Freddy and Fredericka

Yes, you should absolutely buy this book. No, you shouldn't buy it from this seller. This is one of my favorite books of all time. I read it years ago and lost my copy, and wanted to repurchase.But the copy I purchased from Amazon seems to be an illegitimate reprinting. The cover of the book is some weird cheap cardstock, and the cover seems to have been scanned and reprinted. It's blurry and pixellated and the embossing that should be on the book title is obviously not there (but you can tell the original book was embossed). The actual pages are very thin and low-quality. There were also typos on the inside copyright page and the binding is really poorly-done. Photos attached.I've bought books from Amazon for nearly ten years and never had this issue before. I've also bought this exact book before, so I know what it should look like. This ain't it. Hopefully it's not a recurring issue. Amazon refunded my order and said they'd launch an investigation into the seller.

The audible version is perfectly performed by a British actor, Robert Ian McKenzie. Helprin fans like myself who may have initially been put off by the storyline, should give it a second chance (the audible option made this all the more enjoyable ). Like all Helprin books, this story too is a magical tale that is the backdrop for language refined to a point of purest beauty, his perception of truth (which cannot be created but only perceived) is unerring. His words will stop you in your tracks; his writing to be savored. Helprin gives his characters a timeless quest to find within themselves the lost virtues that all his main characters aspire to - duty, honor, truth, hope, and love. Humorous, hilarious, laugh- out-loud funny. This Anglophile loved this tale of the fictionalized Royals in an American Wonderland. Helprin's imagination is majestic. he is literary royalty.

First, the disclaimers. This is NOT a thinly veiled satire on Charles and Diana. You'll see shadows of the current royal family, but the characters are distinctly different and are clearly in an alternate universe. And while I saw glimpses of surrealism in Mark Helprin's other works, this story is over-the-top fantasy. But hang in there, because once the royals are parachuted into New Jersey (see what I mean?), the tale gets interesting and at times truly profound. The last few pages are riviting, and I found myself a bit misty eyed at the end. I've enjoyed all of Mark Helprin's works, and this one is no exception. Enjoy.

To me a sometimes convoluted story used to convey his understanding and respect for the monarchy of Great Britain and his equally deep respect for what's great about the USA and even our zany political system. Interspersed with a great deal of humor and often slapstick comedy dialogues. Sections are breathtakingly profound(at least to me) and beautiful essays on the experience of life - and death and succession that I've come to expect from Helprin. Worth the journey even when slapstick and the bizarre aren't your favorite" cup of tea.

I've read all of Mark Helprin's novels, and liked them all, but "Freddy and Fredricka" is an absolute joy. First, and more than anything else, it is as funny a book as I would want to read, as funny as P.G. Wodehouse (well, almost--I mean, c'mon), as funny as the Marx Brothers, a sort of dada fantasy with a "Who's-on-first" riff every twenty pages or so. But it's much more than that--a warm, human story about two people growing up; about England and America, their shared heritage, and their shared greatness (the source of much of the humor); about the responsibilities of monarchy, but also of political leadership as whole; about personal courage, and generosity, and love. I guess you could tell I liked it.

I suspect a lot of readers of Helprin's  A Soldier of the Great War  and  Winter's Tale  were disappointed when thy picked up this book. It's very far from the poetic, lyrical style of Helprin's earlier books, and it's wouldn't be a stretch to call it slapstick. I found it a bit off-putting myself, and set it aside after reading a chapter or two. I just couldn't get into the story, or the rhythm of the narrative. Then, two or three years later, I came across it while sorting books and decided to give it a second shot. I started from the beginning, without the preconceptions that had shaped my expectations in my first reading, and this time I found myself drawn into the story, and even more so, into the characters of Freddy and Fredericka. Rather than seeing it as a thinly disguised roman a clef about Charles and Diana, I read it for what it was, and discovered a very good comic tale.I still don't think it comes anywhere close to the two previous books I cited (or to Helprin's brilliant  Memoir From Antproof Case , but it is still a cut above most fiction and well worth reading for what it is. If you tried reading it when it came out, and were disappointed, give it another chance. If you've read Helprin's earlier novels, but aware that this is a very different sort of story, with none of the exhilarating and lyrical writing of "Soldier" or "Winter's Tale", but it's still a very good read.

The unlikely premise of this glorious romp is that the Prince and Princess of Wales are behaving so fecklessly as royals that they are parachuted without resources into the USA, to undergo trial by fire and retake the colonies for the crown! The pair begin as alternate versions, caricatures, of Charles and Diana, but their journey transfigures them into bigger, bolder and deeper characters. They follow a picaresque series of increasingly funny adventures as they cross the continent, finding new resilience, reviving their love and piloting a buffoon towards the presidency.It is, in the book's own words, "a love song to this country" (ie. the US), and though it revels in ridiculing the royals, it is equally a hymn to their sense of duty, and also a heartfelt and often moving romance, in which our heroes fall in love not only with each other but with life itself. All this is accomplished in Helprin's characteristically luminous prose, enough to make aspiring writers gnaw off their own arm in envy.But most of all it is a generous, clear-sighted, big-hearted comedy. Helprin's humour is shamelessly contrived: for instance, he is not above naming Fredericka's dog "Pha Kew", merely to engineer a scene in which Freddy chases it through a wedding party, repeatedly shouting its name; a gag from which Helprin is still getting mileage two chapters later. Page after page of riotous dialogue flows again and again from the flimsiest of misunderstandings; and the reader does not merely forgive these transparent devices, but wills them along, eager for the next.It is not quite, to my mind, Helprin's best book (look to "Winter's Tale" or "A Soldier Of The Great War"), but it is certainly his funniest. Since it frequently reduced this reviewer to dizzy fits of laughter and left him gasping for breath, it fully merits its 5 stars.

This is the first book I read by Helprin. I love fairy tales and fantasy, and this was perfect! Beaufort prose, hilarious characters, morals. It felt like I was on the trip with Freddy and Fredericka. I laughed and cried! And I've now bought two more Helprin books!!

Firstly, I must say that this novel is uproariously funny. Secondly, I must say that this novel is a moral tale about how adherence to duty provides the knowledge to be truly free. Many of the reviews here have provided plot summaries of the novel and noted the presence of magical realism within it. This magical realism seems to me to be an attempt to reach the spiritual; essence that is behind human existence. For despite the and maybe within the humour, this is a very serious book. It is the classical tale of the quest for the Grail placed within the 20 and 21st centuries. It is a story about the coming of understanding of what the object of the universal quest is.This is a very funny book. This can be a very serious book.

ヘルプリンらしい、ウイットに富んだ物語。きまじめで、抜けてる主人公Freddyの、哀しいながらもおかしいエピソードが素晴らしい。今、丁度エリザベス女王の映画があってたりして、イギリス王室の話は旬なので、読むと面白いと思う。愛嬌に溢れ、意味なくチャーミングなFrederickaからは、人として豊かに生きる事の本質を見る事ができる。変わり者のFreddyのお陰で、普段触れないような英単語が出てくるのも楽しい。深いストーリーです。