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A review by gh7
Memoir from Antproof Case by Mark Helprin
2.0
Abandoned eighty pages from the end. I just couldn't take any more of the wilful absurdity of this book. Mt least favourite aspect of the other Helprin novels I've read is his sense of comedy. I just don't find it funny. This novel is entirely comic so more fool me for buying it!
A worrying discovery was the narrator of this novel and the narrator of his new novel appear like the same man. As if we're getting a peep into Helprin himself. Both are waging war on the modern world, both are obsessed with beautiful women who they spiritualise under a delusion that they are more sensitive to women than most men and both are control freaks. In my experience the most exhausting kind of man can often be one who, on the one hand, prides himself on how sensitive he is to women and on the other is a control freak. Sooner or later his "generous" ideas about women will reveal themselves to be just another facet of his closed and regimented mind. Contradict this kind of man at your peril. Our hero in this book wages war on coffee. I wasn't sure at times if Helprin was joking. Maybe he really does think coffee is the source of many of the problems of modern life. The satiric purpose of this phobia wasn't at all clear to me. I'm all for principles but I'm not sure I'm keen on individuals who make a relentless song and dance of them. So his hero was obnoxious to me. Again, I'm not sure this is how I was meant to feel about him. He reminded me of Osmond in Portrait of a Lady except James was fully conscious of how pernicious and noxious his character and his attitude towards women were. Helprin, you feel, doesn't share James' insights. He seems convinced his men are waving some kind of celebratory banner for the female sex - as long as they're under twenty-five, have long slim legs and are stunningly beautiful. Thinking about it, all the women in his books are fairy story females. I can't think of one who would offer an actress a challenging role in a film adaptation.
Helprin can write well but this to me was like a third rate pastiche of a Thomas Pynchon novel.
A worrying discovery was the narrator of this novel and the narrator of his new novel appear like the same man. As if we're getting a peep into Helprin himself. Both are waging war on the modern world, both are obsessed with beautiful women who they spiritualise under a delusion that they are more sensitive to women than most men and both are control freaks. In my experience the most exhausting kind of man can often be one who, on the one hand, prides himself on how sensitive he is to women and on the other is a control freak. Sooner or later his "generous" ideas about women will reveal themselves to be just another facet of his closed and regimented mind. Contradict this kind of man at your peril. Our hero in this book wages war on coffee. I wasn't sure at times if Helprin was joking. Maybe he really does think coffee is the source of many of the problems of modern life. The satiric purpose of this phobia wasn't at all clear to me. I'm all for principles but I'm not sure I'm keen on individuals who make a relentless song and dance of them. So his hero was obnoxious to me. Again, I'm not sure this is how I was meant to feel about him. He reminded me of Osmond in Portrait of a Lady except James was fully conscious of how pernicious and noxious his character and his attitude towards women were. Helprin, you feel, doesn't share James' insights. He seems convinced his men are waving some kind of celebratory banner for the female sex - as long as they're under twenty-five, have long slim legs and are stunningly beautiful. Thinking about it, all the women in his books are fairy story females. I can't think of one who would offer an actress a challenging role in a film adaptation.
Helprin can write well but this to me was like a third rate pastiche of a Thomas Pynchon novel.