Customer Reviews

Memoir from Antproof Case

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I have been prodded and cajoled into reading this book. And like many other things in life that I now appreciate, why did I wait so long? This is a poignant, hilarious, and deep novel. Yes, the reader must let go of reality and suspend belief, but what a sense of wonder I felt as I let Helprin's prose ferry me from sense to nonsense, from heaven to hell, and from love to bitterness. Our "hero" is as complicated and contradictory as are we all and serves as an ingenious metaphor of our times (greed, selfishness, humanity). Helprin's observations on money and wealth ("use it to increase vitality, not to lean on") are serious social criticism and his humor is ingenious.

Those readers who do understand and appreciate this book will also love Graham Greene's "Monsignor Quixote" and Kiran Desai's lovely "Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard."

Helprin starts by recalling Melville, "Call me Oscar Progresso..." and then lets us know we are in for a wild ride, "Or, for that matter, call me anything you want, as Oscar Progresso is not my real name.Nor are Baby Supine, Euclid Cherry, Franklyn Nuts, or any of the other aliases that, now and then over the years, I have been foced to adopt". In a book with flights of fancy that soar every bit as high as those in the bestselling "Winter's Tale", but infinitely funnier and less grandiose, Helprin charts a course few writers dare. Giving away the story is betrayal to the reader, so suffice it to say that Helprin's newest hero is defined by his hatred for the "evil bean that enslaves half the world", coffee. His life struggles put him in harms way and at the top of the world. He knows riches and love, he knows betrayal and poverty. I laughed out loud continuously while reading our hero's description of his fall from corporate grace, defined by the ever changing quality of the art hanging in his office. Helprin has always been a comic writer, his "serious" works had a deftly comic touch, but this is his first work of pure comedy, and of course as all of Helprin's books are, it is a morality play of sorts and an exploration of life's abusrdities. But don't let that thought deter you, this a funny, brilliant, eccentric, even dazzling book. Read Antproof Case and let this extravagantly gifted author take you where he will.

Memoir from Antproof Case: A Novel by Mark Helprin. Recommended.

Like Winter's Tale and A Soldier of the Great War, Memoir from Antproof Case is difficult to classify (although Helprin helpfully gives it the subtitle A Novel). It has elements of magical surrealism, but falls short on magic.

In this sprawling fictional memoir, Oscar Progresso (not his real name, as though he were a real person) slowly and circumspectly reveals the cause of his pathological aversion to coffee, but first distracts the reader with red herrings like coffee's allegedly toxic chemistry, the over-the-top portrayal of addiction to it, and its amphetamine-like effect on its purported victims.

The real cause is tragic but, given the tone of the novel, it's hard to feel deeply for Oscar, the son of poor parents, graduate of Harvard University (and a Swiss mental institution), globe-trotting partner in an investment banking firm, WWII flying ace, and husband of a billionaire. The details of few of his stories are probable-how he killed two men, his life in the mental institution or even as a pilot during the war, the redundancy of the opulence of his life with Constance (how many kitchens is even a mansion likely to have?) or how she came to leave him. Then there is the drawn-out fall from power as an investment banker, from deciding the future of entire nations to being relegated to a carved wooden school desk in an unlit janitor's closet and then to pointlessly shifting gold in the vaults with a class of unquestioning troglodyte humans; the culmination of this work is the most improbably event of all.

If there is any doubt about Oscar's sanity, his reaction to being unable to find a larger antproof case should resolve it.

There are only two areas in which Oscar seems somewhat trustworthy. The first is the underlying story of his aversion to coffee, the story that is slowly and painstakingly revealed, and the other is his love for his wife's son by another man, the boy he once was for only a short time.

I found myself wanting less of the whimsy and surrealism, imaginative and fascinating as it is, and more of the heart and soul that must inspire some of Oscar's interjected and concluding thoughts, for example:

"Though the world is constructed to serve glory, success, and strength, one loves one's parents and one's children despite their failings and weaknesses-sometimes even more on account of them. In this school, you learn the measure not of power, but of love; not of victory, but of grace; not of triumph, but of forgiveness . . . With it [love, devotion, life as an device for the exercise of faith], your heart, though broken, will be full, and you will stay in the fight unto the very last."

As with Winter's Tale and A Soldier of the Great War, the voice is poetic and unique and the characters etched, while the events purposely stretch the credulity of the reader (if not the narrator). Memoir from Antproof Case tries to appeal to both the imagination and the heart, but, like its predecessors, sacrifices the latter for the former. This is unfortunate, because it has the potential to be the most human of the three. Instead of feeling for Oscar Progresso and his losses and lessons, I am left thinking he is a madman and an unreliable narrator who cannot escape the obsession and fantasy he has created and now clings to; my empathy remains uncertain and unclaimed. I cannot even be sure that the one story Oscar tells that rings true really is-the one of his childhood tragedy.

Helprin is close to being a great novelist but there is something cold and intellectual in his approach and style that prevents him from breaking through as, for example, Toni Morrison has. Although he has experienced life, it is rarely clear that he has felt it. Like Oscar and some of his previous characters, Helprin seems more observer than participant, which ultimately detracts from the magic and surrealism. Part of what make something magical is a belief that it could be possible in some way or some world; much of Oscar's narrative is possible only in a madman's mind.

Memoir from Antproof Case is worth the read, especially for Helprin fans, but it is more fancy appetizer than satisfying main course.

Aside: My copy of Memoir from Antproof Case is stained with coffee.

Diane L. Schirf, 7 August 2005.

I'd like those of you who criticized this novel to give Memoir from Antproof Case a second try. In my high school junior
English class, we have to read 2,000 pages by one author and write a literary criticism/analysis on each novel that we read, as well as a persuasive paper and a comparitive analysis, and finally a 25 page thesis. I chose Mark Helprin.

So far I have read three of his novels, and I find his idealistic, romantic, pure outlooks on the human soul and his frustration at the fact that the world is corrupt (yet full of innocent hopefuls who will never be able to change the world as a whole, no matter how hard they try) truly compelling. This novel is not my favorite novel by him, however - if you would
like to give him a second try, as I recommend, I would suggest that you read Freddy and Fredericka. It is his latest novel, published just 5 months ago, and is an anachronism on British monarchy and American government. Unlike his other novels, the entire thing has an underlying thread of immensely fun humor, as well as conveying his well-loved theme of innocence, purity,
and a hatred of corruption. My copy is a well-dog-eared book, and I think you should give it a try.

Thank you so much for your time.

Unlike the elegiac Winter's Tale (which no one should miss)and the memorable Soldier of the Great War, this book will have you laughing out loud. If you have any coffee addicted friends, you should pass this along to them immediately. Helprin is one of the truly great writers of our time and this book showcases his powers in a more comical light than his other books. Still, he manages to be profound and compelling. Parts of this book are reminscent of scenes from 100 years of Solitude. Not surprising since Helprin uses a kind of magic realism too (but his own brand) in many of his works.

Just reread the book, and I stand by what I wrote 8 years ago. Kosher turkey anus is still hilarious:

There ought to be a law against books this pleasurable--gusts of luminous description, earthy humor, and thrilling adventure physically restrained me from letting it leave my hands until I'd finished. A goofy American magic realist, Helprin shares Garcia Marquez's compassion and Rushdie's love of endless story. (Also, this forces fewer of his Republican interjections on you: he wrote Dole's goodbye-to-the-Senate speech.) Our hero, who may be named Oscar Progresso and then again may not be, gets blown out of airplanes twice, kills two men (both of whom richly deserve it), robs a bank, battles to the death with Walloons, has sex in a steamy pizza parlor, and wages a lifelong battle against coffee, the scourge of humanity. In a passage that had me laughing for several days, he is forced to eat kosher turkey anus at a company dinner. Later, he develops a taste for it. As soon as the book ended I wanted to start it again.

This book was recommended to me as a must read for non-coffee drinkers around the world. Although not a coffee-drinker, I was relieved to find that the book doesn't hang on this! Not even remotely... Instead, Memoir from Antproof case is an amazing story from cover to cover!

I must confess, despite being a good read from cover to cover, I found it a little slow to get into the first couple of chapters or so of the book. The only thing that kept me going was the extraordinary fluid way the words flow across the page, seamlessly blending to create melt in your mouth sentences... Its hard to describe, but Helprin has a beautiful command of the english language and if all his work is like this, he can probably make the dryest legal document readable...

However, after the first couple of chapters, the plot explodes to completely engage the reader - and a couple of VERY late nights ensued while I powered through the rest of the book... And Helprin's beautiful sentences underly the unfolding story, adding an extra dimension. The plot twists are amazing and you HAVE to keep turning pages as the book builds up to a climax. My only grumble in that area was the climax probably came just marginally too soon, leaving the book with a 2 chapter wide down.

This novel is written as what I call "Big novels" i.e. a riveting work of fiction describing someone's life, with all its highs and lows. I loved the fascinating life described by the narrator in this book, and recommend this book to anyone - whether they like coffee or not! In fact, the coffee is just an interesting trait in the book (adds humour...) so don't EVER let that put you off reading this book if you are coffee drinker!

Mark Helprin has the uncanny ability to move with power and grace through the entire range of reality, both human and divine. His previous works, the majestic A Soldier of the Great War and the visionary Winter's Tale show this most aptly. Even more amazing is Helprin's ability to juxtapose the holy and the profane, not as literary device, but as something directly perceived.

Memoir From Antproof Case, while not the masterpiece of A Soldier of the Great War or the genius of Winter's Tale, is still artistry and fun of the highest order. The book's protagonist introduces himself in the opening sentence with a parody of Moby Dick: Call me Oscar Progresso.

Oscar Progresso is, in fact, the pseudonym of an eighty year old American, hiding in the Amazonian jungles of Brazil and consigning his memoirs to an antproof case so that his wife's young son (conceived with another man but loved by Progresso) will someday be able to read his "father's" complete history as well as having a chance at finding the millions in gold bullion that Oscar stole from an immortal investment banking firm in New York years earlier, thus forcing him into hiding in Brazil.

Although Progresso is now living in one of the world's premiere coffee-growing regions, he ironically possesses a fanatical and pathological loathing for coffee...anything. Moreover, he blames any number of physical, emotional and spiritual degradations in the world around him on the evils of caffeine. Cruelly, he says, "every child in the Western World is pressured to accept this drug." And, since Progresso has not been able to convince even one person to give up what he considers to be one of the world's greatest vices, he has come to consider the addiction to coffee to be stronger and more powerful than all the world's religions, than love, and even "perhaps stronger than the human soul itself." Progresso in exile, a person who is nauseated by even the smell of brewing coffee, is amusing, to be sure, but he is definitely not a happy man.

Progresso, though, has lived a wonderful life and he knows it. His early childhood on a farm in the Hudson Valley was magical; he lived through physical and spiritual adventures as a fighter pilot in WWII; he married a billionairess, with whom he was immensely happy...until she, herself, succumbed to the coffee habit. As a highly successful, though somewhat eccentric, investment banker, Progresso romps through exotic episodes that are woven into the story in meandering folds that loop back on one another and are nothing if they are not spirited.

The one blot in Progresso's seemingly carefree existence was a murder to which he, himself, holds the clue. Although he finds no salvation in revenge, Progresso does manage to take it when he snaps a bank president's neck.

Childhood and children play an important role in this Helprin tale, not only Progresso's "son," Funio, and the millions of children hooked on caffeine, but the spiritual energy of children and of childhood, which is often invoked in characteristically original scenes.

When Progresso is sent by his bank to greet the Pope, Helprin wastes no time on more moral subjects that preoccupy lesser authors. Instead, Progresso immediately forms a bond with the pontiff because, as he puts it, he can see directly into his soul. After a simple dinner together, Progresso asks the Pope about his parents and the pontiff is moved: "In all these years, no one has ever asked me about my father and my mother, and yet I think of them every day. Why did you ask?" Progresso's answer is simple, brilliant and thoroughly Helprin: "God puts more of Himself in the love of parent and child than in anything else, including all the wonders of nature. It is the prime analogy, the foremost revelation, the shield of His presence upon earth. As you don't have your own children, you must refer to that holy relation in memories dredged deep with great love."

These words carry even greater weight when we consider that Progresso is a man who could be described as a wag or an eccentric; a man in whom good and evil, sanity and madness are deeply and irrevocably intertwined, but who is always uplifted by the sheer joy of simply being alive.

Helprin's wizardry as a storyteller is proven again in this book by his ability to maintain suspense until the very last page. He takes many chances along the way, because, since it is Progresso who is telling the tale, we know he survived the threats described during the telling. Yet Helprin is so masterful that you will still find yourself wondering how, or even if, Progresso will manage to handle the bandits and the bullets, the storms and the failures. Most lesser authors couldn't keep a reader that enthralled if they were telling the story in chronological order; that Helprin manages to do so when we already know the outcome is nothing less than sheer magic.

There is magic, too, in Helprin's variety and steadiness of vision. He seems to know all there is to know about warfare, finance, engineering, history and several other fields. Yet his writing becomes tender and lyrical when Progresso relates his childhood memories of the Hudson Valley and later, New York City.

After spending time with a Helprin novel, the reader comes to believe that life really does contain all the magic the heart intuits: tragedy, pain and horror, but also glory and love beyond all expression.

One of the best books ever written. Helprin's prose lulls you into a rythym that takes over your brain until the last page is turned. One of the great pleasures of all his work is figuring out whether his protagionists are insane, or the only sane people in the world. Highly recommended to anyone with a strong attention span and sense of humor.

This is the most complete book I have ever read. By this I mean that it's characters are interesting, it has a labyrinthine plot, and the writing style is extremely interesting. One of the comments on the back of the book by reviews compares his prose style to Joyce and Nabokov. I don't happen to agree with this assessment. If anyone he reminds me, at least narratively, of one of my favorite authors Robertson Davies. If you're an enthusiast of Robertson Davies you will enjoy this book. Conversely, if you like this one you will love Robertson Davies. Read this book!