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Summary: VIVA MARK HELPRIN
Review: A SOLDIER OF THE GREAT WAR is one of the best books I have ever read. Have you ever read something that plays itself in your mind's eye like a technicolor, Dolby sound movie? This book will do that for you. It is a sensory delight.I had first learned about it through a People magazine review many years ago. I was intrigued by the story line being set in WWI and that it took place in Italy, land of my ethnic roots. After reading the first few chapters, I realized I had found a jewel on the shelf at the bookstore. Mark Helprin writes in a provocative style. He tantalizes you with his characters, bringing them to life with his pen like few authors successfully do. You fall in love, fear, escape and want to touch Allesandro. You fell his pain, pleasure in his victories and share his love throughout the book. You will learn, you will be entertained and you will never forget your trip to Italy. Wishing you a good read - Buon Viaggio
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Summary: A rich, rewarding book -- outstanding fiction
Review: I had never read any of Mark Helprin's work before I picked up "A Soldier of the Great War." After finishing this wonderful book, all I can say is that apparently I've been missing out. Helprin has created a book that will move you to joy and sadness, and that will remind you of why you love to read. It is a truly great novel. What will stick in your mind each time you put the book down are the compelling characters. Helprin has concoted a wonderful cast to populate the world of his protagonist, Alessandro Giuliani. From the mad dwarf Orfeo, to the Austrian princess hidden from sight, even the smallest characters in the book will leave an indelible imprint on your memory. They seem like real people, and that's hard for any writer to bring off consistently. Helprin manages it effortlessly. If you've come this far in the amazon.com site, you're obviously considering reading this book. Do it. You won't be disappointed.
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Summary: Helprin's richest work. Immerse yourself in its beauties.
Review: Mark Helprin once offered this advice to an aspiring writer on how best to construct a work, to grab the attention of the reader (and here I can only paraphrase, as I have misplaced the source document): "Treat your story as if a stone thrown into a still pool, coming to rest at the bottom. Then dive in after it." The paraphrase is accurate enough for my purposes, and the message is clear: Know well the end of your journey before you begin it. Little did I know then, when I had meandered across Helprin's advice, that it would be central to my ability to write my thoughts on "A Soldier of the Great War." For about the same length of time as that advice had been imprinted somewhere in my brain, I had also been faced with the daunting prospect of commenting on a thrice-read book, now bulging with scores of page markers as reminders to me of phrases, sentences, paragraphs, and even full pages, all worthy of comment. And, it seemed, the longer I put this task off, the more daunting it became. Fortunately, this block was broken in the recent past, when I needed to give careful thought to a birthday gift for a friend. The gift couldn't appear to be too lavish, except in the riches of its contents. It needed to be something that would be new to this friend (and here I was at some risk), and at the same time something that would not soon - if ever - be forgotten. In the end, I decided to chance it with "A Soldier of the Great War," enclosing a brief note regarding what was in store. And the working through of that note was the curative that I needed for providing my comments on this Helprin work. So I threw my own stone into the pool and dove in after it. "A Soldier of the Great War" flows over with great themes, the long arc of which is the relating of its protagonist's - Alessandro Giuliani's - life story, told in retrospect from Alessandro's memories of that life to a youth who accompanies him on a seemingly short journey from Rome to a near-distant village. And, following his own advice regarding the stone thrown in the pool, Helprin's lyrical, singing prose begins with the story's first paragraph, drawing the reader, too, to dive in, and doesn't let up until the very last page (where it then lingers for a very long while). The overarching themes are classic: love and war; of love discovered, then lost, then found once again; of the blunt impersonality and the lunacy of war. They - and others - are all juxtaposed with typical Helpernian brilliance. There are maniacally funny set-pieces, interwoven so seamlessly into the narrative that one is not aware at first of Helprin's skill with the set-piece device as one is drawn in. (These include an excursion to the plains of Eastern Hungary that is one of the most remarkable of such pieces ever written.) There are passages of heartrending grief quite beyond one's ability to deal with them. And the story teems with characters both bigger than life and smaller and meaner than dirt. But, at its core, "A Soldier of the Great War" is a story about love and beauty and the permutations one can make of those two words. And it is for this reason that I chose it. If you're like me, it will take you forever and a day to read it, as you find yourself re-reading - often several times, and on occasion out-loud just to hear what Helprin's words sound like - passage after passage after soaring passage. This book is, also, everything that has already been written about it. Like Helprin's other major works, it has autobiographical content of both experience and opinion interspersed throughout. (One need not be aware of this before the fact; it is inessential to the story.) The story is indeed a classic Bildungsroman - a "novel of formation" that traces Alessandro Giuliani's growth in spirit over his life - and one of the very best of its genre. There is a certain convenience that, at least alphabetically, Helprin fits comfortably between Heller and Hemingway. But use this convenience wisely, as when browsing under "Helprin" in a bookstore: This story is every bit the equal of "Catch 22" in its often manic depiction of the lunacy of war, but is far more lyrical; a love song where Heller's work clearly is not. And, if "A Farewell to Arms" captured the Great War from Hemingway's uniquely American perspective, Helprin, by opting for an Italian protagonist, finds a universality that eludes Hemingway, and with prose that a century hence will continue to sing, unlike Hemingway's, which already seems stilted by comparison. Finally, I am unsure as to whether I envy those who, like my friend, are experiencing this work for the first time (but I think that I do). Newcomers likely will be torn between lingering on each page and turning to the next, as the story races to its astonishing, yet in hindsight, perfectly-crafted and satisfying end: Helprin's stone indeed has landed in the deepest part of his pool. For re-readers like me, it matters not that one knows in advance how the story ends; there is a distinct pleasure to be derived from a lingering journey that is its own reward. So, at long last, and not without solemnity, I can carefully remove those scores of page markers, needing them no longer. And thus I begin my fourth traversal of this work, this time with a sixth sense that a guiding force will keep my friend and me on the same page. While there are factors which make it an uncertain thing that we will read these pages aloud, perhaps in my meanderings I will find evidence elsewhere that this gift, like Helprin's stone, has come to rest at the right place.
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Summary: Rousing adventures, romance amid war's horrors
Review: I'd read many of Helprin's editorials in the Wall Street Journal and was impressed with the literary skill he exhibited. So, when I ran across this book I thought I would give it a try. I really didn't know what to expect, although I did know it had had some glowing reviews. I read about thirty of the previous reviews here and nearly all of them contain valuable insights, including those mentioning the book's flaws. However, none of the reviews I read explicitly mentioned the fact that this is one of the better anti-war books written this century. It is best because of its optimism. Helprin describes, vividly, how war degrades or destroys all that is beautiful and lovely in our world: idyllic childhoods, family relationships, precious traditions, neighborhoods, society and its mores, love and romance, religious sensibilities, art - even the seemingly impregnable mountains are violated. Yet, despite numerous horrific experiences, Alessandro is saved in the end because he never lost his appreciation for "beautiful things", symbolized throughout the book by Giorgio's painting. There is much humor in this book. Some of it is bawdy. There are also many scenes of heart-wrenching sadness and exhilarating joy. However, there are sections that drag on too long, and after at least one of Alessandro's lucky breaks I found myself rolling my eyes and thinking, "Oh, brother." Despite these flaws, Mark Helprin is a gifted writer who has the rare ability to make you completely lose yourself while reading his work. Highly recommended!
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Summary: A vividly told story of dashing heroism and romance
Review: I found Alessandro's adventures more gripping than any book I had read for years, and I would recommend anyone to read it. I was expecting a war story and instead got a terribly moving and vivid fantasy. This heroically romantic lead character leaps from trains into rushing rivers, climbs mountains like a goat, swims like a dolphin. He admires fine art and loves beautiful women, and cheats death at every turn. Helprin has a particular talent for describing fantastical scenes with vivid clarity and light, and for engaging the emotions of the reader. And yet, and yet...some of the chapters of the book worked better than others. I got really bored of Orfeo's insane ramblings after a while, and the story would work better without his rather clumsy interventions in the plot. I also think the author could have just omitted the sketchy and static sections from where he gets captured by the Austrians to the end of the war, particulary the awful bit in the Hofburg palace pyjamas. But then, the first thing I did when I finished the book was to buy more of his novels, so it would be wrong of me to put you off too much.
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Summary: One of the Best
Review: For a novel to be truly great, it must captivate your days, invade your dreams, and change your way of perceiving the world. This novel is truly great. Like the protagonist, you will be infected by his gift of seeing beauty in everything, even the ugly or horrific. Warning! After reading this book, I bought and read three other books written by Helprin. All terrible! (Sort of reminds you of Frank Herbert) This one, though, is a towering achievement.
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Summary: A Beautiful Book
Review: This is one of the most beautifully written novels that I have ever read. Many people will tell you how great book is by saying how they just couldn't put it down and stayed up all night to finish it. For me, this wasn't that kind of book. It didn't possess me. It inspired and uplifted me. I've spent the last year reading through it off and on. I wanted it to last, and I'm a little disappointed to have finally finished it. Most often I was content to put the book down after 20 or so pages and simply let the images of its wonderfully described events, adventures and scenery fill my mind. They stayed with me. I could leave the book alone for several weeks when I was too busy to read and feel right at home again with it when I got back to it. I often read this book before bed and it helped be sleep. Not because it was dull and boring, but because it relaxed and refreshed my mind. This story has tragedy, humor, love, adventure, fantasy and philosophy all gracefully woven together into a truly wonderful story.
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Summary: since when is 800 pages "long?"
Review: Many of these reviews discuss the daunting length of this book. I find this a little disconcerting. If the book is a good read, and this one most certainly is that, why in the world would length matter? Also, yes, Helprin incorporates fantasy in his stories, even if the fantastic elements are simply that Allesandro survives a particular episode. This world, however, is Helprin's, and if he does not wish to be a disconcerting post-modern realist, then why should he? Critics... Write your own story.
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Summary: An engrossing story
Review: This is the first Mark Helprin novel that I read, and it is probably my favorite. More grounded in realism than his other stories--lacking the fantasy of A Winter's Tale and the humor of Antproof case, it is still an incredible tale that is filled with interesting characters. It is a fascinating story, so rich with detail that you almost think it is a factual account. Helprin does such a wonderful job of crafting the soldier's life story, you would think that he had firsthand experience as an Italian soldier in the same time period. As the novel came to a conclusion, it made me wonder how many other interesting life stories are tucked inside the elderly waiting for a willing ear with the time to listen. Helprin is a disciplined story teller who applies his research to create novels of depth and breadth, but he is also skilled at weaving rich imagery into his prose. You can literally see the scenes that surround the characters. This novel takes you to interesting places, immerses you in the events of its period and carries you along with an engrossing story -- all of the elements that you want from a great read.
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Summary: Reader becomes Prisoner of the Great Bore...
Review: An old man takes his last walk of a lifetime and has the fortunate joy of sharing it with his walking companion, a new acquaintance of about the same age the old man recalls so vividly of his own past. This old Italian served as a soldier during "The Great War," soon overshadowed by World War II. He recounts the atrocities he had witnessed at such a young age and the perils he miraculously survived. This story starts with such great promise and is spiced with a writing style that elicits great emotion. Its length is quite intimidating and soon becomes the sometimes imaginative ramblings of a senile old man who confuses memory and reality. Dear reader is forced to endure what becomes very dull albeit imaginative prose that is more a chore than a joy to experience for nearly eight hundred pages.
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