Memoir from Antproof Case: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: A brilliant, comic, eccentric work by a gifted writer
Review: Helprin starts by recalling Melville, "Call me Oscar Progresso..." and then lets us know we are in for a wild ride, "Or, for that matter, call me anything you want, as Oscar Progresso is not my real name.Nor are Baby Supine, Euclid Cherry, Franklyn Nuts, or any of the other aliases that, now and then over the years, I have been foced to adopt". In a book with flights of fancy that soar every bit as high as those in the bestselling "Winter's Tale", but infinitely funnier and less grandiose, Helprin charts a course few writers dare. Giving away the story is betrayal to the reader, so suffice it to say that Helprin's newest hero is defined by his hatred for the "evil bean that enslaves half the world", coffee. His life struggles put him in harms way and at the top of the world. He knows riches and love, he knows betrayal and poverty. I laughed out loud continuously while reading our hero's description of his fall from corporate grace, defined by the ever changing quality of the art hanging in his office. Helprin has always been a comic writer, his "serious" works had a deftly comic touch, but this is his first work of pure comedy, and of course as all of Helprin's books are, it is a morality play of sorts and an exploration of life's abusrdities. But don't let that thought deter you, this a funny, brilliant, eccentric, even dazzling book. Read Antproof Case and let this extravagantly gifted author take you where he will.

Rating:
Summary: better than the Perils of Pauline
Review: Just reread the book, and I stand by what I wrote 8 years ago. Kosher turkey anus is still hilarious:

There ought to be a law against books this pleasurable--gusts of luminous description, earthy humor, and thrilling adventure physically restrained me from letting it leave my hands until I'd finished. A goofy American magic realist, Helprin shares Garcia Marquez's compassion and Rushdie's love of endless story. (Also, this forces fewer of his Republican interjections on you: he wrote Dole's goodbye-to-the-Senate speech.) Our hero, who may be named Oscar Progresso and then again may not be, gets blown out of airplanes twice, kills two men (both of whom richly deserve it), robs a bank, battles to the death with Walloons, has sex in a steamy pizza parlor, and wages a lifelong battle against coffee, the scourge of humanity. In a passage that had me laughing for several days, he is forced to eat kosher turkey anus at a company dinner. Later, he develops a taste for it. As soon as the book ended I wanted to start it again.

Rating:
Summary: Very fine writing, frivolous plot
Review: Mark Helprin is one of the most gifted writers in the English language. If you don't believe it, read A Soldier of the Great War, one of the most wonderful novels in many years. Ant-Proof Case displays Helprin's incredible use of language, but it's in the service of story that is merely diverting, rather than profound, as in Soldier. The protagonist's account of his life veers between acute sensitivity and buffoonery. There are images that will stay with you, perhaps for a long time, such as his exaggerated contempt for coffee and his descriptions of dogfights in the Second World War, but the truly insightful observations on life that are sprinkled throughout the work tend to get overshadowed by the clownishness. It's almost as if Helprin was embarrassed by his emotional refinement and wanted to laugh his way out of it. In Soldier of the Great War, it is his unabashed embrace of that sensitivity that makes the book a masterpiece.