when i first picked up "a winter's tale" by mark helprin (the "other side of the spectrum" political one is spelled differently), i was totally enchanted by the very first paragraphs.
There was a white horse, on a quiet winter morning when snow covered the streets gently and was not deep, and the sky was swept with vibrant stars, except in the east, where dawn was beginning in a light blue flood. The air was motionless, but would soon start to move as the sun came up and winds from Canada came charging down the Hudson.
The Winter's Tale, by Mark Helprin, 1983, p 3
as a new yorker who loved exploring all of manhattan and it's history and as someone who had just bought a "white horse" (well, technically, a grey), i continued to read, intrigued.
continue with me below the collected orange drift to see why.
the journey of the white horse continues...
The horse had escaped from his master's small clapboard stable in Brooklyn. He trotted alone over the carriage road of the Williamsburg Bridge, before the light, while the toll keeper was sleeping by his stove and many stars were still blazing above the city." Fresh snow on the bridge muffled his hoofbeats, and he sometimes turned his head and looked behind him to see if he was being followed. He was warm from his own effort and he breathed steadily, having loped four or five miles through the dead of Brooklyn past ilent churches and shuttered stores.
The Winter's Tale, by Mark Helprin, 1983, p 4
this is no ordinary horse, he is the spirit of ALL horses - of freedom - of desire.
and when he reaches manhattan, he encounters a man being chased by a gang of evil men, the short tails. led by pearly, they are intent on killing this burglar, master mechanic, inventor for what he also represents: freedom, imagination, invention and desire. peter lake is everything the short tails are not and for that reason alone, they want him dead.
as peter lake is cornered in a highly fenced area, he sees this white horse and beseeches him, calling "HORSE!" and their connection begins. the white horse likes him - his spirit - and, in an instant, peter lake is astride this former "milk horse" and the two of them sail high above the fence to freedom.
yet, this book is not about a horse and his rider - it is about new york in the 1800's when the city is being reborn into the industrial age of machines. it is also about the new york of the 1900s and the new millenium - all with the same characters jumping through time to see these miraculous changes.
yet, interspersed with the changing city, a love story emerges between peter lake and beverly penn, a young woman who is dying - yet, he and the horse bring life enriched as they travel to the lake of the coheeries, a mystical place found only when crossing through the cloud bank that absorbs many who are never to be seen again.
there are many characters within this study of greed, lust, love, desire - and the bond between the horse who can "fly" and peter lake, the man for whom his white steed, Athansor, is his protection, his doorway to another world.
throughout this book is the dream of building "bridges" that span worlds - that reach high into the sky - and all the aspirations of men and women AND horses - all those with pure spirit and who can allow themselves to dream beyond what is easily grasped or stolen.
this is a book for those who hear a distant, different drum and, through an inner drive that cannot be resisted, must follow that beat until the end.
Master mechanics were as eccentric and idiosyncratic as Episcopal priests, and over the centuries they had learned to operate freely in each oher's presence respecting differences and allowing for peculiarities. But Peter Lake remained an outcast even among them, though, in his more lucid moments, he tried to make friends and to be like everyone else. These attempts were odd in themselves, since he could no more hide the fact that he was chosen than a rhinoceos could pass himself off as a calloused dairy cow.
The Winter's Tale, by Mark Helprin, 1983, p 458
mark helprin is a "master mechanic" with words, imagery, beauty - he leaves a lingering image deep within the mind of the reader that emerges whenever a rolling cloud bank appears and draws the reader to steer toward that unknown, mysterious world beyond.
thank you, mark helprin, for giving the world your vision - and thank you for marking a permanent place on my bookshelf and mind!
11:14 PM PT: i want to be very very clear that mark helprin and mark halperin are NOT the same authors!
mark helprin wrote "winter's tale" while mark halperin is the conservative author/columnist.
11:19 PM PT: thanks, frank knarf, for correcting me about the misplaced article! just goes to show i shouldn't write these things in 30 minutes before racing out the door!
it is now corrected - not "a winter's tale" but simply and elegantly, "WINTER'S TALE".