.gif)
Winter's Tale (Helprin)
Encyclopedia
Winter's Tale is a 1983 novel by Mark Helprin
. It takes place in a mythic New York City, markedly different than our own. It takes place mainly near the turn of the 20th century.
A child of an immigrant couple denied admission at Governors Island
, Peter Lake is set adrift in New York Harbor in a miniature model ship called City of Justice. He is found in the reeds and adopted by the Baymen of the Bayonne Marsh
, who send him off to Manhattan when he comes of age. There he first becomes a mechanic and then is forced to become a burglar in a gang called the Short Tails
. He soon makes a mortal enemy of their leader, Pearly Soames, and is constantly on the run from the gang. Early one winter morning Peter is on the brink of being captured and killed by the gang when he is rescued by a mysterious white horse, who becomes his guardian.
While attempting to rob a house, Peter Lake meets Beverly Penn, and they fall in love. Beverly dies from consumption but never disappears from Peter's life, protecting him until the very end. His love for dying Beverly causes him to become obsessed with justice.
In yet another escape from Pearly's men, both Peter Lake and the white horse crash into the cloud wall, disappearing in it for years. When Peter Lake emerges, years later, he no longer remembers who he is and is visibly no longer of this world, seeing and hearing things that nobody else can see or hear. One night, in a dream or a vision, he is carried on a tour of all the graves of the world, observing and remembering all the dead.
In the apocalyptic chaos of burning New York, Peter Lake comes to full power, able to perform miracles. He sacrifices his life to resurrect a dead child and thus changes the world.
Peter Lake refers to himself, earlier in his life, as "Grand Central Pete". In reality, there was a well-known confidence man in the late 19th century known by this name.
The white horse appears on the first pages of the book, saving Peter Lake who is being pursued by the Short Tails. The name of the horse is unknown to Peter Lake, but when Peter Lake visits Bayonne Marsh, the Baymen recognise the horse as Athansor, mentioned in the third song of their ten songs, learned beginning at the age of thirteen, one each decade. The Baymen arrive from everywhere to view the horse, but never explain what they know about him besides the name and the fact that he comes from the left.
Athansor is separated from Peter Lake when they both crash into the cloud wall but gets reunited with him towards the end of the story. Peter Lake releases him, and Athansor heads towards the heavenly pastures. As he gallops across Manhattan, trying to lift off, the whole island shakes under his hoofbeats.
who meets Peter Lake when he breaks into her house. Beverly is a visionary who can feel the universe. She writes down equations that explain the universe and mean for her that the universe shouts and growls. Beverly's father says about her that she had seen the Golden Age.
Even after her death, Beverly protects Peter Lake. Pearly Soames says that he tried but could not get to Peter Lake through Beverly's protection.
It is interesting that Jackson Mead's stated goal "to stop time and bring back the dead", in precisely these words, is widely associated with Peter Lake and in particular attributed to him on the back of the paperback edition.
Jackson Mead's character is partially based on Joseph Strauss, the engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge
. Hardesty Marratta recognises Jackson Mead's face in the face of the monument to Joseph Strauss at the Golden Gate. The inscription on the monument refers to the bridge as the "eternal rainbow", a simile used by Jackson Mead.
's Doublethink quarterly that the book had never won or even been nominated for an important literary prize. He conjectures that this lack of public appreciation was due to his political views, in particular to an interview he gave to New York Times Book Review in 1983. The interview with Christopher Buckley actually was published in the NYTRB on March 25, 1984. Despite extraordinary praise on the front cover of the New York Times Book Review and throughout the review media, none of Helprin's subsequent books has been awarded or nominated for a prize. In the Doublethink interview, Helprin stated that the Times Book Review moved conservative authors "from spectacular reviews on the front page to good reviews on the second page to bad reviews deeper in. And then, eventually, in the process of making you a non-person, which is what it’s all about, eventually, they won’t even review it. It will be a little paragraph this big, and then a line, and then they won’t even review it. It’s just like Oscar Progresso being cut off gradually." "The Helprin book in which the character Oscar Progresso appears was reviewed favorably by the New York Times, but not – as in the case of his previous four books – as the lead review. Perhaps the most notable example of what he claims is that in the Times Book Review front-page review of A Soldier of the Great War
, a novel that takes place in the First World War, the review's first paragraph states that Helprin is a Republican. His comment on that was, " Why exactly did they do that? Would they have stated in a review of Ancient Evenings that Norman Mailer was a Democrat?".
Winter's Tale received multiple votes in the 2006 New York Times Book Review survey, the stated purpose of which was to identify "the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years," with the ultimate winner being Toni Morrison
's novel Beloved
. Mark Helprin commented on the survey in Claremont Review of Books
, proclaiming the purpose of the survey absurd and its results embarrassing. Quoting Helprin, "Asked to serve on the enormous panel of solons they had assembled for the purpose, I declined on the grounds that neither I nor just about anyone else has a sufficiently wide or deep knowledge of all that has been written in the period, and that even if we had, such a determination is impossible, especially at the hands of literary people who have intellectual debtors and creditors, protégés, and favorites (including, not least, themselves)."
of Gabriel Garcia Marquez
or Salman Rushdie, and the book is in part a paean to New York City in the same way that Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude
is a tribute to Garcia Marquez's Colombia, Helprin himself is on record (in a letter to Keith Morgan, and elsewhere) as stating that he "detests" magical realism, because "it is exhibitionistic, forced, self-conscious, and almost devoid of emotional content. Perhaps I don't like it for the same reasons that I have never taken recreational or hallucinogenic drugs. I don't believe that a story must necessarily follow the conventions of 19th-century realism, but if it departs into the realms of unreality it must be pulled there by deep conviction and the sense of the story itself, not driven there as in a mechanical literary experiment. No one ever said the Bible
was 'magical realism' even though what happens in it departs from the realm of physics. Put me down as leaning in that direction rather than toward South America." A more explicit influence may be Fielding's Tom Jones and Dante's Divine Comedy.
Additional translations include the French, Italian, Hebrew, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Japanese, Russian, Swedish, and others.
Mark Helprin
Mark Helprin is an American novelist, journalist, and conservative commentator.-Background:Helprin was raised on the Hudson River and in the British West Indies, and holds degrees from Harvard College and Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. His postgraduate work was done at Princeton...
. It takes place in a mythic New York City, markedly different than our own. It takes place mainly near the turn of the 20th century.
Peter Lake
Peter Lake is the central character of Winter's Tale. He has been called an allegory of the Jewish Messiah. He changes the world by sacrificing his life for a child.A child of an immigrant couple denied admission at Governors Island
Governors Island
Governors Island is a island in Upper New York Bay, approximately one-half mile from the southern tip of Manhattan Island and separated from Brooklyn by Buttermilk Channel. It is legally part of the borough of Manhattan in New York City...
, Peter Lake is set adrift in New York Harbor in a miniature model ship called City of Justice. He is found in the reeds and adopted by the Baymen of the Bayonne Marsh
Bayonne, New Jersey
Bayonne is a city in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. Located in the Gateway Region, Bayonne is a peninsula that is situated between Newark Bay to the west, the Kill van Kull to the south, and New York Bay to the east...
, who send him off to Manhattan when he comes of age. There he first becomes a mechanic and then is forced to become a burglar in a gang called the Short Tails
Gangs of New York
Gangs of New York is a 2002 historical film set in the mid-19th century in the Five Points district of New York City. It was directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan. The film was inspired by Herbert Asbury's 1928 nonfiction book, The Gangs of New...
. He soon makes a mortal enemy of their leader, Pearly Soames, and is constantly on the run from the gang. Early one winter morning Peter is on the brink of being captured and killed by the gang when he is rescued by a mysterious white horse, who becomes his guardian.
While attempting to rob a house, Peter Lake meets Beverly Penn, and they fall in love. Beverly dies from consumption but never disappears from Peter's life, protecting him until the very end. His love for dying Beverly causes him to become obsessed with justice.
In yet another escape from Pearly's men, both Peter Lake and the white horse crash into the cloud wall, disappearing in it for years. When Peter Lake emerges, years later, he no longer remembers who he is and is visibly no longer of this world, seeing and hearing things that nobody else can see or hear. One night, in a dream or a vision, he is carried on a tour of all the graves of the world, observing and remembering all the dead.
In the apocalyptic chaos of burning New York, Peter Lake comes to full power, able to perform miracles. He sacrifices his life to resurrect a dead child and thus changes the world.
Peter Lake refers to himself, earlier in his life, as "Grand Central Pete". In reality, there was a well-known confidence man in the late 19th century known by this name.
Athansor
Athansor, the white horse, acts as a guardian angel of Peter Lake. Able to fly and possessing extraordinary endurance, the white horse appears to be an angelic being. Before the end, Peter Lake releases him to finally let him go to heaven, as Athansor had not been able to do before because of Peter Lake.The white horse appears on the first pages of the book, saving Peter Lake who is being pursued by the Short Tails. The name of the horse is unknown to Peter Lake, but when Peter Lake visits Bayonne Marsh, the Baymen recognise the horse as Athansor, mentioned in the third song of their ten songs, learned beginning at the age of thirteen, one each decade. The Baymen arrive from everywhere to view the horse, but never explain what they know about him besides the name and the fact that he comes from the left.
Athansor is separated from Peter Lake when they both crash into the cloud wall but gets reunited with him towards the end of the story. Peter Lake releases him, and Athansor heads towards the heavenly pastures. As he gallops across Manhattan, trying to lift off, the whole island shakes under his hoofbeats.
Beverly Penn
Beverly Penn is a young girl dying from consumptionTuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
who meets Peter Lake when he breaks into her house. Beverly is a visionary who can feel the universe. She writes down equations that explain the universe and mean for her that the universe shouts and growls. Beverly's father says about her that she had seen the Golden Age.
Even after her death, Beverly protects Peter Lake. Pearly Soames says that he tried but could not get to Peter Lake through Beverly's protection.
Jackson Mead
A master bridge builder and an enigmatic figure, Jackson Mead constructed many fine bridges all around the country. He is a brilliant engineer and appears to have unlimited material resources for the job. He is eventually revealed to be an exile from heaven, whose purpose is to build one last bridge that will bring forth the end of the world as it is, letting him return to heaven. As Jackson Mead puts it, his purpose is "to tag this world with wider and wider rainbows, until the last is so perfect and eternal that it will catch the eye of the One who has abandoned us, and bring Him to right all the broken symmetries and make life once again a still and timeless dream. My purpose, Mr. Marratta, is to stop time, to bring back the dead. My purpose, in one word, is justice." Jackson Mead's rainbow bridge does not take, but he is not upset by the failure and disappears to bide time until his next attempt.It is interesting that Jackson Mead's stated goal "to stop time and bring back the dead", in precisely these words, is widely associated with Peter Lake and in particular attributed to him on the back of the paperback edition.
Jackson Mead's character is partially based on Joseph Strauss, the engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge
Golden Gate Bridge
The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay into the Pacific Ocean. As part of both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1, the structure links the city of San Francisco, on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, to...
. Hardesty Marratta recognises Jackson Mead's face in the face of the monument to Joseph Strauss at the Golden Gate. The inscription on the monument refers to the bridge as the "eternal rainbow", a simile used by Jackson Mead.
Literary significance and reception
Winter's Tale was published in 1983. Mark Helprin states in his interview to America's Future FoundationAmerica's Future Foundation
America's Future Foundation is a non-profit network founded in 1995 by Mary and Chris Siddall, Samuel Casey Carter, Adam Kaufman and Robert and Lisa Caldwell in Washington, DC. with the goal of developing young conservatives and libertarians into "leaders for liberty". Members of the AFF team have...
's Doublethink quarterly that the book had never won or even been nominated for an important literary prize. He conjectures that this lack of public appreciation was due to his political views, in particular to an interview he gave to New York Times Book Review in 1983. The interview with Christopher Buckley actually was published in the NYTRB on March 25, 1984. Despite extraordinary praise on the front cover of the New York Times Book Review and throughout the review media, none of Helprin's subsequent books has been awarded or nominated for a prize. In the Doublethink interview, Helprin stated that the Times Book Review moved conservative authors "from spectacular reviews on the front page to good reviews on the second page to bad reviews deeper in. And then, eventually, in the process of making you a non-person, which is what it’s all about, eventually, they won’t even review it. It will be a little paragraph this big, and then a line, and then they won’t even review it. It’s just like Oscar Progresso being cut off gradually." "The Helprin book in which the character Oscar Progresso appears was reviewed favorably by the New York Times, but not – as in the case of his previous four books – as the lead review. Perhaps the most notable example of what he claims is that in the Times Book Review front-page review of A Soldier of the Great War
A Soldier of the Great War
A Soldier of the Great War is a novel by Mark Helprin concerning an aged World War I veteran who recounts his life and adventures while traveling with a young man he meets after the two of them are thrown off a bus, the former leaving after the latter is refused entry, as the older man marches...
, a novel that takes place in the First World War, the review's first paragraph states that Helprin is a Republican. His comment on that was, " Why exactly did they do that? Would they have stated in a review of Ancient Evenings that Norman Mailer was a Democrat?".
Winter's Tale received multiple votes in the 2006 New York Times Book Review survey, the stated purpose of which was to identify "the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years," with the ultimate winner being Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, editor, and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed characters. Among her best known novels are The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and Beloved...
's novel Beloved
Beloved (novel)
Beloved is a novel by the American writer Toni Morrison, published in 1987. Set in 1873 just after the American Civil War , it is based on the story of the African-American slave, Margaret Garner, who escaped slavery in 1856 in Kentucky by fleeing to Ohio, a free state...
. Mark Helprin commented on the survey in Claremont Review of Books
Claremont Review of Books
The Claremont Review of Books is a quarterly review of politics and statesmanship published by the Claremont Institute. Many consider it a conservative intellectual answer to the liberal New York Review of Books...
, proclaiming the purpose of the survey absurd and its results embarrassing. Quoting Helprin, "Asked to serve on the enormous panel of solons they had assembled for the purpose, I declined on the grounds that neither I nor just about anyone else has a sufficiently wide or deep knowledge of all that has been written in the period, and that even if we had, such a determination is impossible, especially at the hands of literary people who have intellectual debtors and creditors, protégés, and favorites (including, not least, themselves)."
Literary style and influence
Although many have stated that the novel has a similar feel to the magic realismMagic realism
Magic realism or magical realism is an aesthetic style or genre of fiction in which magical elements blend with the real world. The story explains these magical elements as real occurrences, presented in a straightforward manner that places the "real" and the "fantastic" in the same stream of...
of Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...
or Salman Rushdie, and the book is in part a paean to New York City in the same way that Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude
One Hundred Years of Solitude
One Hundred Years of Solitude , by Gabriel García Márquez, is a novel which tells the multi-generational story of the Buendía family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, founds the town of Macondo, the metaphoric Colombia...
is a tribute to Garcia Marquez's Colombia, Helprin himself is on record (in a letter to Keith Morgan, and elsewhere) as stating that he "detests" magical realism, because "it is exhibitionistic, forced, self-conscious, and almost devoid of emotional content. Perhaps I don't like it for the same reasons that I have never taken recreational or hallucinogenic drugs. I don't believe that a story must necessarily follow the conventions of 19th-century realism, but if it departs into the realms of unreality it must be pulled there by deep conviction and the sense of the story itself, not driven there as in a mechanical literary experiment. No one ever said the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
was 'magical realism' even though what happens in it departs from the realm of physics. Put me down as leaning in that direction rather than toward South America." A more explicit influence may be Fielding's Tom Jones and Dante's Divine Comedy.
Translations
- A German translation with the title Wintermärchen was published by Bastei Lübbe in 1984. ISBN 378-570-371-6.
- A Finnish translation by Eva Siikarla was published in 1985 by Tammi. Finnish title: Talvinen tarina. ISBN 951-30-5989-8.
- Téli mese, a Hungarian languageHungarian languageHungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
translation by Mihály Falvay, was published by Árkádia, Budapest in 1989. The 1983 Simon & SchusterSimon & SchusterSimon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...
Pocket BooksPocket BooksPocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books.- History :Pocket produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in America in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing industry...
edition is referenced as the original. ISBN 963-307-142-9.
Additional translations include the French, Italian, Hebrew, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Japanese, Russian, Swedish, and others.