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A review by jgintrovertedreader
Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin
3.0
I don't even know where to start with a synopsis for this book, so I'll just skip that.
I have a feeling that the reason I'm not giving this book 5 stars shows more about what I'm lacking than about what the book is lacking. I felt myself on the verge of a huge epiphany throughout the book, but I just never got there. That has left me incredibly frustrated. Maybe reading through other reviews will help me see what I'm missing.
The language is absolutely gorgeous. It's just one of those books that is so dense and beautiful that you feel like you could eat it.
This was partly a love letter to New York. The author doesn't blindly love his city, he loves it warts and all and sees its potential to be something so much more than it is.
Mostly this was a book full of beautiful symbolism that I think was trying to tell me something about life, love, justice, time, immortality, and faith in mankind. Maybe. I was tempted to put this on my "mythology" shelf, because it felt like Helprin was creating something of a modern, American mythology. I have notes scribbled here about what I think this means or that means, but something would always happen to show me that I was wrong in my interpretation of something. I finally just gave up and read the book without trying so hard to figure everything out. I hoped that everything would come clear to me in the end, but it didn't.
Readers who enjoy lush language, people who love New York, and people who want a book to chew on for a while will probably love this. I truly hate to admit it, but this one defeated me.
I have a feeling that the reason I'm not giving this book 5 stars shows more about what I'm lacking than about what the book is lacking. I felt myself on the verge of a huge epiphany throughout the book, but I just never got there. That has left me incredibly frustrated. Maybe reading through other reviews will help me see what I'm missing.
The language is absolutely gorgeous. It's just one of those books that is so dense and beautiful that you feel like you could eat it.
This was partly a love letter to New York. The author doesn't blindly love his city, he loves it warts and all and sees its potential to be something so much more than it is.
Mostly this was a book full of beautiful symbolism that I think was trying to tell me something about life, love, justice, time, immortality, and faith in mankind. Maybe. I was tempted to put this on my "mythology" shelf, because it felt like Helprin was creating something of a modern, American mythology. I have notes scribbled here about what I think this means or that means, but something would always happen to show me that I was wrong in my interpretation of something. I finally just gave up and read the book without trying so hard to figure everything out. I hoped that everything would come clear to me in the end, but it didn't.
Readers who enjoy lush language, people who love New York, and people who want a book to chew on for a while will probably love this. I truly hate to admit it, but this one defeated me.