Review by Booklist Review
/*STARRED REVIEW*/ An antproof case is a meticulously crafted trunk that even the tiniest of insects can't infiltrate, a handsome antique emblematic of what was once good and true in the world, at least to the inexhaustible, idiosyncratic, wise, tender, hilarious, and poetic narrator of Helprin's spellbinding novel. This unnamed and utterly charming octogenarian is writing his meandering and episodic autobiography in a secluded mountain retreat across the bay from Rio de Janeiro and instructs us, with amusing regularity, to "please return the previous pages to the antproof case." And we would, if we could, because we wouldn't want to lose a single sheet of this magical and transcendent story. Our feisty memoirist, who claims to have been educated in a Swiss mental institution after killing a man on a New York train and to have been one of the world's richest men, a war hero, an ardent lover, and a master thief, is a veritable Scheherazade, spinning one mesmerizing but highly unlikely tale after another. As his energetic and entertaining narrative progresses, an odd fact emerges: this health-conscious adventurer vehemently believes that coffee is evil, a peculiar obsession that we eventually learn has deep roots and profound consequences. Helprin has a great gift for meaningful, dazzlingly detailed description as well as a nimble sense of humor and a keen perception of life as a jumble of the holy and the profane, a chaos that can only be tamed by the power of love. (Reviewed January 15, 1995)0151000972Donna Seaman
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
His usual mixture of flamboyant fantasy and concrete detail animates Helprin's (Soldier of the Great War) latest work, a tour de force that combines adventure, romance and an overview of the 20th century into a bittersweet narrative. This ``memoir'' is being composed in humid, insect-ridden Brazil, and its pages are preserved in an antproof case. How the elderly narrator ended up there after his birth in New York's Hudson Valley, an adolescence in a Swiss lunatic asylum (he killed a man and was deemed insane), college at Harvard, a perilous stint as a fighter pilot in WWII, a career as an investment banker in Manhattan and other eventful episodes, is the burden of the convoluted, intriguing story. It's an old man's tale, plangent with remorse and regret, yet vibrant with robust memories of sexual and aerial escapades. It's also somewhat farfetched, since the narrator has waged a lifelong, maniacal crusade against coffee, an obsession whose origin is only revealed in the novel's affecting last pages. Never one to tell a lean story, Helprin indulges in dozens of riffs and digressions exploring the principles of physics, anatomy, education, morality, monetary theory, aeronautics, engineering and many other subjects. Some of these descriptions are little short of gorgeous; others are tedious. Similarly, Helprin's witty, ironic humor sometimes veers into farce (e.g., a banquet scene where bank officers are served steak and the narrator, in disgrace, must eat a turkey anus). To his credit, Helprin is endlessly inventive, and one expects his characters to behave as they do in fairy tales and fables, not in real life. Yet real life pulses so strongly in some scenes (especially the account of the events surrounding the death of the narrator's parents) that they could stand as set pieces, full and complete in their stark and immediate impact. For all of its excesses, there is enough magic in this story to keep readers actively engaged. Major ad/promo; author tour. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
An old man climbs hills to find solace in viewing the ocean and to write a memoir for his young son (which he stores in an "antproof case"). His story moves forward in jagged fragments, with memories leading to memories-not sequentially, but leapfrogging through a dramatic life as World War II ace, investment banker, murderer, and more and looping back upon one another. As in a portrait by Picasso, the truth of his life is revealed through wildly distorted features. Helprin (A Soldier of the Great War, LJ 4/15/91) returns to his themes of love and redemptio, once again creating a tale that is rich in imagery and juxtaposes the irreverence and faith, foolishness and brilliance, of a 20th-century Don Quixote. Highly recommended. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/94.]-Jan Blodgett, Davidson Coll., Davidson, N.C. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
After the realistic Soldier of the Great War (1991), Helprin returns to the romantic fancy of A Winter's Tale (1983) for this achingly beautiful tale of revelation, revenge, and a magnificent obsession. Told as a memoir by an unnamed child of the century, this episodic but neatly circular story concerns the rise and fall of a crazed knight errant, a soldier in the services of memory and devotion. In his 80s, this former mental patient and investment banker spins a charming fable of his life, which begins idyllically along the Hudson in Ossining, N.Y., and ends in obscurity in Brazil. In between, we learn of his rise in the banking world, his heroic performance as an overaged fighter pilot in WW II, and his marriage to an heiress of unspeakable wealth. In his youth, he was institutionalized for inadvertently killing someone over a strange indiscretion: the presence of coffee. Throughout his long and marvelous life, this strange and wonderful man has loathed coffee. His physical revulsion, aesthetic disgust, and philosophic hatred of the bean have been at the root of all the most devastating events in his life: the murder for which he was punished; his divorce from his otherwise perfect billionairess; and the loss of his job at the house of Stillman and Chase. Not until well into this sprawl of a novel do we learn of his primal trauma. There may be justice in his crime of the century--stealing almost a billion dollars from his former employer and killing the bloodless capitalist who presides over the firm. But this elegiac and confessional narrator has no interest in abstractions; he simply tries to protect those he loves. Everywhere in this lyrical, funny, and fiercely imagined book, Helprin affirms the values that pervade all his fiction: the power of grace, love, and forgiveness. And, most of all, the magic of childlike innocence. (Book-of-the-Month Club selection)
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
