's no appreciating the art that Helprin is constantly honing and perfecting here if you don't realize how much he simply loves and revels in the English language.
Not only do I reject the idea that Helprin over-embellishes his descriptions, but I constantly find myself having to stop and re-read sentences and paragraphs, just because of how good they are. Sometimes, I also have to read these sentences and paragraphs out loud, savoring each word and how they each fit next to one another into a coherent blend of sound, feel, rhythm, meaning and image.
I am already looking forward to the day, in the future, when I am going to come back and re-read these stories.
This is a little book that contains some stories that are just perfect, but there's no appreciating the art that Helprin is constantly honing and perfecting here if you don't realize how much he simply loves and revels in the English language.
Not only do I reject the idea that Helprin over-embellishes his descriptions, but I constantly find myself having to stop and re-read sentences and paragraphs, just because of how good they are. Sometimes, I also have to read these sentences and paragraphs out loud, savoring each word and how they each fit next to one another into a coherent blend of sound, feel, rhythm, meaning and image.
I am already looking forward to the day, in the future, when I am going to come back and re-read these stories.
October 3, 2023
I found a copy of this in a second hand bookshop in Wellington while on holiday. I've been looking for it for at least a couple of years.
For an ex-library book my copy is in pretty good condition. But oddly, every 10 or so pages someone has crossed out a word in pencil and written an alternative one in the margin. In many cases they changed things like 'was' to 'were' but sometimes they were more bold like swapping in a different adjective. What's bizarre about the changes is that none of them improve the writing, and in some cases they are even grammatically incorrect. This anecdote is relevant because it got me thinking about what edits I would make to Helprin's stories. Short answer is none. Helprin's writing is flawless. In fact I can see some people find the lack of flaws in both Helprin's characters and stories frustrating. Some people need their fiction to be a little bit wabi-sabi. It's true that Helprin's stories are positive and uplifting even when the topic is grim. He seems to be able to find joy in routine, process and mundanity. But that's his style, if you want something darker look elsewhere.
I've also grown incredibly tired of reading and listening to platitudes about the Master of the Short Story George Saunders. I've even heard Saunders described as the best writer alive. Well there's barely a single Saunders story I would put ahead of Helprin's offerings. Not that writing is about competition but there's no doubt in my mind that Helprin would hit Saunders for a hundred home runs just like his protagonist in Perfection.
The quality of the stories does vary and arguably the first one in the collection Il Colore Ritrovato is the best but in general Helprin's prose is flawless. From his stories you can quite easily compile Helprin's own character. American, Jewish, veteran, who lives on the East Coast of the US, holds respect for working with ones hands, has a deep love of the ocean, the list goes on. There's a certain repetition to the sort of characters he writes such that it becomes variations on a theme. Although Helprin has a real ability to write as if he has experience in all the things his characters do. Whether he's talking about erecting a fence, catching fish, or sailing through a storm, you get the sense you're hearing from an insider.
Probably my only gripe with the collection is the name. I was alerted to the stories by a friend on here and when I saw the name The Pacific I thought it would be stories related to the ocean I have lived next to all my life.
Wrong.
This is a distinctly American collection of writing and it's largely set on the East Coast of the US more specifically in New York. In fact this collection should definitely have been called The Atlantic. I even think the picture of the waves on my copy is a shot of the Atlantic, it doesn't look like the Pacific at all, it looks a lot like the water you see off the East Coast of America. Any expert hydrologists out there please correct me. Does it matter? No, not really but the cover oddly echoes the bait and switch of the title. How important is the title of a book? I do get a special pleasure when I find the title of a book in the body of the work, often it's at an inflection point or moment of profundity. Certain books sit in my head by title and others are categorised more by characters or plot devices, this book definitely falls in the latter category.
For an ex-library book my copy is in pretty good condition. But oddly, every 10 or so pages someone has crossed out a word in pencil and written an alternative one in the margin. In many cases they changed things like 'was' to 'were' but sometimes they were more bold like swapping in a different adjective. What's bizarre about the changes is that none of them improve the writing, and in some cases they are even grammatically incorrect. This anecdote is relevant because it got me thinking about what edits I would make to Helprin's stories. Short answer is none. Helprin's writing is flawless. In fact I can see some people find the lack of flaws in both Helprin's characters and stories frustrating. Some people need their fiction to be a little bit wabi-sabi. It's true that Helprin's stories are positive and uplifting even when the topic is grim. He seems to be able to find joy in routine, process and mundanity. But that's his style, if you want something darker look elsewhere.
I've also grown incredibly tired of reading and listening to platitudes about the Master of the Short Story George Saunders. I've even heard Saunders described as the best writer alive. Well there's barely a single Saunders story I would put ahead of Helprin's offerings. Not that writing is about competition but there's no doubt in my mind that Helprin would hit Saunders for a hundred home runs just like his protagonist in Perfection.
The quality of the stories does vary and arguably the first one in the collection Il Colore Ritrovato is the best but in general Helprin's prose is flawless. From his stories you can quite easily compile Helprin's own character. American, Jewish, veteran, who lives on the East Coast of the US, holds respect for working with ones hands, has a deep love of the ocean, the list goes on. There's a certain repetition to the sort of characters he writes such that it becomes variations on a theme. Although Helprin has a real ability to write as if he has experience in all the things his characters do. Whether he's talking about erecting a fence, catching fish, or sailing through a storm, you get the sense you're hearing from an insider.
Probably my only gripe with the collection is the name. I was alerted to the stories by a friend on here and when I saw the name The Pacific I thought it would be stories related to the ocean I have lived next to all my life.
Wrong.
This is a distinctly American collection of writing and it's largely set on the East Coast of the US more specifically in New York. In fact this collection should definitely have been called The Atlantic. I even think the picture of the waves on my copy is a shot of the Atlantic, it doesn't look like the Pacific at all, it looks a lot like the water you see off the East Coast of America. Any expert hydrologists out there please correct me. Does it matter? No, not really but the cover oddly echoes the bait and switch of the title. How important is the title of a book? I do get a special pleasure when I find the title of a book in the body of the work, often it's at an inflection point or moment of profundity. Certain books sit in my head by title and others are categorised more by characters or plot devices, this book definitely falls in the latter category.
February 14, 2008
I could never say enough about the quality of these short stories. Helprin is the very best at this genre and these are the single best collectin of short stories I have ever read. His depection in Monday is incredible and in each story he captures the essence of the human condition. He takes us to the emotional seat of each person in each story and it is an amazing depiction and presentation by a writer of how we live and of who we are. I'd have to say this is the single best work you can read if you want to enjoy the current state of leterature today in the first decade of the 21st Century.
October 23, 2007
I haven't finished this collection yet, but it's been a real revelation for me. I had only read Helprin's longer work before (I thought was good, but not amazing), and his traditionalist style isn't really my cup of tea. But these short stories are on another level entirely - great, moving stuff. I appreciate anyone who can write moving pieces in short form without playing the normal games. And the lines in some of these - the description of the mother in "Last Tea with the Armorers" comes to mind - are the sort of passages that stick with you long after you've finished and moved on. A must read.
July 22, 2012
This is a pretty mixed bag, I must say. I couldn't finish some of the stories, but others just broke my heart they were so powerful. The determining factor - I don't really like baseball, but I love the story about baseball in this collection.
Most of the stories, the best ones, deal with lost and finding hope in the lost. Those that are good are very powerful. Others, not so much.
Most of the stories, the best ones, deal with lost and finding hope in the lost. Those that are good are very powerful. Others, not so much.
December 14, 2024
I bought this collection of 16 short stories by Mark Helprin after head-exploding joy at reading his novel
Memoir from Antproof Case
and then watching an hour+-long interview of the author on his website and concluding he is a mad genius and deeply honorable.
As several other reviewers have said, these stories should not be chugged. They need to be read slowly, pausing, allowing them to settle before moving on to another one.
They are exquisite and everybody will have those that touch them deeply. Fortunately, two that made my heart explode are available online:
Perfection in Commentary magazine
And a probably completely illegal posting of Monday on an unreferenced Square Space post.
As several other reviewers have said, these stories should not be chugged. They need to be read slowly, pausing, allowing them to settle before moving on to another one.
They are exquisite and everybody will have those that touch them deeply. Fortunately, two that made my heart explode are available online:
Perfection in Commentary magazine
And a probably completely illegal posting of Monday on an unreferenced Square Space post.
May 5, 2011
Wow, this guy can WRITE!!! I've only read a few pages, and I'm hooked. And for some reason his photo amuses me no end. I would've guessed "stockbroker", rather than Amazingly Gifted Author"
Read
July 17, 2008I had rather high hopes for this short story collection, The Pacific and Other Stories. Helprin’s manner is a kind of anachronistic old school seriousness leavened with mostly clean gags and jokes (though he’s not above profanity or vulgarity). Basically simple stories as simple morality tales, Good and Evil quite apparent and obvious. In this sense, Helprin, as a political conservative (he wrote speeches for the elder Bush), is also a cultural conservative of a certain decent kind.
Sometimes this can be a good thing, a kind of tonic whose healthiness you can almost feel as you read the story, bracing, an eat-your-spinach antidote to the irony-laden metatextual stories of today. When it’s good, believe me, it is very, very good.
This book, however, is only good occasionally, such as the opening tale, where Helprin’s comic sense and timing seems to hum like the world spinning under your feet on a bright sunshiny morning. Then there are portentous grinds like “Monday” that almost literally begs your indulgence in some 9/11 based garment rending and noble far-off looks, Helprin practically standing on the bar shouting he, and only he, truly remembers the dead, by God, and someone has to know, man, someone has to know.
That last act is tiresome, to say the least, fiction as a kind of hectoring guilt trip wherein the author says, “I know you say you remember, but can you be this valorous?” The effect of that story placing so early in the line up (third in the collection) undercuts the effect of the other stories, casts a shadow over them to such a degree that every World War Two reference, mention, or story that follows it can’t help but be weighted down with the reader’s suspicion that somehow these are metaphors for the real clash of civilizations going on right now in which noble men with nobility in their noble hearts write noble stories about other noble men doing noble things.
And so, the whole collection deflates sadly from the promise of its opening merely by the placement of this one story. Had Helprin lodged “Monday” in the closing pages, it might have served more as a coda, a look what came before and now look what needs to be in the author’s mind, or maybe it may have been dismissed as a bad-idea-last-minute page padder.
The opening story, let me repeat, is the best thing in the collection. Were you to pick up a copy at the book store, sit down somewhere quiet, read these thirty odd pages, the reflection of an impresario who back when he merely wanted to be an impresario, back when he discovered the voice that made him rich, never knew what fame and success would mean, you’d read with joy. The early collaborations between Cassati and his young discovery, Rosanna, are lively and full of guiltless pep and vinegar.
Likewise, her mistaking a picture of the temple priest taking baby Jesus in swaddling clothes for Father Christmas stealing a mummy is an inspired bit of idiocy. The story includes one of the best depictions I’ve read in some time of how seeing a certain painting can transport you through rapturous transcendental feelings of unreality.
Golden-throated talent himself, William Dufris, has a great deal of fun with this one, pitching all the Italian accents just a hair’s shading shy of straight up caricature. Elsewhere, he is up to his usual standards of gruff voices, soft voices, and deep voices, though his female characters tend to feature less variegation.
This is followed by one of several stories listed in here that are non-traditional in that there is very little story to the story. “Reconstruction,” “Prelude,” “Rain,” “Charlotte of the Utrechtseweg,” and the title story, “The Pacific” are not heavy on the action, the character development, or the rising and falling of dramatic narrative. Instead, they generally serve as vignette-ish character sketches of reactions and reflections within a compressed time frame. “Reconstruction” is mostly the narrator’s memory of his father and a slight bit of narrative about a dinner party he and his wife attend, though like the other bits it feels a little unfinished, a portion of a larger story.
The best of those sketch pieces would probably be “Charlotte” in which the main character, already shot, kneels in the street in Germany, unable to lie down, remembering his beautiful daughter back home. His memories are mixed and Charlotte is both adult and child in his fading vision of her. Helprin here makes good work of his tightly constricted narrative, the brevity conveying how quickly it all ends, how short life really is, and how small sometimes the most precious moments can be.
A kind of hinge story in the collection, “Perfection” nestles itself in the book’s middle pages and is the best demonstration of what is so completely right in a Helprin story and so completely wrong. It concerns itself with Roger, a puny Hasidic Jew, a teenage mystic who believes god has called on him to rescue the “House of Ruth” where Mickey Mental suffers for the Yenkiss. Helprin first paints lovely comic scenes among the rabbis, the butchers, and the Hasidic youth of Roger’s neighborhood. When Roger explains to Schnaiper the butcher that he’s replaced Luba the usual boy because Luba is in training to become a polar rabbi, able to answer such delicate queries as whether or not walrus is kosher, the scene is the first of several wonderful back and forths between the two.
Only later, once we have accepted that Roger actually gets treated to a chance at bat with the Yankees, with Yogi Berra catching, and that Roger, who has never batted before, who calls a bat an “axe,” once we accept the magical moment of him pounding the cover off the ball, of being able to hit anywhere he’s directed, of being able to field any position by the power of god. Once we’ve accepted these daffy doings, Helprin rips the story away from us with a completely jarring and inconsistent recollection by Roger, in a talk to the Yankees on how to achieve perfection, of his time in a concentration camp.
Never mind that Roger at age three would be unlikely to have memories wherein he understood the concepts of death, recognized gasoline, and understood deeply the horror of his situation from an existential viewpoint (rather than a mere survival one), never mind that. It is much as in “Monday,” where Helprin feels the need to bury a sermon in his fiction. If it only sorta-kinda doesn’t come off nearly as preachy here because Helprin’s using a puppet in the character of Roger to get his message across. Which is to say all the hectoring of the lecture issues from a character’s mouth instead of through narrative exposition.
But it is the collection’s third story, the dour “Monday” where Helprin tosses in the towel on decent story-telling and decides to merely make with the serious sentiment and chest beating. “Monday” tells the story of a construction/refurbishment/renovation company manager Fitch in the aftermath of 9/11. As convoys of trucks race by in the street in the weeks after carrying bodies, “he would stop, turn to the street, put his hand on his heart, and bow his head.” We learn later that “Even by January, he…would never fail to bow his head in respect, though by January he was just about the only one who still did.”
This is one of those low-blow moments of cheaply used sentimentality where the author is letting us know in fifty foot high Hollywoodland style lettering that Fitch is indeed ONE OF THE LAST HONORABLE MEN (unlike you disrespectful bastards, where’s your hearts?). And indeed, Fitch is honest and honorable and the only decent contractor in New York, probably the world.
Busy with tons of work because he does quality work, Fitch throws his schedule into chaos when a call comes in from an old client who needs an apartment redone and he takes it. The woman’s husband was killed in the South Tower and he himself with his crew watched from the top of a building as it happened. Determined to make some kind of gesture, Fitch does her whole apartment for free, upgrades all of her material to the highest quality, works non-stop for one solid month (in which he is joined by most of his crew, because they too are MEN who have HONOR), and depletes his entire life savings.
He does find the woman attractive, we are let to know, but “He could suppress his desires because he was an honorable man,” we are subsequently informed, and when an author resorts to this kind of testimonial headline writing, it’s kind of a clue that we are seeing not so much a real person as envisioned and created by an author, but really an idealized portrait of a type (generally more often then not resembling the author’s more inflated sense of self).
I’m entirely without the means to adequately explain what motivates people to dredge through recent tragedy for their art. Whether they do it for self-therapeutic motives, whether they are so shaken by the experience they are unable to find it in them not to respond, whether they are eager to cash in on other people’s need for therapy and rumination on loss, whatever. But I can say that art of this kind, art that almost seems to exist solely as a kind of castigation of the reader, an inescapable comparison of the puny human sitting with book in hand with the Galahad on the page, using recent tragedy to evoke that comparison, is as loathsome a use of fiction as I’ve experienced in some time. The finger-pointing disguised as admirable munificence and chivalry calls too much attention to itself, like a man loudly asking after a beggar’s health as he slides his coppers into the cup then glares at you.
I went into the collection thinking I’d like to read more Helprin. I left it almost convinced I never would again.
Sometimes this can be a good thing, a kind of tonic whose healthiness you can almost feel as you read the story, bracing, an eat-your-spinach antidote to the irony-laden metatextual stories of today. When it’s good, believe me, it is very, very good.
This book, however, is only good occasionally, such as the opening tale, where Helprin’s comic sense and timing seems to hum like the world spinning under your feet on a bright sunshiny morning. Then there are portentous grinds like “Monday” that almost literally begs your indulgence in some 9/11 based garment rending and noble far-off looks, Helprin practically standing on the bar shouting he, and only he, truly remembers the dead, by God, and someone has to know, man, someone has to know.
That last act is tiresome, to say the least, fiction as a kind of hectoring guilt trip wherein the author says, “I know you say you remember, but can you be this valorous?” The effect of that story placing so early in the line up (third in the collection) undercuts the effect of the other stories, casts a shadow over them to such a degree that every World War Two reference, mention, or story that follows it can’t help but be weighted down with the reader’s suspicion that somehow these are metaphors for the real clash of civilizations going on right now in which noble men with nobility in their noble hearts write noble stories about other noble men doing noble things.
And so, the whole collection deflates sadly from the promise of its opening merely by the placement of this one story. Had Helprin lodged “Monday” in the closing pages, it might have served more as a coda, a look what came before and now look what needs to be in the author’s mind, or maybe it may have been dismissed as a bad-idea-last-minute page padder.
The opening story, let me repeat, is the best thing in the collection. Were you to pick up a copy at the book store, sit down somewhere quiet, read these thirty odd pages, the reflection of an impresario who back when he merely wanted to be an impresario, back when he discovered the voice that made him rich, never knew what fame and success would mean, you’d read with joy. The early collaborations between Cassati and his young discovery, Rosanna, are lively and full of guiltless pep and vinegar.
Likewise, her mistaking a picture of the temple priest taking baby Jesus in swaddling clothes for Father Christmas stealing a mummy is an inspired bit of idiocy. The story includes one of the best depictions I’ve read in some time of how seeing a certain painting can transport you through rapturous transcendental feelings of unreality.
Golden-throated talent himself, William Dufris, has a great deal of fun with this one, pitching all the Italian accents just a hair’s shading shy of straight up caricature. Elsewhere, he is up to his usual standards of gruff voices, soft voices, and deep voices, though his female characters tend to feature less variegation.
This is followed by one of several stories listed in here that are non-traditional in that there is very little story to the story. “Reconstruction,” “Prelude,” “Rain,” “Charlotte of the Utrechtseweg,” and the title story, “The Pacific” are not heavy on the action, the character development, or the rising and falling of dramatic narrative. Instead, they generally serve as vignette-ish character sketches of reactions and reflections within a compressed time frame. “Reconstruction” is mostly the narrator’s memory of his father and a slight bit of narrative about a dinner party he and his wife attend, though like the other bits it feels a little unfinished, a portion of a larger story.
The best of those sketch pieces would probably be “Charlotte” in which the main character, already shot, kneels in the street in Germany, unable to lie down, remembering his beautiful daughter back home. His memories are mixed and Charlotte is both adult and child in his fading vision of her. Helprin here makes good work of his tightly constricted narrative, the brevity conveying how quickly it all ends, how short life really is, and how small sometimes the most precious moments can be.
A kind of hinge story in the collection, “Perfection” nestles itself in the book’s middle pages and is the best demonstration of what is so completely right in a Helprin story and so completely wrong. It concerns itself with Roger, a puny Hasidic Jew, a teenage mystic who believes god has called on him to rescue the “House of Ruth” where Mickey Mental suffers for the Yenkiss. Helprin first paints lovely comic scenes among the rabbis, the butchers, and the Hasidic youth of Roger’s neighborhood. When Roger explains to Schnaiper the butcher that he’s replaced Luba the usual boy because Luba is in training to become a polar rabbi, able to answer such delicate queries as whether or not walrus is kosher, the scene is the first of several wonderful back and forths between the two.
Only later, once we have accepted that Roger actually gets treated to a chance at bat with the Yankees, with Yogi Berra catching, and that Roger, who has never batted before, who calls a bat an “axe,” once we accept the magical moment of him pounding the cover off the ball, of being able to hit anywhere he’s directed, of being able to field any position by the power of god. Once we’ve accepted these daffy doings, Helprin rips the story away from us with a completely jarring and inconsistent recollection by Roger, in a talk to the Yankees on how to achieve perfection, of his time in a concentration camp.
Never mind that Roger at age three would be unlikely to have memories wherein he understood the concepts of death, recognized gasoline, and understood deeply the horror of his situation from an existential viewpoint (rather than a mere survival one), never mind that. It is much as in “Monday,” where Helprin feels the need to bury a sermon in his fiction. If it only sorta-kinda doesn’t come off nearly as preachy here because Helprin’s using a puppet in the character of Roger to get his message across. Which is to say all the hectoring of the lecture issues from a character’s mouth instead of through narrative exposition.
But it is the collection’s third story, the dour “Monday” where Helprin tosses in the towel on decent story-telling and decides to merely make with the serious sentiment and chest beating. “Monday” tells the story of a construction/refurbishment/renovation company manager Fitch in the aftermath of 9/11. As convoys of trucks race by in the street in the weeks after carrying bodies, “he would stop, turn to the street, put his hand on his heart, and bow his head.” We learn later that “Even by January, he…would never fail to bow his head in respect, though by January he was just about the only one who still did.”
This is one of those low-blow moments of cheaply used sentimentality where the author is letting us know in fifty foot high Hollywoodland style lettering that Fitch is indeed ONE OF THE LAST HONORABLE MEN (unlike you disrespectful bastards, where’s your hearts?). And indeed, Fitch is honest and honorable and the only decent contractor in New York, probably the world.
Busy with tons of work because he does quality work, Fitch throws his schedule into chaos when a call comes in from an old client who needs an apartment redone and he takes it. The woman’s husband was killed in the South Tower and he himself with his crew watched from the top of a building as it happened. Determined to make some kind of gesture, Fitch does her whole apartment for free, upgrades all of her material to the highest quality, works non-stop for one solid month (in which he is joined by most of his crew, because they too are MEN who have HONOR), and depletes his entire life savings.
He does find the woman attractive, we are let to know, but “He could suppress his desires because he was an honorable man,” we are subsequently informed, and when an author resorts to this kind of testimonial headline writing, it’s kind of a clue that we are seeing not so much a real person as envisioned and created by an author, but really an idealized portrait of a type (generally more often then not resembling the author’s more inflated sense of self).
I’m entirely without the means to adequately explain what motivates people to dredge through recent tragedy for their art. Whether they do it for self-therapeutic motives, whether they are so shaken by the experience they are unable to find it in them not to respond, whether they are eager to cash in on other people’s need for therapy and rumination on loss, whatever. But I can say that art of this kind, art that almost seems to exist solely as a kind of castigation of the reader, an inescapable comparison of the puny human sitting with book in hand with the Galahad on the page, using recent tragedy to evoke that comparison, is as loathsome a use of fiction as I’ve experienced in some time. The finger-pointing disguised as admirable munificence and chivalry calls too much attention to itself, like a man loudly asking after a beggar’s health as he slides his coppers into the cup then glares at you.
I went into the collection thinking I’d like to read more Helprin. I left it almost convinced I never would again.
December 6, 2023
Sixteen short stories. Helprin is a deeply intelligent writer with an idiosyncratic style, both formal and poetic. In a couple of the stories he tackles mortality as a theme, in others he displays a satiric comic gift. A thoroughly edifying read. 4+ stars.
January 16, 2011
This collection of short stories, from veteran author and political commentator Mark Helprin, is notable for the overwhelming optimism and positivity expressed in each of the stories. Happy endings are not usually such an inevitability, especially in collections of short stories, and these tales are thus not only refreshing but perfect for rainy-day reading. The prose has a tendency to be a bit heavy handed, but is beautifully wrought.
That said, I would have liked to have seen a bit more variety in the shape and flow of the stories, and perhaps a bit more variety in the general themes as well. The WWII era features prominently, almost to the point of unnecessary nostalgia for an age that never really was as rosy as it seems in retrospect. Some of the characters seem equally underdeveloped; thus, while the stories are happy and hopeful, they feel incomplete. Nevertheless, "Monday" has become one of my all-time favorite stories.
I understand that Mark Helprin is a political Conservative, but I find his views to be quite moderate -- and anyway, he doesn't seem to be proselytizing here. (I add this only in response to others' commentary on his political views and expression.)
Favorite quotes:
"I'm suggesting, although I know you would never be able to believe this, that what you have now, as you struggle, is something you may regret to lose." (p. 30)
"But then she thought of the child she had seen in the playground, of her innocence, of her eyes, and she thought that for the sake of such a child nothing was too much, nothing was too difficult, nothing was too soon." (p. 71)
That said, I would have liked to have seen a bit more variety in the shape and flow of the stories, and perhaps a bit more variety in the general themes as well. The WWII era features prominently, almost to the point of unnecessary nostalgia for an age that never really was as rosy as it seems in retrospect. Some of the characters seem equally underdeveloped; thus, while the stories are happy and hopeful, they feel incomplete. Nevertheless, "Monday" has become one of my all-time favorite stories.
I understand that Mark Helprin is a political Conservative, but I find his views to be quite moderate -- and anyway, he doesn't seem to be proselytizing here. (I add this only in response to others' commentary on his political views and expression.)
Favorite quotes:
"I'm suggesting, although I know you would never be able to believe this, that what you have now, as you struggle, is something you may regret to lose." (p. 30)
"But then she thought of the child she had seen in the playground, of her innocence, of her eyes, and she thought that for the sake of such a child nothing was too much, nothing was too difficult, nothing was too soon." (p. 71)
June 29, 2007
First off: I hate politicizing literature. But sometimes it's inescapable.
It took me weeks to slog through this, and here's why: Helprin is so full of shit we'd mistake him for a latrine if he were painted white and dropped on a campground. Maybe I'm just falling into the same wrongheaded liberal trap that he accuses many of his reviewers of wallowing in, but this book feels--if not explicitly political--like an implicit piece of cultural commentary. It's a old-time conservative's wet dream: honor-obsessed (masculine) men and (unconventionally beautiful) women uncorrupted by the softening influence of civilization, struggling against incredible odds and attaining their own private glory in the face of (modernized, industrialized, cynical, cosmopolitan) society's scorn.
What really struck me was that Helprin likes to write about soldiers and ex-soldiers... and yet, despite the fact that this book was published in 2004, it never once mentions Vietnam or Korea, much less the US's current war. All of his wartime stories are set in the world wars, where idealistic delusions are still possible. (Marginally. Maybe.) Helprin's a romantic, both substantively and stylistically, and it really isn't endearing at all in this context.
So thumbs down, Mr. Helprin. Knowing your fiction, I can finally hate you without reservation for all of your sanctimonious cultural criticism, too.
It took me weeks to slog through this, and here's why: Helprin is so full of shit we'd mistake him for a latrine if he were painted white and dropped on a campground. Maybe I'm just falling into the same wrongheaded liberal trap that he accuses many of his reviewers of wallowing in, but this book feels--if not explicitly political--like an implicit piece of cultural commentary. It's a old-time conservative's wet dream: honor-obsessed (masculine) men and (unconventionally beautiful) women uncorrupted by the softening influence of civilization, struggling against incredible odds and attaining their own private glory in the face of (modernized, industrialized, cynical, cosmopolitan) society's scorn.
What really struck me was that Helprin likes to write about soldiers and ex-soldiers... and yet, despite the fact that this book was published in 2004, it never once mentions Vietnam or Korea, much less the US's current war. All of his wartime stories are set in the world wars, where idealistic delusions are still possible. (Marginally. Maybe.) Helprin's a romantic, both substantively and stylistically, and it really isn't endearing at all in this context.
So thumbs down, Mr. Helprin. Knowing your fiction, I can finally hate you without reservation for all of your sanctimonious cultural criticism, too.
February 1, 2010
Helprin writes with a prose that is as full and scrumptious as a ripe fruit and as profoundly sweet or sour as he chooses it to be. Ranging a myriad of topics, Helprin paints with the colors of human emotion and experience, rendering exquisite little vignettes that dance as your eyes flit over them. High praise? Perhaps, but the beauty of Helprin's diction and imagery, the poignancy of his characters and stories, and the depth of his moral and philosophical pronouncements make this a wonderfully pleasant read.
November 2, 2012
I absolutely loved this collection of short stories. I deliberately read slowly to delay the inevitable conclusion of each story. In fact, they are each so beautifully written that you cannot or at least should not read quickly. The prose is not dense; it is simply gorgeously crafted whether Helprin is describing people, situations, or scenery.
Additionally, these stories pack an emotional wallop. A couple are so powerful they brought tears to my eyes.
HIGHLY recommend.
Additionally, these stories pack an emotional wallop. A couple are so powerful they brought tears to my eyes.
HIGHLY recommend.
January 31, 2011
I tend to avoid literary Wes Andersons, writers who list their characters' idiosynchracies but do not address their souls. So I find Helprin's depth refreshing. He writes as if the anti-hero never happened. Irony was never invented. Of course to enjoy the stories you have to embrace a certain moral attitude, if only temporarily. Like watching a Steven Spielberg movies.
May 24, 2012
Wow. These short stories were beautifully written. One of those books that you need to read slowly to savor. Some stories struck me more than others, but a beautiful compilation.
April 15, 2017
Mr. Helprin's capacity for imagining and powers of evoking mental images are impressive. In the opening paragraphs of the title story, he describes ocean waves glimpsed through cedar boughs in the early morning light. The mental image was almost photographic, but also dynamic and panoramic. I haven't seen natural images quite like that since reading Matthiessen's Snow Leopard. His style and themes are very masculine. Many of the stories involve soldiers at the moments before death or loved one's memories of soldiers.
July 1, 2009
This book took me a very long time to read, but it was worth it. I enjoyed every word and every story. I would recommend this book to anyone who appreciates writing in the old-fashioned sense: think Conrad, Crane, Hemingway, but with a bit more modern lyricism. I think the reader also has to appreciate nature writing. No one I have come across can portray water and light like Helprin can. And both men and women can appreciate his plots, which range from war stories to human interest stories.
"Perfection" is one of the most original stories I've ever read. (And you don't have to love baseball to enjoy it, trust me!) "Passchendaele" is a good old-fashioned western-type love story, but the repression is so intense and the situation so carefully rendered, it stands out for me. But "Sail Shining in White" has one of the best openings of any fiction story I've ever read. Ever. Masterful and magical.
"Perfection" is one of the most original stories I've ever read. (And you don't have to love baseball to enjoy it, trust me!) "Passchendaele" is a good old-fashioned western-type love story, but the repression is so intense and the situation so carefully rendered, it stands out for me. But "Sail Shining in White" has one of the best openings of any fiction story I've ever read. Ever. Masterful and magical.
February 22, 2019
The reason it's taken me two and a half years to finish this short story collection is that reading a single story is enough to sustain me for months. Helprin's writing is just brilliant, uncannily so. You would not think one man could have such an eye for detail and such a careful sense of human nature (and a sense of humor to boot).
Many writers can turn a phrase. Helprin stands apart because he seems to actually believe in something bigger than himself. His stories are the antidote to the problem CS Lewis pinpoints in The Abolition of Man. They will put a heart in your chest.
Many writers can turn a phrase. Helprin stands apart because he seems to actually believe in something bigger than himself. His stories are the antidote to the problem CS Lewis pinpoints in The Abolition of Man. They will put a heart in your chest.
March 23, 2016
Well-written, and the stories tend to be uplifting, which is rare.
February 6, 2011
“Why?” Gustavo asked. And, when Fitch was not forthcoming, Gustavo commanded, “You’ve got to tell me why.”
“If you could see her…,” said Fitch.
“I saw her when we did the kitchen. She’s pretty. She’s beautiful. But she’s not that beautiful.”
“Yes, she is,” said Fitch. “She bears up, but I’ve never seen a more wounded, deeply aggrieved woman. It’s not because she’s physically beautiful. What the hell do I care? It’s because she needs something like this, from me, from us, from everyone. Not that it would or could be a substitute, but as a gesture.”
“A substitute for what?” Gustavo asked.
“Her husband.”
“Her husband left her?”
“Her husband was in the south tower when it came down,” Fitch said. “For Christ’s sake, they’ll never even find the bodies. Vaporized, made into paste. What can she think? What can she feel?” – “Monday”
He had no idea, of course, who she was. Nor did she know that was above, and she probably never would. He managed with great difficulty to move off his blood-soaked square of the roof and travel, before too long, to a point close enough to the lantern to hear every drop of water, to see the steam on the opaque plate of glass, to inhale the sweet moist air, and to touch his fingertips against the vents as if in doing this he were embracing a woman that he would love for the rest of his life. – “A Brilliant Idea and His Own”
“You were on the port side.”
“So I was.”
“And I was on the starboard.”
“You still are,” she said.
“I am, but I no longer have to come up with a pretext to talk to you.”
“Why would you need a pretext to talk to me?” she asked.
I hesitated. I could see she was watching with interest as I tried to be exact.
“Without a pretext, it would have been too forward.”
“It would have. That’s always the problem, isn’t it.” – “Prelude”
Now no one breathed except Roger. The pitch was thrown. The same astronomical conjunctions occurred. The bat connected explosively with the ball but, this time, just under the limit beyond which the ball would have been destroyed. Leather was stretched as far as it would stretch, thread too. It travelled in a straight line, leaving behind it a brief trail of orange flame and then a hardly perceptible line of white smoke.
Mouths dropped open and bodies froze as the ball slammed into the minute hand of the clock that said World’s Most Honored Watch and blew it from its axle so that it windmilled through the air, corkscrewing, eventually, into the ground in front of the wall that had written on it the challenging notation, 407 Ft. The field of Yankee Stadium, with the Yankees standing upon it, was still. – “Perfection”
“All right,” said Jacob Bayer. “I will show you the soul.” Everyone peered at him, moving in their seats. “Bring me a telephone,” he commanded. A telephone arrived immediately and was placed, disconnected, in Jacob Bayer’s hands. It was a beautifully crafted rosewood box with fittings of polished brass. When Jacob Bayer received it, the mallet brushed against one of the bells and made a sound both delicate and refined. “This,” Jacob Bayer announced, “is a telephone. It is a mechanism. It is of great value, and, when attached to a telephone wire, can carry your voice across continents.”
After the audience had sighed with pleasure at what he had said, he stood on his tiptoes, raised his arms to their full extent, hands still holding the telephone, and brought it from a height of three meters crashing down to the piazza’s stone floor, having propelled it with all the force he could draw from within him, which was quite a lot. The largest pieces to remain intact were the bells, and of the rest nothing was left bigger than a pea pod. It was if the machine had had a bomb in it. First came screams, then shock, then remonstrances, then a murmur, which Jacob Bayer silenced by standing to his full height and bellowing over the heads of all who looked at him, “Bring me a baby!” – “Jacob Bayer and the Telephone”
Down by St. Elizabeth’s, up from the river and toward the museum, and just beyond where the Utrechtseweg parts from the Onderlangs, he died with the vision of his daughter Charlotte In his eyes. – “Charlotte of the Utrechtseweg”
“What about the currents?” she asked, mindful of their distance from shore.
“Oh, the currents,” he answered. “If they wanted, they could take us all the way to Al-Arish.”
In, strangely enough, the most sexually provocative words she had ever uttered, and yet modestly, she said, “That would be very uncomfortable, wouldn’t it?”
He didn’t answer. Her smooth and solid limbs were still half in the water – as the raft bobbed on the swells, the sea would run up her thighs, and down, and when it sank deep into the crest of an oncoming wave the water went all the way up to the base of her neck, and then washed away, perfectly outlining her breasts in the wet tank top. Taking his eyes from her body, he surveyed her face. She was not the kind of woman for whom men would turn as they walked on the street, but in her expression were great beauty and grace. In her expression, in her imperfect, somewhat too heavy features, he could see experience, and suffering, and strength, and love.
A face like hers, if held differently, if set off by different eyes, if shaped by bitterness or greed, would not be beautiful. But the way she smiled was all beauty, suddenly, as if he were the first to see. Never had she been so buoyant or so lovely. Perhaps it was the sea. God knows what she took from the sea. – “Last Tea with the Armorers”
“If you could see her…,” said Fitch.
“I saw her when we did the kitchen. She’s pretty. She’s beautiful. But she’s not that beautiful.”
“Yes, she is,” said Fitch. “She bears up, but I’ve never seen a more wounded, deeply aggrieved woman. It’s not because she’s physically beautiful. What the hell do I care? It’s because she needs something like this, from me, from us, from everyone. Not that it would or could be a substitute, but as a gesture.”
“A substitute for what?” Gustavo asked.
“Her husband.”
“Her husband left her?”
“Her husband was in the south tower when it came down,” Fitch said. “For Christ’s sake, they’ll never even find the bodies. Vaporized, made into paste. What can she think? What can she feel?” – “Monday”
He had no idea, of course, who she was. Nor did she know that was above, and she probably never would. He managed with great difficulty to move off his blood-soaked square of the roof and travel, before too long, to a point close enough to the lantern to hear every drop of water, to see the steam on the opaque plate of glass, to inhale the sweet moist air, and to touch his fingertips against the vents as if in doing this he were embracing a woman that he would love for the rest of his life. – “A Brilliant Idea and His Own”
“You were on the port side.”
“So I was.”
“And I was on the starboard.”
“You still are,” she said.
“I am, but I no longer have to come up with a pretext to talk to you.”
“Why would you need a pretext to talk to me?” she asked.
I hesitated. I could see she was watching with interest as I tried to be exact.
“Without a pretext, it would have been too forward.”
“It would have. That’s always the problem, isn’t it.” – “Prelude”
Now no one breathed except Roger. The pitch was thrown. The same astronomical conjunctions occurred. The bat connected explosively with the ball but, this time, just under the limit beyond which the ball would have been destroyed. Leather was stretched as far as it would stretch, thread too. It travelled in a straight line, leaving behind it a brief trail of orange flame and then a hardly perceptible line of white smoke.
Mouths dropped open and bodies froze as the ball slammed into the minute hand of the clock that said World’s Most Honored Watch and blew it from its axle so that it windmilled through the air, corkscrewing, eventually, into the ground in front of the wall that had written on it the challenging notation, 407 Ft. The field of Yankee Stadium, with the Yankees standing upon it, was still. – “Perfection”
“All right,” said Jacob Bayer. “I will show you the soul.” Everyone peered at him, moving in their seats. “Bring me a telephone,” he commanded. A telephone arrived immediately and was placed, disconnected, in Jacob Bayer’s hands. It was a beautifully crafted rosewood box with fittings of polished brass. When Jacob Bayer received it, the mallet brushed against one of the bells and made a sound both delicate and refined. “This,” Jacob Bayer announced, “is a telephone. It is a mechanism. It is of great value, and, when attached to a telephone wire, can carry your voice across continents.”
After the audience had sighed with pleasure at what he had said, he stood on his tiptoes, raised his arms to their full extent, hands still holding the telephone, and brought it from a height of three meters crashing down to the piazza’s stone floor, having propelled it with all the force he could draw from within him, which was quite a lot. The largest pieces to remain intact were the bells, and of the rest nothing was left bigger than a pea pod. It was if the machine had had a bomb in it. First came screams, then shock, then remonstrances, then a murmur, which Jacob Bayer silenced by standing to his full height and bellowing over the heads of all who looked at him, “Bring me a baby!” – “Jacob Bayer and the Telephone”
Down by St. Elizabeth’s, up from the river and toward the museum, and just beyond where the Utrechtseweg parts from the Onderlangs, he died with the vision of his daughter Charlotte In his eyes. – “Charlotte of the Utrechtseweg”
“What about the currents?” she asked, mindful of their distance from shore.
“Oh, the currents,” he answered. “If they wanted, they could take us all the way to Al-Arish.”
In, strangely enough, the most sexually provocative words she had ever uttered, and yet modestly, she said, “That would be very uncomfortable, wouldn’t it?”
He didn’t answer. Her smooth and solid limbs were still half in the water – as the raft bobbed on the swells, the sea would run up her thighs, and down, and when it sank deep into the crest of an oncoming wave the water went all the way up to the base of her neck, and then washed away, perfectly outlining her breasts in the wet tank top. Taking his eyes from her body, he surveyed her face. She was not the kind of woman for whom men would turn as they walked on the street, but in her expression were great beauty and grace. In her expression, in her imperfect, somewhat too heavy features, he could see experience, and suffering, and strength, and love.
A face like hers, if held differently, if set off by different eyes, if shaped by bitterness or greed, would not be beautiful. But the way she smiled was all beauty, suddenly, as if he were the first to see. Never had she been so buoyant or so lovely. Perhaps it was the sea. God knows what she took from the sea. – “Last Tea with the Armorers”
February 3, 2019
This is more like a 3.75/3.5. It should be noted that I LOVE Helprin's writing. It was absolutely gorgeous. What I struggled with was (for lack of a better explanation) the 'point' of some of the short stories. I didn't read all of them, but of the ones I read some of them were three stars, others were four, and my personal fav Monday was a five star. Like any other compilation some were fantastic and others were kinda meh. What this book did teach me is that Helprin is a phenomenal writer. I have an inkling that it would be with a full length novel that his skills would have the chance to sing.
January 4, 2021
First read of 2021!!! In general I do NOT like short stories but I will read literally anything this man writes and this was maybe my favorite short story collection I've read. I actually got invested in many of them in the way I'm invested in his novels.
September 4, 2024
Deep, heartfelt stories with ordinary magic written in prose as smooth and intricate as old polished wood. Cannot recommend highly enough!
March 30, 2009
[Abandoned as of 3/30/09:]
I've read six of the sixteen stories here, and can go no further: Good God, but the man overwrites. His work has always suffered from a sentimental, self-consciously "literary" quality—he does love to wax on about the light, and about notions of honor, and he never settles for ten words where two hundred might be shoe-horned into a story. And, aside from the first 200 or so pages of Winter's Tale, he's always proven to be pretty much witless (in the sense of not being able to pull off humor; exhibit A: Memoir from Ant-Proof Case).
All of the above is bad enough, but he is so beholden to a pre-war-era sensibility that he is unable to write a convincing woman, or a man who is more complex than a bundle of virtues lashed together by sanctimonious observations of the light, the sea, the duress of combat, ad nauseam.
Reviewers below and in the trades have heaped praise upon this collection (some of it so carefully worded as to raise suspicion), but I wonder if anyone has pointed out how flaccid and self-indulgent a writer Helprin has become. It's easy to see that The Pacific is by the same writer as the earlier, superb Ellis Island and Other Stories, or even the better pieces in A Dove of the East. But those stories show a now-absent control and concision. What a pity.
I've read six of the sixteen stories here, and can go no further: Good God, but the man overwrites. His work has always suffered from a sentimental, self-consciously "literary" quality—he does love to wax on about the light, and about notions of honor, and he never settles for ten words where two hundred might be shoe-horned into a story. And, aside from the first 200 or so pages of Winter's Tale, he's always proven to be pretty much witless (in the sense of not being able to pull off humor; exhibit A: Memoir from Ant-Proof Case).
All of the above is bad enough, but he is so beholden to a pre-war-era sensibility that he is unable to write a convincing woman, or a man who is more complex than a bundle of virtues lashed together by sanctimonious observations of the light, the sea, the duress of combat, ad nauseam.
Reviewers below and in the trades have heaped praise upon this collection (some of it so carefully worded as to raise suspicion), but I wonder if anyone has pointed out how flaccid and self-indulgent a writer Helprin has become. It's easy to see that The Pacific is by the same writer as the earlier, superb Ellis Island and Other Stories, or even the better pieces in A Dove of the East. But those stories show a now-absent control and concision. What a pity.
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February 5, 2009Helprin, author of Ellis Island and A Winter's Tale, brings to this collection his usual deep look into life, love, and war in prose as "glassy and smooth as amber" (Los Angeles Times). Yet, written over two decades, these stories befuddled a few critics. Some praised Helprin's wise themes, character studies, dazzling prose, and detailed descriptions of how things, like baseball, work. Most agreed, however, that Helprin paints overly broad generalizations when it comes to people: honorable, brave men and beautiful women. "Jacob Byer and the Telephone," for example, has a fresh plot and protagonist, but a simple, emotionally unsatisfying moral at the end. Yet, even with faults, Helprin's world still "takes on a kind of fairy-tale luster" (Washington Post). It's just a matter of if you want it displayed in technicolor, or simplified in black and white.
This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.
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October 23, 2008Aargh, Helprin. I think his best medium is the epic novel (see Winter's Tale) rather than the short story. The story doesn't give him enough room to sprawl out and bring a thousand grand threads together in an enormous pattern - his stories read like set pieces, long descriptive passages clipped out of longer works, or predictable fables of sacrifice or love or patriotism. They're like antique theater sets - you can tell from the first where each of them is going, and then the rest is just watching the creaky machinery in motion, getting us there. Ropes and sandbags and painted scrims. I'm going to go read Winter's Tale again instead.
May 17, 2020
Partway through my own (straight) reading, I saw that one other reviewer (on this site) suggested rather than reading straight through this book, like a solid novel, it is best to take one's time to savor each individual story. I agree. Even though these are short stories, they very much have all of the purpose and sentiment of the novel experience. Although I wouldn't give every story a solid five stars, I give the entire collection five stars. Overall theme of book seems to be about the sacrifices that people are willing to make for what they believe in. Is that a spoiler? Probably. Still doesn't ruin the reading. It is beautiful, expansive, and deep; true to the title of this collection.
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