Memoir from Antproof Case (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "CALL ME OSCAR Progresso..." (more)
Key Phrases: please return the previous pages, rotten gold, antproof case, New York, Miss Mayevska, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

His usual mixture of flamboyant fantasy and concrete detail animates Helprin's (Soldier of the Great War) latest work, a tour de force that combines adventure, romance and an overview of the 20th century into a bittersweet narrative. This "memoir" is being composed in humid, insect-ridden Brazil, and its pages are preserved in an antproof case. How the elderly narrator ended up there after his birth in New York's Hudson Valley, an adolescence in a Swiss lunatic asylum (he killed a man and was deemed insane), college at Harvard, a perilous stint as a fighter pilot in WWII, a career as an investment banker in Manhattan and other eventful episodes, is the burden of the convoluted, intriguing story. It's an old man's tale, plangent with remorse and regret, yet vibrant with robust memories of sexual and aerial escapades. It's also somewhat farfetched, since the narrator has waged a lifelong, maniacal crusade against coffee, an obsession whose origin is only revealed in the novel's affecting last pages. Never one to tell a lean story, Helprin indulges in dozens of riffs and digressions exploring the principles of physics, anatomy, education, morality, monetary theory, aeronautics, engineering and many other subjects. Some of these descriptions are little short of gorgeous; others are tedious. Similarly, Helprin's witty, ironic humor sometimes veers into farce (e.g., a banquet scene where bank officers are served steak and the narrator, in disgrace, must eat a turkey anus). To his credit, Helprin is endlessly inventive, and one expects his characters to behave as they do in fairy tales and fables, not in real life. Yet real life pulses so strongly in some scenes (especially the account of the events surrounding the death of the narrator's parents) that they could stand as set pieces, full and complete in their stark and immediate impact. For all of its excesses, there is enough magic in this story to keep readers actively engaged. Major ad/promo; author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

An old man climbs hills to find solace in viewing the ocean and to write a memoir for his young son (which he stores in an "antproof case"). His story moves forward in jagged fragments, with memories leading to memories-not sequentially, but leapfrogging through a dramatic life as World War II ace, investment banker, murderer, and more and looping back upon one another. As in a portrait by Picasso, the truth of his life is revealed through wildly distorted features. Helprin (A Soldier of the Great War, LJ 4/15/91) returns to his themes of love and redemptio, once again creating a tale that is rich in imagery and juxtaposes the irreverence and faith, foolishness and brilliance, of a 20th-century Don Quixote. Highly recommended.
--Jan Blodgett, Davidson Coll., Davidson, N.C.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 514 pages
• Publisher: Harcourt Brace; 1st edition (April 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151000972
• ISBN-13: 978-0151000975
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (64 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,126,330 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not to be believed, August 7, 2005

By	Diane Schirf "www.slywy.com" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

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.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Engrossing and hilarious, November 21, 1999

By	Christopher P. Dunn (The Aloha State) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Memoir from Antproof Case (Paperback)

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."

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 4.5 stars, really, December 30, 2005

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Memoir from Antproof Case (Paperback)

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.