Readers' rating:
Published Jul 2005
576 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Freddy and Fredericka will ascend the English throne only if they
reacquire the American colonies and become noble spirits in an
ignoble age. Helprin's latest work, an extraordinarily funny
allegory of a most peculiar British royal family, is immensely
mocking of contemporary monarchy and yet deeply sympathetic to the
individuals caught in its lonely absurdities.....this brilliantly
refashioned fairy tale is a magnificently funny farce.
'Rarely does the narrative shimmer with the lyricism that
distinguishes Helprin's best work, but readers can have fun with
this book, which is probably all Helprin intended.' - PW.
'While Helprin often succumbs to cheap-shot lampooning humor, his
prose never flags; there is a regal quality to his writing in
anything that he undertakes. Still, the novel is a disappointment.
It feels more like an empty exercise or a stop-gap for Helprin,
lacking the emotional depth of his earlier work.' - Library
Journal.
'Replete with slapstick and hilarious linguistic
misunderstandings, this intermittently verbose yet irresistibly
mischievous fable draws freely on Don Quixote, Mark Twain, Monty
Python, and Jerzy Kosinski's 'Being There', yet is in the end pure
Helprin in its narrative agility and celebration of nature's glory
and human kindness, courage, and love.' - Booklist.
This information about Freddy and Fredericka was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Mark Helprin is the internationally acclaimed, bestselling author of Paris in the Present Tense, Winter's Tale, In Sunlight and in Shadow, A Soldier of the Great War, Freddy and Fredericka, The Pacific, Swan Lake, Ellis Island, Memoir from Antproof Case, and numerous other works.
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The low brow and the high brow
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