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erica_o 's review for:
Winter's Tale
by Mark Helprin
I DID IT!
I survived this book!
I am the STRONGEST!
RAAAAAAAAAR!
That's me after finishing this story.
Soooo...I hated it.
I totally read this in the wrong age (both in terms of my physical age and in terms of the century in which I am currently living) - I should have read this when I was in my young 20's, still idealistic and full of wonder, before the world changed over to the new millennium and 9/11.
I think had I read this back then, I'd have been enchanted.
In fact, I was enchanted through probably the first half of Peter Lake's story. Oh, the magic of the beautiful Belle Epoque when all things glistened, even orphans in tenements dying of TB. So perfectly touching.
Then the slipstream aspect of time and place showed up and I haven't been a fan of time manipulation in years so that was an unwelcome surprise. After that, I found I was trying to figure out just where/when in hell I was throughout most of the rest of the book and how it all related.
(It didn't relate. It was just smooshed together and forced to get along)
For me, it went from surreal and magical, charming and quaint to full-on pretentious and then to plain, ol' silly.
I suppose if I had to write a paper on this book, I'd say something about Peter Lake being a representation of the last beautiful age in America and Pearly Somes being the antithesis/reality of our sentimentality. The Ghost is probably a mockery of our own ridiculous, gluttonous, vain, indolent, self-involved society with Craig Binky being the representation of the 1% and Harry Penn being his antithesis as the hard-working, respected, talented, deserving millionaire.
Maybe had the entire book been written as a poking satire, laughing at our culture's wish to harness the perceived perfection of times long gone while simultaneously making terrible decisions that will lead even further away from a golden age, it might not have been so tedious. All the word misuse (I was highly offended at the misuse of "sesquipedalean" among others) was not fanciful, the ridiculous names not whimsical. It was grating and it irritated because the story was not a simple satire. It was also a love poem to New York City. We also have a...what? Fallen angel trying to make the rainbow bridge in order to get home? Did I read that right? Or maybe the rainbow bridge was to connect other realities with this one. I don't know. I'm not sure I care. And we have the magical, stuck-in-time-and-space Lake of the Coheres which is like a stepping stone from the last golden age to the turn of this past century and where wise women who love words live. We have a Jesus baby, we have lineage, and then there's the romance story, too, complete with otherworldly superpower protection born of true love. And a magical white horse.
Yay.
It was too much for me. The author's little bio thingy says he doesn't belong to any set "literary school, movement, tendency, or trend" and I think I've come to realize in my stodgy old age that I need less of that and more of structure because my intellect can no longer handle anything wobbly.
I survived this book!
I am the STRONGEST!
RAAAAAAAAAR!
That's me after finishing this story.
Soooo...I hated it.
I totally read this in the wrong age (both in terms of my physical age and in terms of the century in which I am currently living) - I should have read this when I was in my young 20's, still idealistic and full of wonder, before the world changed over to the new millennium and 9/11.
I think had I read this back then, I'd have been enchanted.
In fact, I was enchanted through probably the first half of Peter Lake's story. Oh, the magic of the beautiful Belle Epoque when all things glistened, even orphans in tenements dying of TB. So perfectly touching.
Then the slipstream aspect of time and place showed up and I haven't been a fan of time manipulation in years so that was an unwelcome surprise. After that, I found I was trying to figure out just where/when in hell I was throughout most of the rest of the book and how it all related.
(It didn't relate. It was just smooshed together and forced to get along)
For me, it went from surreal and magical, charming and quaint to full-on pretentious and then to plain, ol' silly.
I suppose if I had to write a paper on this book, I'd say something about Peter Lake being a representation of the last beautiful age in America and Pearly Somes being the antithesis/reality of our sentimentality. The Ghost is probably a mockery of our own ridiculous, gluttonous, vain, indolent, self-involved society with Craig Binky being the representation of the 1% and Harry Penn being his antithesis as the hard-working, respected, talented, deserving millionaire.
Maybe had the entire book been written as a poking satire, laughing at our culture's wish to harness the perceived perfection of times long gone while simultaneously making terrible decisions that will lead even further away from a golden age, it might not have been so tedious. All the word misuse (I was highly offended at the misuse of "sesquipedalean" among others) was not fanciful, the ridiculous names not whimsical. It was grating and it irritated because the story was not a simple satire. It was also a love poem to New York City. We also have a...what? Fallen angel trying to make the rainbow bridge in order to get home? Did I read that right? Or maybe the rainbow bridge was to connect other realities with this one. I don't know. I'm not sure I care. And we have the magical, stuck-in-time-and-space Lake of the Coheres which is like a stepping stone from the last golden age to the turn of this past century and where wise women who love words live. We have a Jesus baby, we have lineage, and then there's the romance story, too, complete with otherworldly superpower protection born of true love. And a magical white horse.
Yay.
It was too much for me. The author's little bio thingy says he doesn't belong to any set "literary school, movement, tendency, or trend" and I think I've come to realize in my stodgy old age that I need less of that and more of structure because my intellect can no longer handle anything wobbly.