Classics Corner: A Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin; A Disappointing and Overly Long Fantasy Romance

Classics Corner: A Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin; A Disappointing and Overly Long Fantasy Romance

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: I feel like someone's mother when I say, “I am very disappointed in you, A Winter's Tale!”

The truth is I wanted to like it. I really did. I heard the plot and realized that it was a modern fantasy set in 19th New York City. How could I not like it?

Well let me count the ways.

1. Spotty characterization- Many of Mark Helprin's characters only show brief glimmers of being interesting characters but are mired by a convoluted plot in which bizarre things just sort of happen to them with no reason and with no change in character whatsoever. While the protagonist, Peter Lake has a very interesting back story (He was left adrift by his immigrant parents when they were denied entry in the U.S. because they carried consumption. He was then found by a group of Baymen, people who lived in settlements by the water, who raise him in a communal environment. He was then trained as a builder and engineer before stumbling onto a life of crime as a burglar), there are only vague attempts at making him anything beyond a sketch. He has some sweet romantic moments with Beverly Penn, a dying heiress, and when he travels to the Future he actually shows something of culture shock/PTSD of being out of his element. However through most of the book, he is the same dull flat character who doesn't change much even when the world around him does.
Peter is only slightly more interesting than the other characters around him. His love interest, Beverly Penn is presumed to be the love of his life when they only met and became involved for a few days. While she shows some brief signs of intelligence and empathy particularly as she studies the stars, most of the time she comes across as a spoiled brat. When Peter doesn't agree to her terms, she screams at him until he does. Her behavior left this Reader irritated and wondering if she was trying to milk sympathy out of her lover than thinking “Gee, I hope this woman gets her final wishes granted.”
Some villainous characters are there to….well be villainous with no discernible reason. Actually most of the characters have no discernible reason for what they do which leads to my next point….

...2. Unexplained Magical Elements-I don't usually mind ambiguity in a book. It can be very useful and provides the Reader with some interesting analysis and critical thinking when it's done correctly. It however is not so in A Winter's Tale.
When writing a fantasy, an author must be well practiced at world building even in a real world setting. The author must make a conscious effort to create reasons why the magic exists or do it in a way that weaves the magic alongside the mundanities of every day life. (See my review of House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende for a better example of such writing.) But A Winter's Tale never achieves that.
A white horse appears at the beginning and rescues Peter on several occasions and leads him to the Penn home. Is he a spirit guide? We don't know. Is he a guardian angel? We don't know. Is he Silver to Peter's Lone Ranger? We don't know. Helprin fails to mentions it.
When Peter passes through some sort barrier and travels from 1899 New York to 1999, no explanation is given to the barrier nor why Peter is the only one who seems to have crossed it (or why It's even important that he needed to.)

3. Ridiculous Plot Contrivances-If the Fantasy elements weren't bad enough the real world plot elements are much worse. While it may be interesting for Peter to encounter maybe one old friend or enemy or descendant of the same in 1999, it is rather ridiculous for him to have encountered several. Nor is there any explanation given for their sudden longevity, particularly when some of them were several decades older than him in 1899.
While it was okay for Peter to be involved with one woman and maintain a fatherly interest in a young girl in 1899, was it really necessary for him to develop another romance with another woman and maintain a fatherly interest in another young girl in 1999?(The only difference was the girl in the former was Beverly's younger sister while the latter was the daughter of Virginia, the second love interest) Not to mention that the two love interests have a tentative connection to each other.

4. Obvious Padding-A Winter's Tale is one monster of a book and that's not necessarily a good thing. There are plenty of sections that could use a good trim.
The biggest offender is after Peter goes through the barrier and the Reader is given a whole section devoted to some superfluous secondary characters before briefly returning to Peter's story late in the following section.
It might have been interesting to introduce these new characters in a few chapters but not whole sections that last several hundred pages and especially not to characters that are extremely tedious, dull, and have no major bearing on the plot.

5. Anticlimactic Ending-The book just kind of ends with no real purpose. Oh there is some tension particularly as a massive fire hits Manhattan. One thing Helprin gets right is that his writing shows how much he loves New York City. Many sections lovingly describe the streets and boroughs in a way that reads almost like a love letter to the city. Knowing that it is rather heartbreaking to read about the city he loves so much reduced to cinders and ash.
But after the fire, there really is nowhere to go. The Reader prepares for a final battle between Peter and his surprisingly immortal enemy but one never comes. Plots are left unresolved and characters disappear in ways that are ridiculously hand waved.

Unlike many of the other books I disliked this year, I had high expectations for A Winter's Tale But to be let down so much by this book when I had such high expectations, makes it one of the worst books I read this year.