The Pacific And Other Stories (2005) - Plot & Excerpts
This collection is the most refined, graceful, and cultured group of short stories I’ve read. All are masterfully done, emotional without being overwrought; not an easy task when writing about the tragedy of September 11th, as he does in one story. The tales take place in various countries, cultures and ages. He voices the places and people so well, there seems to be an ornateness to them like fine art, it is subtle in its simplicity. You know that to make them appear so effortless there is hard work behind them. He does have a bit of a romantic streak, one too many men fall in love at first sight. His stories kind of hopscotch along a chain of events to their conclusions. They are all remarkably well done the only caveat is they come off a bit elitist. I suspected, before I read his biography that he’d be an Ivy League Grad, maybe Rhodes Scholar since so many stories take place in England. They have a sort of British sensibility to them and certainly he’s well traveled. (Harvard, Princeton, Oxford! Served in British Merchant Navy, Israeli Infantry, Israeli Air Force, raised On Hudson River and in British West Indies. And he looks the part too.)The third story “Monday” is about a contractor who is asked to do a job by a previous client. He thinks at first that she is divorced but soon find out she’d lost her husband on September 11th when the South Tower collapsed. He, and then his men give up their pay, donate the materials, get suppliers to donate their goods and then work twenty-four hours for two months to get the job done. It is the most pristine, elegant and luxurious job they’ve done. They leave proud and honored. “They knew that they had made something beautiful and, because of this, they were content.”(69) It is an incredibly moving story that could have been self-indulgent in its “tis better to give” message but never succumbs to that. The details of who the contractor is, how he lives his life, and why is especially nice, the theme being, honor above all else. Richly detailed descriptions of the work being done and the finishes could be in Architectural Digest.His work can humorous, touching, romantic, and profoundly sad, sometimes all within the same story. I’m looking forward to reading his other work.
Mark Helprin is something of a fiction magician. In two previous novels ("A Winters Tale" and "A Soldier of the Great War"...cf.) I've noticed that he can start a narrative firmly based in everyday reality, string the reader invisibly across normal boundaries of skepticism until, before your know it, you're firmly in the imaginary terrain of the impossibly fantastic...but so spellbound that you keep going. He can sure spin a yarn! When I discovered this collection of short shorts and longer pieces I dove right in. Some of the stories bluntly confront death in a variety of ways. A couple delve into the lore of Judaica that's foreign turf to me...(nothing Jewish about me, but I grew up in a town where if you wanted friends who talked about more than sports or shopping you picked up some strange lingo)...and one about a ball player named "Mickey Mental" (sic) had me laughing a lot. The single story "Jacob Bayer and the Telephone" needs only name changes for a shtetl in old white Russia to Cupertino, CA, and "telephone" to "smart phone" to become devastating statement about current values. `The reader is going to have to think ! Even if acquainted with the military history of Passchendaele a reader is going to have to work to make the connection in Helprin's story of the same name. I'm really glad to find there are a couple more of his works out there for me to find and read.
What do You think about The Pacific And Other Stories (2005)?
First off: I hate politicizing literature. But sometimes it's inescapable.It took me weeks to slog through this, and here's why: Helprin is so full of shit we'd mistake him for a latrine if he were painted white and dropped on a campground. Maybe I'm just falling into the same wrongheaded liberal trap that he accuses many of his reviewers of wallowing in, but this book feels--if not explicitly political--like an implicit piece of cultural commentary. It's a old-time conservative's wet dream: honor-obsessed (masculine) men and (unconventionally beautiful) women uncorrupted by the softening influence of civilization, struggling against incredible odds and attaining their own private glory in the face of (modernized, industrialized, cynical, cosmopolitan) society's scorn. What really struck me was that Helprin likes to write about soldiers and ex-soldiers... and yet, despite the fact that this book was published in 2004, it never once mentions Vietnam or Korea, much less the US's current war. All of his wartime stories are set in the world wars, where idealistic delusions are still possible. (Marginally. Maybe.) Helprin's a romantic, both substantively and stylistically, and it really isn't endearing at all in this context.So thumbs down, Mr. Helprin. Knowing your fiction, I can finally hate you without reservation for all of your sanctimonious cultural criticism, too.
—Leigh
This book took me a very long time to read, but it was worth it. I enjoyed every word and every story. I would recommend this book to anyone who appreciates writing in the old-fashioned sense: think Conrad, Crane, Hemingway, but with a bit more modern lyricism. I think the reader also has to appreciate nature writing. No one I have come across can portray water and light like Helprin can. And both men and women can appreciate his plots, which range from war stories to human interest stories."Perfection" is one of the most original stories I've ever read. (And you don't have to love baseball to enjoy it, trust me!) "Passchendaele" is a good old-fashioned western-type love story, but the repression is so intense and the situation so carefully rendered, it stands out for me. But "Sail Shining in White" has one of the best openings of any fiction story I've ever read. Ever. Masterful and magical.
—Tara
Very enjoyable. These stories re-introduced me to the tender heart within Mark Helprin's voice. I've immensely enjoyed several of his earlier novels -- especially "Refiner's Fire", "A Soldier of the Great War", and "Memoir From Antproof Case" -- but have struggled with his two most recent novels. The short stories in this collection reminded me of his best work, the way he can write paragraph-length sentences that wander off and back again while still making sense, his eye for descriptive detail that sometimes seems to go on a bit too long but then you realize he is painting with words, as if there were a way to look directly at the sun by describing the glow of early light reflecting from myriad surfaces. Several of the stories have left indelible impressions on me, such that I don't think I'll ever forget their imagery.
—Bill Flanagan
