50 Days On

OK, I've been 40 for 50. Looking back, I gotta tell ya about a really cool and unexpected gift a got in the second week of September.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a big Helprin fan.Back in July, I had responded to Helprin's article for the Claremont Institute on immigration.

Well, the birthday faeries must have gotten together and decided I was worthy. When the Outlook window popped up with the message, "You have a letter from Mark Helprin" I nearly seized with delight and excitement.

Here is that exchange:

Well done as usual, Mr. Helprin. The only thoughts I have to add to your insightful treatment are those regarding the upcoming elections. The'path to citizenship' is a masterful move on Bush's part to court the Hispanic vote. You mention the importing of labor. We are also importing poverty, which will lead inevitably to the expansion of government in the form of social services, thus creating a cycle of dependence like the one liberals have used to ensnare those in the black community since Johnson.

Love your work - please keep writing. Have you ever thought of a sequel to A Soldier of the Great War involving Nicolo? Perhaps then I would not miss Alessandro so much.

Many blessings to you from a little blast-furnace of ostentatious compassion in the Midwest,

Sonya

Dear Miss Blast Furnace,

Thank you for your email, which I am answering through the good offices of Joseph Tartakovsky. Other than my reluctance to go over spent ground (as a certain politician might say), sequels present legal problems in the corporatized world of publishing and film. To live, you have to sign contracts, and in those the film people really have sequels covered. Publishing houses have their own approach, and the only time I ever did a sequel I found myself in a lawsuit. But it is very kind of you to ask, and much appreciated.

Sincerely yours,

Mark Helprin

Wow. Can turning 40 get any better? Mr. Helprin, I think even a person with your considerable imagination would have some difficulty realizing the delighted surprise I feel at receiving an e-mail from you. At risk of causing you to regret your kindness, I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you how much your writing has meant to me over the last 20 years. As a very lonely 19-year-old, I discovered a rather unloved copy of Winter’s Tale in a friend’s basement. From the prologue, I was entranced. Since then, I’ve tried to read everything you’ve published – certainly every novel and short story collection. Your views, themes, sympathies – insofar as I am able to discern them - have helped to shape my own. When I read your work, I often find myself both grieving and consoled, confronted by my own unthinking acquiescence to the state of things – to modernity, I suppose. Yours is a trumpet call that is at once sweet and really rather painful to hear. But I try to listen, despite the surrounding noise. Thank you for your good work.

And thank you, Mr. Tartakovsky.

Sincerely indeed,

Sonya Lakey

Dear Miss Lakey,

(I use Miss for married and unmarried women alike, as Mrs., Miss, and Ms. are all abbreviations of the word "Mistress", and to me Ms. sounds dreadful and is already taken as an abbreviation of "Manuscript".) Once more I must thank you, this time for a most eloquent statement that false modesty forces me to disavow, but that has made my day.

Sincerely yours,

Mark Helprin

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How cool is that?