Winter's Tale (novel)
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| Winter's Tale | |
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| Author | Mark Helprin |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy novel |
| Publisher | Weidenfeld & Nicolson |
| Publication date | 20 October 1983 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 672 pp (hardback edition) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-297-78329-7 (hardback edition) |
Winter's Tale is a 1983 novel by author Mark Helprin. It takes place in a mythical New York City near the turn of the 20th century, markedly different from the world we live in.
Contents |
[edit] Plot introduction
The overall feel of the novel is that of magic realism, similar to that found in the works of Gabriel García Márquez or Salman Rushdie. The book is in part a paean to New York City in the same way that Garcia Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude is a tribute to Colombia.
[edit] Explanation of the novel's title
The title Winter's Tale is a reference to the Shakespeare play of (nearly) the same name. In that play, as in this book, a major character disappears for years, only to return after a long and unexplained absence, unharmed, transformed, and redeemed.
[edit] Characters
- Peter Lake
Peter Lake is the central character of Winter's Tale. He has been called an allegory of the Jewish Messiah [1]. He changes the world by sacrificing his life for a child.
A child of an immigrant couple denied admission at Governors Island, Peter Lake arrives to America on a miniature model ship called 'City of Justice'. He is found and adopted by the Baymen of the Bayonne Marsh, who send him off to Manhattan when he comes of age. At Manhattan he first becomes a mechanic and then is forced to become a burglar in the gang called Short Tails, where he makes an enemy out of Pearly Soames, the chief of the gang. While Peter Lake is running away from the gang, a mysterious white horse appears, saving his life and becoming his guardian.
While attempting to rob a house, Peter Lake meets Beverly Penn. They fall in love with each other. 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.
The name of the character "Peter Lake" was the name of the husband of the author's literary agent, Candace Lake. In a WBUR interview in 1995, Helprin said, "I liked the name and knew that he wouldn't sue me."
- 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 consumption 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. 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.
[edit] Literary significance and reception
Winter's Tale was published in 1983. Mark Helprin states in his interview [2] to America's Future Foundation'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.
Winter's Tale got multiple votes in the 2006 New York Times Book Review survey [3], the stated purpose of which was to identify "the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years." Mark Helprin commented [4] 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)."
[edit] Translations
A Hungarian translation of this book was published by Árkádia, Budapest in 1989. Hungarian translation ©Mihály Falvay, 1989. Cover art by Péter Molnár. The 1983 Simon&Schuster, Inc. Pocket Books edition is referenced as the original. Hungarian title: Téli mese. ISBN 963-307-142-9.
