An Allegiance to Ghosts
Elegy in Blue, perhaps more than any other that Helprin has written, evokes God and love as the final summation of life’s constant struggles.
In his latest novel, Elegy in Blue, Mark Helprin, a novelist, essayist, and national security analyst, weaves a tale of sorrow, love, and remembrance, which compels the reader to touch the shards of glass scattered everywhere by American civilization in these dread years of the twenty-first century; years marred by terrorism, war, and insensible hatreds. Helprin’s unnamed octogenarian protagonist and narrator lives in Brooklyn, has built a highly successful financial house, and is recently widowed. The death of his beloved wife, Clare, turns his life upside down, breaks it, and leaves him humbled and yet transcendently wise before the world. She dies on a beautiful night on the streets of Gotham, during one of the many walks they would take to Coney Island from Brooklyn Heights (spoilers follow).
In a horror show that could easily be pulled from a contemporary headline, a domestic terrorist, hateful of America, Western civilization, Israel, and the Jews, wields a Japanese forged machete against Jewish children who are leaving their Hebrew day school. Sharpened to a hair-splitting blade, he begins cutting through children and parents, leaving a heap of bodies at the entrance of the school. The killer also slices the arms off a custodian who tries to stop him. Seconds before the attack, the protagonist notices the terrorist, a man he comes to learn is named Werner Warner Weenis, and lunges into the fray, attacking Weenis from the back, wrestling and struggling with him after both fall to the ground. In the struggle to remove the razor’s edge sword from his hand, Weenis unintentionally strikes Clare in the arm, severing her artery, and causing her to die from the blood loss later that night. At the same time, not yet realizing that his wife had been struck, the narrator separates the murderer from his weapon and repeatedly smashes his head, killing him, saving countless children and others.
What follows in the story is an indication of a somewhat disordered, morally confused society—that is, the one in which we live. A political and cultural order that has grown immensely wealthy and prosperous but at times lacks the common virtues, common sense, and common courage to maintain a free society bound by law and oath. Clare is whisked away in an ambulance, but the narrator is arrested and interrogated by the police. He is stunned that his actions place him under scrutiny. Witnesses reported that he wielded the sword; other witnesses said that killing Weenis wasn’t necessary. A police officer suggestively asks him, “And our officers?”—implying he should have waited for them rather than take action on his own.
Pursuit of Happiness
The Rise of Latino America
In The Rise of Latino America, Hernandez & Kotkin argue that Latinos, who are projected to become America’s largest ethnic group, are a dynamic force shaping the nation’s demographic, economic, and cultural future. Far from being a marginalized group defined by oppression, Latinos are integral to America’s story. They drive economic growth, cultural evolution, and workforce vitality. Challenges, however, including poverty, educational disparities, and restrictive policies, threaten their upward mobility. Policymakers who wish to harness Latino potential to ensure national prosperity and resilience should adopt policies that prioritize affordability, safety, and economic opportunity over ideological constraints.
'Pluribus' Is About More Than 'the Warmth of Collectivism'
In 'Pluribus,' Apple’s most-viewed drama, the integrity of the individual is the central theme.
