Winter's Tale

By: Mark Helprin

Narrated by: Oliver Wyman

Length: 27 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

A #1 New York Times Bestseller: Mark Helprin’s masterpiece transports you to New York of the Belle Epoque, to a city clarified by a siege of unprecedented snows…

A Winter’s Tale is a major motion picture starring Colin Farrell, Russell Crowe, and Jennifer Connelly.

This is a book about the beauty and complexity of the human soul, about God, love, and justice, and yet you can lose yourself in it as if it were a dream. You will be transported to New York of the Belle Epoque, to a city clarified by a siege of unprecedented winters. One night, Peter Lake—orphan, master-mechanic, and master second-story man—attempts to rob a fortress-like mansion on the Upper West Side. Though he thinks the house is empty, the daughter of the house is home. Thus begins the affair between the middle-aged Irish burglar and Beverly Penn, a young girl who is dying. Because of a love that at first he cannot fully understand, Peter, a simple and uneducated man, will be driven "to stop time and bring back the dead." His great struggle, in a city ever alight with its own energy and beset by winter, is a truly beautiful and extraordinary story.

©1983 Mark Helprin (P)2008 BBC Audiobooks America

Critic reviews

"This novel stretches the boundary of contemporary literature...is a gifted writer's love affair with the language." ( Newsday)

AWFUL !!!

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

People who enjoyed Forest Gump (the book by Winston Groome) would love this long tedious story. Although , they would be disappointed that there is no monkey in this tale.

What was most disappointing about Mark Helprin’s story?

It made absolutely no sense.

I just wasted 27 hours of my life

Listen to anything... literally anything else. The narrator was great, but the story...just listen to something else.

So good until the last few pages

Loves this until the end. I hated the ending. Flying away to the city by the lake in the sky?!? Ugh, what a waste! I felt so let down and disappointed. Maybe the movie ends better. Gonna watch it now.

OMG! Helprin is the American Homer!

No, not Homer Simpson, though you will find many side-splitting laughs to rival Marge's tubby hubby.

Helprin is the best living writer in the English language, maybe any language. This epic adventure defies any description of the plot which is so magnificently constructed, so sublime as to compare to any masterpiece (architectural, pictorial, sculptural, technological). One can appreciate it, but recounting it diminishes its artistry, beauty and grandeur. If you are fortunate enough to have a hard copy, then read, listen, read, listen. Your efforts will be rewarded, your soul enriched, and you will be restored to your proper senses. In reality, this praise applies to the five titles that I have read.

The reading on this audio is well done and captures the spirit of the story throughout.

Magical realism gone way overboard, terribly read

I bought this book because I greatly enjoyed Soldier of the Great War, which had subtly moderated elements of magical realism and felt like a work of art. This book, by contrast, has completely unmodulated elements of magical realism run amuck and reeks of overweening cuteness. Also, having listened to well over 200 audiobooks, I can say with conviction that this is among the worst vocal performances I have ever heard. It sounds like an adenoidal high schooler, an impression reinforced by the innumerable mispronunciations. The entire matter seemed appropriately capped when chapter 4 or 5 of part three proved to be missing, with an earlier section substituted. Truly Audible has let me down on this one, and I will never get this 27 hours of my life back. Run fro this selection as fast as you can.

Holy malarkey batman!

Would you try another book from Mark Helprin and/or Oliver Wyman?

No

What was most disappointing about Mark Helprin’s story?

The first 30 minutes in which the protagonist rides his horse onto a stage play that happens to be underway at approximately 9 am.

Which character – as performed by Oliver Wyman – was your favorite?

I don't know since I quit listening. I guess the horse

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Winter's Tale?

See above

17 hours and 55 minutes remains...

...I finally cut my losses and threw in the towel. I think I saved myself any further frustration trying to convince myself that this writer was taking me anywhere I wanted to go- and that is assuming the story was headed anywhere at all!

This is the first audible book I just had to give up on. I wish I had those 9 hours of my life back.

Endless self-indulgent word dump

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

A discernible plot, compelling characters that were more than just archetypes, Sentence structure instead of nonsensical word vomit.

What was most disappointing about Mark Helprin’s story?

The story aimlessly flits from event to event with no narrative thread to follow. The imagery is scatty, at times downright absurd: "Across the river was an eighteenth-century knoll with trees standing upon it like peasant women with arms akimbo, and the spotlight of the sun firing their green tops, while black shadows below suggested a grove of infinite proportions." What? The word dumps never end. I love words, I adore an original turn of phrase; I just think that they are best as a seasoning for the story, not as the ENTIRE book. If you prize random word pops and crazy-quilt imagery over story itself, this is the book for you.

TIME-CONSUMING PUZZLEMENT WRITTEN BY A SMART-ALECK

I was two-thirds through the story when Real Life intervened. Now a few weeks later, I have decided to just move on. I have a high IQ and college degree. But I don't need to prove to anyone that I can figure this guy out. I will say that his use of words is marvelous. I heard words I never heard before. Words combined to convey marvelous pictures. There is one small passage I found hilarious; a sort of factory overseer is explaining to the main character what is going on in the factory. The use of words is lovely. But I still could not see how this fit into the story. The author is self-indulgent! He cares little for his readers.

I hardly knew what country, what continent or what century the story was in at any moment. While I thought we were in NYC, I seem to remember going to San Francisco for awhile. The selling blurb is extremely misleading. I expected a romance and maybe some time travel. Something like Kate Morton's Forgotten Garden or Robert Nathan's Portrait of Jennie. Oh, no. The girl dies and her boyfriend even retreats from the story.

There's a lot of primitive travel in very cold conditions and the tale is too disjointed to have anyone stopping for cocoa or any kind of resolution. I keep track of the characters. I know when they bathe or sleep. This book just goes on and on and on . . . If you're under 30 and a literature major, then maybe you better give it a listen. You may live long enough to make some sense of it. Good luck! I'm bailing.

Never ending bordom

Couldn't get past part one of four, just seemed like a bad dream that wouldn't stop