Winter’s Tale, by Mark Helprin, was published in 1983. It has been on my favorite book list ever since. This winter I decided to read it again during the month of January, a perfect time, as the title might hint.
If only for the rush to the dictionary and the thrill of understanding these bell ringing made-up words I would tell you to read this book. If only for the way in which the concrete world/ideas are made light, diaphanous, ridiculous and the meta-physical world is given possibility/real edges I want you to read this book.
Yes, it is a book about romance and tragedy and, I suppose, the triumph of the human spirit which can drive any serious reader to mark the page and put it down and find a nice warm beverage and the op-ed column, but the huge, beautifully articulated paragraphs, the intricately yet sometimes obscurely linked events and folks will bring me back every time. I am in love with Virginia Gamely. I want to feel the cold beauty of somewhere upstate New York.
This book appears to ramble, if you work too hard to keep track of what year it is, who is related to whom, worry too much about Athansor, you will miss the wonder of the moment, which, as i write that I am aware of it’s own ridiculousness. What if we could suspend time? Didn’t we invent it originally? Would we go mad with intention, hold everything at once with senses cratered so deep we could finally stop………our deadening love affair with duality? This book will make you think like that.
I love a good movie…I am grateful no one has tried to make one of this book. I am afraid of the mess that would be made. The book’s possibilities/positions are best left to imagination at it’s first turn, just gathering in the colored strings without much raveling is best.
It will make you take long walks in the snow, glad for the cold, the light, the days off from school. It will make you feel strong, able to take on any momentous task that falls upon your path. Perhaps winter is not the time for hibernation and dreams. The path is never empty.
