A Kingdom Far and Clear

The pleasant surprise of the month:

Mark Helprin, A Kingdom Far and Clear

Mark Helprin is one of the best prose stylists writing today.  I have read a number of his books, and they are always great.  Truly Great.  Indeed, Winter's Tale is on my list of recent books which I am absolutely certain will still be read in 100 years.  If you like Great Literature and haven't read it, you are in for a treat.

All that being said, I wasn't expecting all that much from A Kingdom Far and Clear.  This volume puts together Helprin's three Children's books--the Swan Lake trilogy.  I hadn't read any of those three books, but when I saw they had been published together in one volume, I figured it would be nice to read.  Was I ever wrong about that.  It wasn't nice to read.  It was incredible.  Stunning.  Jaw-droppingly good.

First off, it isn't really children's literature at all--it is a fairy tale for adults.  Children would like it too, but it is really a serious Fairy Tale.  (Fairy Tales get far too little respect in the modern age.)  Helprin writes with what can best be described as Achingly Beautiful prose--I really can't think of a better description than that even though I know it doesn't really describe it in a way that would be comprehensible for someone who has never read Helprin.

The trilogy works really well--each book has a different narrator, but the three stories are part of one giant story which has everything you would want in a good fairy tale--heroes and villains and beauty and sacrifice.  It crystallizes what is Good and highlights what is Evil.  Moral choices must be made, and they are not necessarily easy to make.

The only possible discordant note is that the underlying Beautiful world for which Helprin is arguing is a world of religious morality and political freedom.  I suspect my Marxist colleagues will resent the fact that they identify a little bit too much with the villains.

This is most certainly a book I will read again--I am curious to see how much of the symbolism becomes apparent only on a second reading--I have no idea how tightly crafted the story is.  But it doesn't really matter--the memory of reading this book for the first time is indelibly etched into my mind--one of those rare reading experiences I will never forget.