Royally Muddled; Helprin's Novel Takes Weird Turn Into Slapstick
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Summary
[Mark Helprin] has invented a suitably mystical trial for England's future king: The royal falcon named Craig-Vyvyan must fly for him. The book starts with [FREDDY], on a windy hill in Scotland, failing for the third time. He only gets four tries. (Imagine the young Arthur not pulling the sword from the stone. Three times.) Clearly some great endeavor is needed, some trial of Freddy's soul and his relationship with [FREDERICKA]. The people who put this in motion - two press lords named Psnake and Didgeridoo (he's from Australia, right?) - think they're in charge, but neither has any more idea of what's happening than, well, than Freddy.
Helprin's ironic wit, bright and glittering at the start of the novel, grows thinner after our couple arrive in America. Still, there's slapstick until the end. This is a funny book, one that can make you laugh out loud. Yet it's not really a comic novel. Biting satire requires deep anger. Slapstick, perfected in silent movies, works best in a visual medium. All social humor requires, at some deep level, a subtle form of cruelty. But Mark Helprin is not really angry, and he is not in the least cruel. Instead Freddy and Fredericka is an optimistic, even a Utopian story. And at the end, when Freddy stands once again on that windy hill in Scotland, when he lifts the falcon into the breeze, there is never any doubt the bird will fly.See the full content of this document
Extract
Royally Muddled; Helprin's Novel Takes Weird Turn Into Slapstick
FREDDY AND FREDERICKA by Mark Helprin. New York: The Penguin Press, 2005. 555 pp. $27.95.
Mark Helprin is, without question, an enormously gifted writer. Novels like A Soldier of the Great War and Memoir from Antproof Case have shown...See the full content of this document
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