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This is the discussion thread for the Summer 2014 Group Read Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin. Please post your comments here. This thread is not restricted to those choosing this book for task 20.10, feel free to join in the discussion. Warning- spoilers ahead!

The requirement for task 20.10: You must participate in the book's discussion thread below with at least one post about the contents of the book or your reaction to the book after you have read the book.

Finally finished this one up last night. I really want to give this a better review than 2 stars because I know the only reason I didn't like it was that it's not to my taste. Some of descriptions of New York (both the city and the Hudson Valley) in the throes of a deep winter are lovely, but 750 pages worth of the same lush description without much of a plot to move it forward makes the book feel like an MFA project on steroids. I'll freely admit that I'm much more of a plot-and-characters type, so this just never quite took hold for me. But if you're the beautiful-plays-with-language sort, this might be just your street.

I have a lot of trouble following the plots of science fiction books and found this one no different. However I enjoyed it immensely. The satirical humor was so clever particularly the jibes made against politicians and politics. I was amused by what I suppose was a reference to global warming in a comment concerning New York winters becoming less severe, with virtually no snow. This was obviously written before last winter when the opposite seemed to be true.
I'm also not a fan of time travel, but Peter Lake is a delightful character and it was fun to see how he coped with living in time periods other than the one in which he was born. Virginia Hardesty's mother was another memorable person, with some worthwhile comments on life and a brain one can't help but admire.
Even though Winter's Tale is what I would consider a weighty tome, I may have to find time in my schedule to reread it. I'm sure I will find much of value that I missed the first time around. Maybe next time around I'll be able to figure out what Magical Realism is. The term seems like an oxymoron to me. If it's real it can't be magic, no?

apparently this is a popular book because the reserve list at my library (for both the ebook and audio) is like 50+ people...

From the beginning I felt alienated from this book. I felt that it was assuming a knowledge of both New York and winter that I don't possess. As I continued the alienation increased rather than decreased so that at page 516 I am giving up (although with no viable alternative it means I won't be able to complete the challenge). I'm not enjoying the language, I have no connection with the characters and the plot is just too fanciful for me. I have wasted enough time on this book without wasting any more.

Jessica wrote: "Finally finished this one up last night. I really want to give this a better review than 2 stars because I know the only reason I didn't like it was that it's not to my taste. Some of description..."

Jessica I agree. I like characters and story. Too many adjectives get to me.

Personally, I am a dork and as much as I wanted to like this book. I could not. I have a hard, hard, time with Science Fiction.. Thank You Seasonal Reading Challenge for taking me outside of my comfort zone. I thought that this book was full of adjectives that Lost me. I thought that it was mentally frustrating and by the end I was exhausted because of all the voices in the head. I actually liked what I got to know of the characters but was so lost in the LONG descriptions that I gave up. I think that the author can write but I think that he could have trimmed the book a little by taking out some of these descriptions. I am giving the book 2 stars because a.) I finished it and b.) because if I ever need to describe something I am using this book...

I'm almost afraid to admit that this was my choice for the Group Reads voting, but it was and I did end up giving it 4 stars for the writing which I thought was quite beautiful. I also liked the magical realism elements and the main characters. I listened to the book and was a little frustrated with that format, although the narration was good. I just watched the movie which left out too much detail as movies almost always do, but watching it helped to clarify a few confusions I had when listening. I may have to re-read this one in book format during the winter sometime and see how I feel about it. It is so difficult to go back over a passage when listening to an audio book and I'd have liked to have been able to do that.

I really wanted to like this book. The plot sounded so intriguing and the movie looks fascinating. I thing what lost me was the unnecessary description of certain scenes and feelings. While the author clearly wanted me to feel a connection to New York and winter, I could not. There were several times I wanted to give up on this book, but I finished it like a trooper. I did feel the characters were rich, but the character development wasn't enough for me to care what happened to them. I believe the story and narration could have been condensed and maybe I would have enjoyed it more. Needless to say I won't be recommending it.