Books in Brief
Freddy and Fredericka by Mark Helprin (Penguin, 576 pp., $27.95) Freddy and Fredericka is one long, but highly readable, book. It's admirably suited for the summer season, when many of us have a bit of leisure time to settle into a good story.
Reading Helprin is sheer joy. The praise on the book jacket that testifies to Helprin's splendid mastery of language and compares him to Joyce and Nabokov is confirmed as soon as one opens the book. Few American writers today can handle the English language with such ease and consummate virtuosity. Consider this description of the Mississippi River:
The shore was ever-changing, a world of twisted limbs and bleached tree trunks resting askew on sandbars; of fields under the spray of irrigation machinery that rolled slowly on twenty-foot wheels; of rivers joining the Mississippi like new riders swelling a procession of horsemen; of birds that floated on air cast back by boats and barges; of towns that had died long before but refused to sleep or go under because they could not cease watching the river; of bay-like widenings that promised the sea at the end of the flow; of bridges that passed overhead, the bottoms of their decks space-black from hundreds of years of coal and diesel smoke; of fields that burned in little worm-like lines of gold wool; of the wind that fed the fires as they crawled across the fields, made safe by the mile of water that stopped their sweeps; and of the progress of the banks as the boat threaded through tangled nature, charging onward and full of the promise of life. The tale of Freddy and Fredericka proceeds from the amiable premise that once upon a recent time in Great Britain there lived a glamorous and much-talked-about prince and princess of Wales. Freddy--though nearly 40--just doesn't have the makings of a king. He's a nice enough fellow but is spoiled and has a tendency to muck up on public occasions. His princess is extremely beautiful but is also spoiled and ditzy. The queen and her consort Prince Paul call an adviser, Mr. Neil (an anagram of the wizard Merlin), who comes up with a solution that will make the young couple fit to reign. They are to parachute into Hoboken, New Jersey, penniless and in a primitive disguise: naked except for panels of rabbit fur attached to their bodies with thin straps of green snakeskin. In America, Freddy will prove his worth by trying to make it in "a vast land inhabited by fierce, clever, and industrious creatures--monsters. The most savage land on earth." Success means they will have to work hard and acquire some humility. In the course of their American experiences, Freddy and Fredericka grow up through a series of adventures that have them zigzagging all over the country. At one point Fredericka is scrubbing toilets in a huge office building. Later, in his grandest job, Freddy finds himself secretly advising a long-shot presidential candidate. (It's probably no coincidence that Helprin is a former speechwriter for Robert Dole.) While Helprin has a grand time with this creative frolic through American states and institutions, he is also genuinely serious in his admiration of all that is fundamentally good about America. Indeed, Freddy and Fredericka is a refreshing celebration of American virtues. It also happens to be an utterly beguiling book. -Cynthia Grenier