Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site lasspvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!houxz!vax135!cornell!lasspvax!gtaylor From: gtaylor@lasspvax.UUCP (Greg Taylor) Newsgroups: net.books Subject: Re: "Winter's Tale" Message-ID: <14@lasspvax.UUCP> Date: Sun, 12-Aug-84 20:32:23 EDT Article-I.D.: lasspvax.14 Posted: Sun Aug 12 20:32:23 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 14-Aug-84 01:16:07 EDT References: <3045@rabbit.UUCP> Reply-To: gtaylor@lasspvax.UUCP (Greg Taylor) Organization: Cornell University Theorynet Lines: 32 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) ________________________________________________________________________________