AUTHOR: Mark Helprin
TITLE: Ellis Island, and other Stories
Mark Helprin is all lyricism and description, like a less talented Fitzgerald (which is unfair – we are all less talented Fitzgeralds). He’s the author of one of my favorite novels, the epic, winding and fantastical A Winter’s Tale, and revisiting Ellis Island, one can see the saplings of what would become his masterpiece.
Helprin is like the exact opposite of Cormac McCarthy. He can render beautiful description, and he does, incessantly, but sometimes at the expense of the emotional core of the story. It’s as if he’s never seen a valley or a mountain or a person’s nose that he didn’t want to describe, and though his command of language is impressive, it occasionally distracts. That being said, he describes things beautifully, with a grasping synesthesia that frequently borders on brilliance. He may not be able to describe the layout of a room, but he can do an old radio like it’s nobody’s business.
Each of the 11 short stories in Ellis Island are about a slice of life, but most involve momentous events. Death of wife/child, suicide, baboonicide, war, immigration, etc, etc. Most short stories, or most short stories that I’ve read anyway, tread smaller moments for bigger truths, like on a Tuesday afternoon, after talking to your mother on the phone and before taking a shower, you see a dead rabbit in the road and realize that life is banality chased by death.
The great short story writers can make something like that sound not stupid.
Helprin is not great, but he’s good. He has a weakness for bizarre coincidences and nice, neat little endings, but two of this stories – “Letters from the Samantha” and “North Light” – resonate deeply… and two stories of 11 is not bad. It’s an interesting study of modern lyricism and war (he served in the Israeli army), but I’d more strongly recommend reading A Winters Tale, and coming to these stories if you want more.
That, and don’t read any of his contemporary political commentaries. It’ll just piss you off.
