Literary Significance and Reception
Winter's Tale was published in 1983. Praised on the front cover of the New York Times Book Review (NYTBR) as "funny, thoughtful, passionate...large-souled", it joined his previous four books as the lead review. In May 2006, the New York Times Book Review published a list of American novels, compiled from the responses to "a short letter to a couple of hundred prominent writers, critics, editors and other literary sages, asking them to identify 'the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years.'" Among the twenty-two books to have received multiple votes was Helprin's Winter's Tale.
Read more about this topic: Winter's Tale (novel)
Famous quotes containing the words literary, significance and/or reception:
“We postpone our literary work until we have more ripeness and skill to write, and we one day discover that our literary talent was a youthful effervescence which we have now lost.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“For a parent, it’s hard to recognize the significance of your work when you’re immersed in the mundane details. Few of us, as we run the bath water or spread the peanut butter on the bread, proclaim proudly, “I’m making my contribution to the future of the planet.” But with the exception of global hunger, few jobs in the world of paychecks and promotions compare in significance to the job of parent.”
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“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)