To: ALL Date: 06/04
From: VRCH78A ALLEN CROCKER Time: 2:50 AM
REFINER'S FIRE by Mark Helprin
All right, here I finally am, with some very belated
observations on my own selection for the reading list.
I could rationalize the delay by claiming that I've been
distracted of late or that I've been waiting for some
indications that a number of you have managed to get hold
of this not-too-easy to find novel, but in truth it's
mostly been mere procratination -- putting off the imposs-
ible task of summing up my reactions to an amazing book.
But it's time -- well past time, rather -- to give
it a try.
I nominated RF for the reading list without having read
it myself, as after reading Helprin's WINTER'S TALE I very
much wanted to go through one of his books along with the
people on this board. That first one had been such a
stunning reading experience for me that I felt quite con-
fident in recommending it sight unseen, and after at last
(a year after buying it and almost ten years after reading
WT) I'm satisfied that the choice was a sound one.
I suppose a good place to begin is with what everyone
mentions early on in any discussion of MH's work: his
joyous, fabulously beautiful prose. One can dip into RF
anywhere and turn up an arresting metaphor or piece of
description; in fact, looking back at the places I've
marked, it's difficult to pick out exactly which phrases
I had intended to retrieve. A few "core samples" (taken
essentially at random) will do:
A herd of sheep ten miles distant looked like a tiny
white glove rseting on a mountainside; a town with
radiating roads and tracks was a starfish stuck in
the valley. (p.82)
In the palm-filled courtyard of the language com-
pound, scores of Russians sat on benches, smoking
cigarettes -- the red dots of which spotted the darkness
like socialist butterflies. (p.272)
Speaking Arabic is like drowning upside down in a
a well, gasping for breath and writhing. It soon tires
the speaker and lays him flat, exhausted, and wall-eyed.
This, unknown to scholars, is the reason for the Arabs'
fatalism -- their language is like a beautiful prison
complete with guards who beat them. (p.273)
Something that Updike once wrote about Nabokov applies
as well to Helprin (this is a paraphrase from memory):
He writes English as it should be written -- ecstatically."
I'm just getting started here; will be back with more
soon.
Allen
=============== Reply 1 of Note 20 =================
To: VRCH78A ALLEN CROCKER Date: 06/04
From: WSRF10B SHERRY KELLER Time: 8:20 AM
Dear Allen,
I loved this book and will try to formulate something, but
I'm going to be leaving for my trip soon and may not get to
it. The passage you quoted about the Arabic language was
one I was particularly impressed by and read it aloud to my
husband as an example of the beauty of this book. I
actually picked up a copy of THE ODYSSEY the other day in
hopes of possibly finding connections between the two books.
(I am woefully short on education when it comes to the
classics). Thank you for recommending it.
Sherry
=============== Reply 2 of Note 20 =================
To: VRCH78A ALLEN CROCKER Date: 06/04
From: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Time: 11:03 AM
Allen: Like you and Sherry I loved that paragraph about
Arabic. And I very much enjoyed the entire book --
particularly the 'growing up' portion. If Helprin's own
boyhood and early adulthood were half as idyllic as the one
in RF, then he should be a well-adjusted adult indeed.
Helprin's prose is so dreamlike it just carries you along. I
enjoyed this MUCH more than 'Winters Tale', in part I think
because the storyline was more coherent. Anyway, a great
read, and one that led me to pick up 'Soldier of the Great
War' and 'Memoir in an Antproof Case'; just getting started
on 'Soldier' in between bouts of confusion over 'The White
Hotel'. Great choice, Allen. Dick in Alaska, on yet another
glorious, sunny morning
=============== Reply 3 of Note 20 =================
To: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Date: 06/04
From: YHJK89A CATHERINE HILL Time: 11:45 PM
I suppose I'm about halfway through. Two comments occur to
me offhand: (1) I'm not surprised he sold his soul to the
Republicans for daily bread, but I'm surprised they took it!
This cat ain't a poster boy for their viewpoint. (2) Young
Pearl seemed awfully casual and ungrateful toward Mrs.
Livingston, though of course I can see where his heredity
and manifest destiny are involved. Makes you wonder about
taking in these little brats.
Cathy
=============== Reply 4 of Note 20 =================
To: YHJK89A CATHERINE HILL Date: 06/05
From: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Time: 0:35 AM
Cathy: Re: Taking in Brats; boy, that's a fact. See my post
on Elisha and the Old Testament gang-bangers. It's a wonder
there are any adults, ever, a theme upon which I think the
Greeks were well focused.
Dick in Alaska, loving the kids and planning for that
one-bedroom retirement condominium
=============== Reply 5 of Note 20 =================
To: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Date: 06/05
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 1:19 AM
It's been a couple weeks since I finished REFINER'S FIRE and
it has since been returned to the library. I suppose I
should have taken notes, but I didn't. (Have any of you
stopped to think that much of what we do here involves
something like that dreaded school assignment, THE BOOK
REPORT? You never could have told me back then that
someday I would be doing this willingly and with great
pleasure.) This is the first book by Helprin for me, and I
fear it may be the last. I didn't actively dislike it, as I
did RABBIT BOSS (sorry, Theresa, I don't know WHY, I took
such an immediate aversion to that book), but it was not a
book that cast the kind of spell I require out of a LIFE
INTERRUPTER, as gail puts it.
In the beginning I was, like those who have posted so far,
enthralled by Helprin's use of language and metaphor. That
passage about the difficulties of the Arab language is
indeed a gem. However, after a while I began to feel that
the writing was too self-conscious. Look at me, look at
what I can do with words. I do enjoy writing that I can
appreciate on two levels, the beauty and aptness of the
words, and the tale they spin. But Helprin's writing was
not transparent enough for me. It stood between me and the
story, instead of enhancing the story and characters.
Marshall Pearl never became a real person for me. I think
perhaps Helprin meant him as a metaphor for Israel or the
Jews, but to me the metaphor would have been more effective
if I could have related to him as a person. Helprin himself
seemed distant from his main character. And my appreciation
of Marshall as a human being lessened with every adventure
in which he triumphed, time after time, like Superman. Had
this man no faults? No weaknesses, physical, mental or
emotional? The willing suspension of disbelief became
unwillingly grounded.
I also had trouble with the packing-house incident and the
eagle incident. Why this burst of surrealism? It seemed
out of place and I don't get it. I have nothing against
surrealism, indeed, I love it, but I found it a jarring note
in this book. Can anyone explain it? Allen? Dick?
Sherry?
That said, this book was an interesting experience, and I
must say I thought Dole's Helprin speech was the best I've
heard him give, even before I found out who wrote it. (I'll
still not vote for him, tho.)
Ruth, in California, planning to run down THE WHITE HOTEL
tomorrow
=============== Reply 6 of Note 20 =================
To: VRCH78A ALLEN CROCKER Date: 06/05
From: VRCH78A ALLEN CROCKER Time: 1:49 AM
REFINER'S FIRE continued:
When I read WINTER'S TALE those several years ago I
found I had no name for its peculiar mixture of fantasy
and reality; the world in which it was *almost* like our
own, but in some fascinating, unsettling respects followed
laws with which I was entirely unfamiliar. It wasn't until
I read Marquez' ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE that I
learned that this variety of fiction went by the name of
"magic realism." REFINER'S FIRE has its fantastic elements
as well, though in far lesser profusion than WT. Marshall
and Al's adventures in the New York sewers, and in the
Infernoesque slaughterhouse somewhere on the Great Plains
come quickly to mind. It was this whimsical playfulness
with reality, the being kept off-balance, never quite
knowing what to expect, that for me was the special joy of
Helprin's work. I can easily imagine that many readers
might find this wearisome, however, and I've seen such
comments about WT from time to time. Helprin is laying it
on much less heavily in RF, so this book might be the
better place to start if one has never read him before.
One particularly fitting critical comment I've seen
about MH (the book was WT, but it applies equally well
here) is that he is "determined to loot the whole
treasure house of human experience and write it all down."
This extravagance of vision, MH's attempt to imagine a
world in a multitude of aspects and somehow reduce it to
the printed page, is yet another of the features of his
fiction I find deeply compelling. As we follow Marshall
Pearl from his birth on the refugee ship to New York,
Colorado, Jamaica and more, each setting portrayed in
generous detail (I often found myself wondering, How
does he know all this stuff?), one can only marvel at
MH's capacity to dream wide awake and be grateful for the
chance to come along with his protagonist on his singular
odyssey.
There's much more to be said, but I hope this will do
for starters...
REMINDER: Up next on the reading list is Faulkner's
THE SOUND AND THE FURY.
Allen
=============== Reply 7 of Note 20 =================
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 06/05
From: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Time: 12:33 PM
Ruth: My feeling about Helprin is that he writes wonderful
paragraphs, fabulous chapters and incomplete novels. In
other words, he tends to get lost within the complex
verdency of his plotlines. Like wandering in an equatorial
rainsforest, reading Helprin can be a beautiful experience,
even if your're lost. Ocassionally, however,the leeches and
poisonous reptiles make you long for more familiar ground.
I thought the slaughterhouse chapter was one of the most
interesting in an interesting book. The time dilation was
clearly and intentionally surreal and almost transparently
experimental. However, on a personal level it seemed "just
right" as well -- the college boy experience, working in the
'real world' was well evoked, I thought. When I would come
back from the east to work summers as a seaman aboard
hydrographic survey ships, a somewhat similar experience
occured: time stretched and extended as you lost touch with
books and cities to live in a world of the sea hard by
glaciers and coastal forests, bounded only by sleep, meals
and hard, often numbing, work.
Your point about Marshall's perfection is a good one. To the
extent the story line deals with his life and trials, his
trips through the "refiner's fire" (I looked that Bible
passage up, but have lost it again) seem superfluous. How do
you improve or refine perfection? Of course, fine gold can
be made into even finer gold, so perhaps that's the point.
Incidentally, some of this book is clearly autobiographical:
I wonder just how much and how intentional that was.
To me Helprin comes close to being a fairy tale writer for
adults. He just needs to calm down those ambitious,
labryinthine plots of his and direct those gorgeous chapters
he writes toward more satisfying and intelligible
conclusions.
Dick in Alaska, a Helprin fan with reservations
=============== Reply 8 of Note 20 =================
To: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Date: 06/05
From: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Time: 1:23 PM
Dick: I haven't read REFINER'S FIRE yet, but I'm a great
admirer of Helprin's writing in general, for its richness.
Your point about the labrynthine nature of it occasionally
becoming overtaxing is well taken, though, I think.
BTW, my on-line King James Bible says the title is taken
from Malachi, Chapter 3:
***
2 But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall
stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire,
and like fullers' soap:
3 And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and
he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and
silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in
righteousness.
4 Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be
pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in
former years.
***
A separate set of commentaries I've got, by a teacher
named J. Vernon McGee, says that Malachi, in referring to
the Millenium, "is describing two processes: cleansing and
purifying. Cleansing is the use of soap as expressed here,
and the fire is used for testing. In the refining process,
the metal is put over red-hot fire, and as it begins to
melt, the dross can be drawn off, and the metal is finally
made pure."
I can't find a reference source for "fullers' soap"
specifically, just "fuller's earth." But a "fuller" is
defined as somebody who fulls cloth, with "full" as a verb
meaning to pleat or gather. Can anybody shed more light on
the fuller/soap question?
>>Dale in Ala.
=============== Reply 9 of Note 20 =================
To: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Date: 06/06
From: YHJK89A CATHERINE HILL Time: 0:31 AM
As I understand it, fuller's earth was once used to clean
clothes - clean clothes with dirt, about as sensible as
using old ashes, eh?
To me, the Malachi text is a marvelous and difficult
baritone aria in THE MESSIAH, followed by an equally
difficult fugal chorus. It's on most recordings. In fact,
a good recording of THE MESSIAH is an open sesame to much
Old Testament scripture not generally used by
fundamentalists.
Cathy
=============== Reply 10 of Note 20 =================
To: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Date: 06/06
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 0:33 AM
Dick and Allen,
Yes, I agree, the slaughterhouse chapter was fascinating. I
have no argument with it as a piece of masterful writing.
In fact, it was plain wonderful. I just found it
disconcerting, plonked down in the middle of this saga,
which up until then, had been on a realistic (although
increasingly unbelieveable) level. This chapter should have
been a short story. And I don't think the novel would have
missed it at all.
Ruth, on page 39 of THE WHITE HOTEL
=============== Reply 11 of Note 20 =================
To: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Date: 06/06
From: YHJK89A CATHERINE HILL Time: 0:36 AM
By the way, what's so perfect about Marshall Pearl when he -
not to put too fine a point on it - lays every woman he can,
presumably in an advisory capacity??? He appears to be
gentle and as considerate as possible under the
circumstances, but I can't say this strikes me as admirable
behavior.
Cathy
=============== Reply 12 of Note 20 =================
To: YHJK89A CATHERINE HILL Date: 06/06
From: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Time: 0:56 AM
Cathy: I don't think Marshall's activities were specifically
degrading to women, so much as the entire novel viewed
women, in large measure, as superfluous. Nurses, sex
partners, mothers, o.k., but as far as heroically delivering
refugees, slaying banditos, etc., they were basically Old
Testament kind of gals. Very male book; in my limited
experience it's what Helprin writes. Can't criticize,
though, since if I could write a book at all, it would
undoubtedly be a male book.
Dick in Alaska, where the humidity is an UNBELIEVABLE 16% --
no wonder the forests are burning (but don't worry, little
touristas manque -- we've got a God's plenty of forest, and
we need you to come buy our t-shirts)
=============== Reply 13 of Note 20 =================
To: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Date: 06/06
From: YHJK89A CATHERINE HILL Time: 11:27 PM
I've just skip-read to the end to see where the devil
Helprin was going with this thing, and I feel a little
better about it. What was bothering me was this cat
floating through the world, connecting briefly with people
but remaining basically unconnected, with little sense of
loyalty or whatever happened to old whats-his-name. This is
understandable in someone basically a displaced person, but
I found it grating. Also, I think Helprin went all the way
around Robin Hood's barn to tell this story; it's a case
where less would have been more.
Cathy
=============== Reply 14 of Note 20 =================
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 06/09
From: VRCH78A ALLEN CROCKER Time: 11:42 PM
Thanks for all the comments on REFINER'S FIRE, folks;
and sorry to be late in getting back to you. I'll reply
to the several posts in this note.
Ruth, there were a *few* places where I thought MH was
overwriting to some extent, but by and large I got
"acclimated" prettu easily and the reading flowed without
effort. I too prefer a "transparent" style that doesn't
call attention to itself, but I have to admit I've seen
some authors with prose that's worth the trouble it takes
to get used to -- Cormac McCarthy and Annie Proulx being
notable examples from our reading list. This is an area, I
suppose, where a great deal depends on individual tastes.
Dick, I agree that the parts of MH's books don't quite
add up to satisfactory wholes. As I was reading WINTER'S
TALE I had the feeling that the end of the book couldn't
possibly measure up to what had gone before, and that was
how it turned out. (I should note in passing that I read
WT very slowly -- many sessions spread out over about
four months -- so I didn't find the experience as taxing
as you did.) But the first 90% of WT contains some of the
most wonderful moments I've come across in all my fiction
reading, so I thought RF would be a good gamble for the
reading group. Also agree that "fairy tale for adults" is
an apt phrase (it may be a simplified but effective way to
sum up in a few words what "magic realism" is about.)
Marshall is definitely a larger-than-life, ultra-resilient
character one could never imagine existing in the real
world. Peter Lake in WT is much the same; not having read
MH's later novels I don't know if he's moved beyond this
type of protagonist. Of course, Marshall and Lydia's
romance, a study in perfection that began at the rather
hard to swallow age of twelve, is straight from a fairy
tale, and harder for me to accept than the purely magical
scenes.
Speaking of those surreal portions: please don't ask me
what, if anything, they're supposed to mean! Some of them,
like the boat full of ragged men that Marshall and Al en-
counter in the New York sewers, I think are sheer playful-
ness, moments to be enjoyed for themselves and not to be
interpreted or tied in to any overarching structure. The
attitude I took towards those sequences is much the same
as I take toward a Fellini film: don't try to puzzle out
the significance of it all, just relax and enjoy the won-
derful spectacle.
I concur, too, about the general dearth of credible
female characters. Even the most important one, Lydia,
seems an idealized fantasy figure -- as if the author
created, and then fell in love with her. The way he goes
on repreatedly about how beautiful she is, for example,
gets wearisome; one longs to know more of what lies below
that pretty surface. What we do learn of her personality
is she's a too-perfect counterpart of Marshall -- a bit
difficult for this mortal to develop much interest in.
Oh yes, almost forgot: I grew up one town away from
Beverly, Massachusetts, located about 20 miles to the
north of Boston, where Marshall and Al go to play
"Bushkazi", a game one might describe as polo for
Klingons. Though it's not named, the site of the game is
the Myopia Hunt Club, which I recall took its name from
the fact that several of its charter members were
near-sighted.
More to come....
Allen
=============== Reply 15 of Note 20 =================
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 06/09
From: VRCH78A ALLEN CROCKER Time: 11:42 PM
Trying to decide if the views expressed by characters
in a novel are the author's own is at best an uncertain
proposition. One hint that Helprin is indeed speaking
through Marshall Pearl, however, might be found in this
bit of dialogue:
"The most important thing," said Marshall, by this time
only half drunk, "is to tell the truth."
"I don't think so. Only a barbarian doesn't dress his
thoughts. It's civilized and correct to lie a little."
"No. Fire burns, but the best thing is to put your
hand in the flames and hold it there."
"Why?"
"Because then you are most alive. Not telling the truth
is like being dead. It doesn't hurt, but you might as well
be dead."
Which leads me to suspect that what MH thinks he's doing
is in a way holding the readers' hands in a metaphorical
fire, forcing them to face uncomfortable truths. When you
consider that at one point Marshall opines that the best
way to deal with criminals would be to return to the Code
of Hammurabi, you can't help but be alarmed with the
thought that MH believes this to be true, but the argument
he puts forth makes it hard to avoid the conclusion that
this is truly the case.
Likewise, it seems as if the author is speaking directly
through the Polish Holocaust survivor Yossi Merzl when he
tells Lydia:
"You tended the graves, a gentle thing to do. However,
did you know that for everyone who dies in war, there are
others who are born, and reborn? That is why veterans
will never make the peace, and why, in denying the nobil-
ity of battle, pacifists cultivate war. To stop something
so powerful you must at least tell the truth about it,
and they don't. What I'm trying to say is, don't feel bad
about us. There is a balance to everything -- symmetry,
compensations. A soul buried in the ground rises in the
air. When you go to America and have your wheat farm,
thrive in peace, but don't pity those in war."
Though it seems clear that MH is expressing what he
would hold to be a core truth here, but there's much I
find dubious, to say the least. It's a little hard to see
where the "compensation" might be found for the tens of
millions of lives lost in the Second World War. Pacifists
did a great deal of damage by refusing to face up to the
threat of Nazism in the 30's, but this has little to do
with "denying the nobility of battle," as far as I can see.
However, I'm usually able to ignore little nuggets of
wisdom such as these and concentrate on the story. What did
the rest of you think?
Allen
|
Mark Helprin
This extravagance of vision, MH's attempt to imagine a
world in a multitude of aspects and somehow reduce it to
the printed page, is yet another of the features of his
fiction I find deeply compelling. As we follow Marshall
Pearl from his birth on the refugee ship to New York,
Colorado, Jamaica and more, each setting portrayed in
generous detail (I often found myself wondering, How
does he know all this stuff?), one can only marvel at
MH's capacity to dream wide awake and be grateful for the
chance to come along with his protagonist on his singular
odyssey.
Allen
In the beginning I was, like those who have posted so far,
enthralled by Helprin's use of language and metaphor. That
passage about the difficulties of the Arab language is
indeed a gem. However, after a while I began to feel that
the writing was too self-conscious.
Ruth
|
