This is a book with complex resonance for me since I read it in 1983. A story that stuck with me and a style that both confused and intrigued. Up until then I'd been picking up and reading mostly high fantasy and science fiction. I remember being curious because the jacket cover blurb mentioned something about a flying milk horse. I picked it up and started reading.
The book was an impressively detailed historical adventure novel with a wide cast of memorable characters and locations and occasional hints of all out magic. After I finished the book I admit I was perplexed about how I felt about it. It was year's later that literature bean counters started gathering otherwise unrelated novels together and stamping them with the label Magical Realism. Books like the "Milagro Bean Field War" and "Kafka on the Shore". Given a name for what I had experienced, I was satisfied.
Despite what was suggested at the time though, Magical Realism is not a new genre. Merely a new name given to a class of novels that goes back decades. "The Tin Drum" by Gunter Grass is a novel from 1959, I would argue definitely fits into this classification. "The Master and Marguerita" by Mikhail Bulgakov is a novel from 1967 about Stalinist Russia that definitely rates highly if you are a fan of this genre.
"Winter's Tale" is a darling of the Magical Realist novel, however. The way Helprin's style smoothly transitions between breathtaking descriptions of New York in the early 20th century and a burglar on a flying horse trying to escape Pearly Soames and the Short Tail gang. It almost seems like a textbook definition for the writing style. In addition, it is also a novel that will lead you to fall in love with winter.
In the original text, Mark Halperin only typed "on" once before "the lake". Damn writing stutter.
ReplyDelete