Some great writing illustrating mind expanding scenes. ( )

Perhaps it was because it was an audiobook, perhaps because I was distracted by life, but I lost interest about halfway through. ( )

This was magic realism, I think, with that very languid, dreamy, slightly distant feel I've come to associate with magic realism. Very hard to get into: nothing I actually disliked, but there was no immediacy, nothing to grasp, no characters that came alive.That's not entirely true; Peter was intermittently real, and Virginia, and various of the little vignettes like the lovers talking through the walls. But Helprin always whisked them out of sight again. I suppose the real main character was the city, but it wasn't presented very clearly either, I don't have any picture of it. I do like the irony in making New York the site for the bridge to heaven and the ideal of the Perfectly Just city. Having read some of Helpirns' articles, though, I'm not sure I'd want to live in his idea of a perfectly just city. Even in Winter's Tale I thought he had too great a tolerance for collateral damage.Still, there was compassion. It's hard for me to realise that someone with political beliefs so markedly different from mine can still share many of the same values. Something to remember. ( )

One of those rare books I read over and over. Helprin is a master of magical realism. Splendid prose, a flying horse, the Short Tails roaming the rafters of Grand Central Station, a tubercular heiress on a rooftop, and Peter Lake -- master mechanic and second-story man of New York's Belle Epoque. What's not to love? ( )

Frankly, one of the best books I ever read. The combination of magical realism and historical New York City are irresistable. ( )