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)		  
________________________________________________________________________________