Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler),1999-2004, Harper Collins Publisher.

The Lemony Snicket books have an amusing premise: in an over-the-top, affected voice, we hear of the terrible, horrible privations that befall and the evil, malevolent conspiracies that threaten three peculiarly-talented orphaned siblings. The narrative falls into entertaining repetitive patterns: we quickly learn that Violet ties up her hair before coming up with brilliant inventions, that Klaus will know key facts, no matter how obscure, and that Sunny will crawl into inaccessible places and babble non-nonsense, and together they save the day for a brief moment. We also quickly become accustomed to the voice of our narrator, who happily mis-defines words for us, who advises us to read happier books, and who laments vaguely-defined tragic events in his own story.
Repetition is a powerful tool in all literature — but in “kidlit” it’s nothing short of a juggernaut. Kids can watch Aladdin five hundred times, and tend to enjoy it more each time. Other kids want the same story read to them each night, and will correct you if you misread a single word. Clearly, the power of repetition and playing to a successful theme fuels these books. Yet, even with a good formula, familiarity breeds contempt. As the books progress, the problems and the solutions to the problems get less and less plausible (not that they were ever realistic to begin with). Yet we know in advance how the problems will be solved, more or less, and the steps that be taken to get there. Maybe because my brain has gotten older and less pliable, the repetition in this series started to get tiresome. I found myself wanting something new to happen, something unexpected. Well, maybe in the next book…

Booth Tarkington, 1914. Read as an e-Book from the Gutenberg Project by way of BlackMask.com

This collection of stories of the eponymous eleven year old and his misadventures feels in places like a much more precious version of Tom Sawyer. Like Twain, Tarkington seems to have a convincing memory for what it’s like to be a boy. The preciousness, however, is cloying in places; the flights of exaggerated description are a little too much. Coupled with the overt use of racism for a laugh, there is a lot in these stories that is offputting to today’s reader.
Yet … Tarkington gets some things just right. The pecking-order battles of the children, the coping with boredom, the dealing with adult expectations, and the ability to cause great disruption by not understanding social formalities all read quite true. And Penrod’s birthday meeting with his Great Aunt Sarah Crim near the end is an enormously satisfying payoff. Her cynical wisdom makes it possible to overlook many of the other negatives.

Booth Tarkington, 1909. Read as an e-Book from the Gutenberg Project by way of BlackMask.com

This is a sweet, mostly predictable story. The plot itself is not particularly notable, but, for some strange reason, what makes the whole thing worthwhile are the obvious mistakes in perception on the part of our very unreliable narrator.

Christopher Marlowe, 1588, read as an e-Text from BlackMask.com

I suppose the only things that surprised me about this telling of the Faust tale was its brevity, and, despite the brevity of the story itself, how damn much of it was dedicated to Faustus’ wafflings. “Shall I repent? No! I shall not repent! Or perhaps I shall… no!” on and on and on. Look; if you’re going to sell your soul to the Devil and/or one of his agents, make sure you think it through. Either limitless and subtle power in exchange for your soul is a good deal, or it’s not. Figure it out. Do the analysis. But either way, make your decision and quit moping around about it.

Mark Helprin, 1983, Harvest Books; Reissue edition.

This was not the first time I’ve read this book, and, like each time I read it, I found new things in it this time around too. Let’s start with the obvious. Helprin is what we call in my circle a right winger. What should be enlightening to my fellow …er … travellers is that Helprin’s politics are visible in the book, as is his very warm consideration for humanity, in all its flawed glory. If I were to dare to use the term, I’d have to say that this book shines with “compassionate conservativism.” If they can get around the somewhat fascist feel of the apocalyptic mayoral campaign that takes up the last quarter of the book, even dyed-in-the-wool leftists should find much to enjoy here.
Politics aside, there are a number of things that make this book such a great read. Helprin has a real tenderness towards his characters, even the evil ones. He has a deep love for New York, not only as a real city, but as a self- assembling mythology, and he enthusiastically participates in building that mythology even higher. He has a beautiful grasp of the language, which he plays with mischievously (if self-indulgently), and his blurring of magical realism into reality is nothing short of wonderful. Events and characters which would be merely cartoony in lesser hands are instead amusing, fascinating, and oddly appropriate. As an tech guy, I also enjoy his tangents off into the mad magic of early industrial machinery.
Winter’s Tale taps into something epic, mythical, and mysterious. I’d argue that the first half is better than the second, but why split hairs (or books)?