jj@rabbit.UUCP (08/10/84)
I've just picked it up. The cover blurb didn't look too bad, and the first few pages looked strange enough to be interesting. Does anyone out there have comments. <If not, I guess I will in a few days...> -- EVEN TEDDY BEARS LIKE COOKIES! "Please, Sir. I want some more" (allegra,harpo,ulysses)!rabbit!jj
gtaylor@lasspvax.UUCP (Greg Taylor) (08/13/84)
Time was when I cruised the pages of the NEW YORKER like a fiend, searching for another Helprin short story to get me through. Winter's Tale was pretty much up to scratch, but has that quality that I also found in Refiner's Fire: you get a sense that you're reading a number of short stories all strung together on a string. Some of the stories are better than others. One of the other things I particularly missed about this particular book is any of his writings on Judaica. If you like this book, I would suggest you search out his last collection of short stories Ellis Island. You'll find that the title story will remind you quite a bit of the strange trajectory of Winter's Tale. But he is also very good at a very straight-ahead kind of lucid prose, besides his "skyrocket with a broken fin" stuff. Try out "The Scheuderspitze" as well- THough I am not as wild about it, you might want to try out his last novel- Refiner's Fire. Some of it is marvelous, and some of it seems more like pastiche (a sort of picaresque novel with a commitment to novelty as the highest good) as well. Then, when you're done with *that*, take a tip from me: Run out to a paperback place and pick yourself up a copy of "The Birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica" by John Calvin Batchelor. Now that its out in trade paper, there's no excuse not to take a run at it. Think of it as a sort of a cross between "Moby Dick, Icelandic mythology, a critique of 20th century Utilitarianism, and a rousing, apocalyptic yarn written by a Divinity student. There really isn't anything like it out there. Read on, ________________________________________________________________________________ If you ask me, I may tell you gtaylor@cornell it's been this way for years Gregory Taylor I play my red guitar.... Theorynet (Theoryknot) ________________________________________________________________________________
benson@dcdwest.UUCP (08/13/84)
I read the Winter's Tale this winter (seemed an apt time even tho winter in San Diego is not like winter in, say, Ann Arbor). I found it to be a magical, even lyrical book. It was best in its depiction of a New York I had never seen that was clean and vital with interesting people from a polite society. The later portion of the book was not as good but the first 100 pages were excellent. -- _ Peter Benson | ITT Defense Communications Division (619)578-3080 | 10060 Carroll Canyon Road decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!benson | San Diego, CA 92131 ucbvax!sdcsvax!dcdwest!benson |