I quail to think that I may not be able to do this book justice. Mark Helprin is a staggeringly great writer. If I had to pick a favorite (thankfully I don’t), he would be it. His life experience – Harvard, Oxford, Princeton, Army, Airforce, Navy – would be enough of a reason to hear what he has to say, but his scope of experience is minimal compared to his imagination, sense of humor, and descriptions of beauty.
Frederick and Fredericka (the future King and Queen of England) are marvelously both ludicrous and everyman. The trials and tribulations they face when sent on a quest to save themselves and their thrones are tremendously and imaginatively idiosyncratic. You’ll see what I mean when they get their front teeth knocked out before meeting Hell’s Angel-types in Newark, N.J. …
The Queen banishes them both to the Garden State, “as penance for departure from the royal ideal and instruction therein.” Thus the Prince and Princess of Wales find themselves, “forced to travel through America penniless and incognito, with the object of reacquiring the deviant former colonies for the British Crown.”They find themselves in ridiculously far-fetched situations, that, amazingly, seem appropriate and life-altering. We can’t but hope they will learn from these experiences … and they do. Oh, they do, causing Freddy to muse, “though it is hard to be a king, it is harder yet to become one.”
Freddy is the much maligned heir to the British throne. He is a bumbling, silly, out-of-touch, pretty boy, who has no depth of character.Or is he?He could also be a savior. A real, true king who will take his country to a new chapter of honesty and compassion.
Fredericka is the Princess of Wales, a seemingly spoiled, dim-witted, bubble-headed, blonde, aristocratic fool, who metamorphoses into a hard-working, moral, well-read, brilliantly-insightful woman.
With a strength of character they’ve never before had to find, Freddy and Fredericka must survive and prevail over a myriad of difficulties: pimps, the afore-mentioned dental problems, police chases, frigid Chicago winters, and neither truffles nor pate of any kind … how will they cope?
They work in Florida as fake-hygenists, travel with hobos across the country, wash dishes, clean public lavatories, lay tracks, bathe in steel vats, enter politics, read voraciously – and grow. They rise above and fall in love. The harder they work, the happier they become: Fredericka suddenly realizes ” we will be happy doing this while all the toffs in England lie around in their beds.”
Freddy and Fredericka are born anew and when we are not laughing too hard to breathe, we are staggering under the weight of stunningly beautiful country, glorious love, and powerful morality.
They take a joy from their trials that separates them from their past before it brings them full circle. They entertain thoughts of never going back, speaking of it, “many times, what if they simply were to stay this way? … They knew they wouldn’t – it was not their destiny – but they considered that they might.”
Without giving up that joy, they still will succeed. Helprin’s tale of when they do and what they do and where they go from there is simply wonderful, leading us ultimately to, “a long flight … (that Freddy and Fredericka) had started on high,” (until) “down (they) … glided, into the blue over England.”