Refiner's Fire: The Life and Adventures of Marshall Pearl, a Foundling

Rating:
Summary: Good not best.
Review: This is one of the author's earlier works published first in 1977. Although not as good as Winter's Tale or Soldier..., it is still and excellent book. Helprin's magic with language and phrase is everywhere evident.

Rating:
Summary: Fire burns, language soothes
Review: This is the best Fiction I have read in English since I read the translation of Milan Kundera's "Unbearable Lightness of Being". The beauty of the language is such that it would not be surprising if one required grief counseling after completing this book. The experience and beauty gained in the reading, is mourned soon after you have turned the last page and a feeling of loss descends upon you. Though the book is not sad. Completing it is. It is alive with the joy of lively and interesting characters who take you with them in their dreams and hopes for the future. It is only this that one loses by turning the last page. Intellectually a stimulating story and linguistically one of the best examples of how English should be written with an appreciation of the natural poetic imagery of the language.