The Pacific and Other Stories

This book contains pearls of wisdom on what ails our society today and how to fix it. Honor comes across as a key element - in today's society, we get mounting disrespect instead.Here's a couple of key excerpts from the book:From "Il Colore Retrovato", a story about the finding and success of a opera singer, the following was written: "And music itself has changed. Although small cadres of classists keep the sacred and ineffable alive, they are under siege by coarse generations whose music is hardly as musical as a bus engine or a chain saw. Something must have occurred during their mothers' pregnancies." Every time that crude 18+ boy drives his car past my house in the future with the bass up so loud, the car vibrates, I'll remember this..From "Monday", a story about the work that a crew puts into an apartment overlooking the area of the World Trade Center, for a woman who lost her husband in the south tower on 9/11/01: "Look, I don't know what happened to the country, but everybody tries to screw everybody else. More so than in my father's day, more so than when I was a child, more so than I was a young man, more so than ten years ago... more so than last year. Everybody lies, cheats, manipulates and steals. It is as if the world is a game, and all you're supposed to do is try for maximum advantage. Even if you don't want to do that, when you find yourself attacked from all sides in such a fashion, you begin to do it anyway. Because if you don't you lose. And, no one these days can tolerate losing." He continues to say that he, the owner of the small company fixing the apartment, can tolerate losing if that is what is required for HONOR."Monday" is probably the best short story in the group because it, as highlighted in the excerpt above, emphasizes what is wrong with our society today. After I read this short story, I remembered my experience in business and all jerks that I met along the way. And, the higher that an individual gets in the business world, the more practiced they are at being a jerk. For example, the CEO of a major corporation who lied on his resume to get the job, but had problems with others doing the same (the issue to him apparently was getting caught). Or, the past-CEO of a major corporation who made a big to do about integrity in the company, but then didn't follow it himself as he lied to the stock market about a major quality issue in a manufacturing plant. In short, Scrooge is alive and well in business today - cadres of senior executives who cheated their way through business schools, including Ethics class, I'm sure, and then continued to cheat and lie in the business world, in order to get ahead.And then, there are of course, the politicians and bureaucrats in Washington, DC. They are even bigger lying and cheating scoundrels. There are very few of them with Honor and integrity left. There was an individual, John McCain who has considerable, but he ran for president in 2008, and lost to a individual who is totally devoid of honor. What does that say about our society, and what did it communicate to him and other politicians - to get ahead in politics today, do you need to be lying hypocrite - an individual totally devoid of honor and integrity?And that is the answer that is something sorely lacking in today's society - HONOR - an abstract concept entailing a perceived quality of worthiness and respectability that affects both the social standing and the self-evaluation of an individual or corporate body such as a family, school, regiment or nation. Accordingly, individuals (or corporate bodies) are assigned worth and stature based on the harmony of their actions with a specific code of honour, and the moral code of the society at large..This is a book of short stories about honor and how it was practiced in the past and even recent future, e.g. "Monday". My hope is that some of these jerks and idiots running our companies, and governments read this book and take it to heart.

Very well imagined and diverse short stories, told with a level of sensitivity to the human condition rarely seen in my experience.

I've read most of Helprin's novels, and have enjoyed all of them. This is the first short story collection of his I read. If you're on this book's Amazon page, and are reading reviews to decide if you should purchase it or not, you can save yourself a lot of time and scroll up the page and click the Buy button. How this author paints a scene, a moment, an event, capturing the emotion, light, color, energy and the pure essence of what is unfolding in the scene, is just a wonder to take in. I found myself rereading passages time and time again, since they were so beautifully constructed they put me in a swoon. I absolutely loved this book.

I own a print copy of this but got the Kindle version for ease of reading and passed the book to a friend. Helprin is a master. These stories are varied in tone, but all are the work of a great writer. There are times when I had to set it down and walk around, I was so stunned by his mastery of language.

Halpern has an unusual knack for creating poetic descriptions, especially visually. Stories that take you back into recent history from very human and mundane perspectives.

Words matter. As with any written work of art, your own background and experiences determine the quality and significance of the read. One of the two best I’ve every read, the other being his Soldier of a Great War. Many, many, many thousands of books read, and these are the two... Highly recommended.

Thank you, thank you, thank you...for your latest book: "The Pacific and Other Stories".Yet another amazing achievement by you, ("A Soldier of The Great War" is my all-time favorite novel) in story telling and use of the English language. Simply the highest level of writing I have experienced. Like your character Roger Reeves' bat in the story "Perfection", I believe an angel has taken control of your pen and allowed you to perfectly write words on a page to create your novels and short stories. The only problem: It takes me longer to read your books than any others. Why? Because so much of your prose is so beautifully written, I'm compelled to re-read sentences, paragraphs, pages, again and again, to savor the words and thoughts, before I continue on with the rest of the book. I recommend this book to anyone who doesnt mind learning some valuable life lessons from reading fiction.

This book replaces a tattered notebook of Mr. Helprin's stories containing copies I have culled from various and sundry sources and to which I often return. The writing is beyond my ability to praise. Reading his work can be compared to listening to a gifted musician; his prose is musical and ideas profound.These are moral tales. I believe that much of Mr. Helprin's fiction evidences a deep frustration with the fact that we live amidst such richness of knowledge and opportunity in an incredibly beautiful world yet we fall prey to lesser enticements; we ignore or forget the truths upon which anything good and true must rest. They are stories about discoveries of surpassing worth and importance. We owe it to ourselves to turn off the TV, put down the newspaper, and give Mr. Helprin a chance to point us to our better natures.

As always, mark Helprin is a superb writer. Each story takes you to a different place, each requires attention and appreciation to the creator's craft.

The Pacific by Mark Helprinis a wonderful introduction to this author.Feel adrift in the world, as far as a lack of sensibilities in the 21st Century go?This author will be a comfort if you do, he has a command of words and language that presents feelingsthat come to meet you as if they are part of yourself. Reading his work is rather like a guiding angel taking you abroad and out of your personal world, letting you feel the emotions of characters in their moments of sadness, joy, fear or acceptance.Helprin's precise observation complements his compassion, one feels his characters are sharing with you and many of them are very wise.His work addresses those hidden or inner feelings about mankind we forget we have sometimes. A celebration of reality, expressing the assurance that there is nothing the human spirit cannot endure except cold indifference.Helprin writes with a compassion and integrity that soothes. Helprins books are like the one painting in the museum or exhibition that calls you, or jumps out at you and simply says to your mind "I've been waiting for you".The only trouble with his work, particularly "A Soldier of the Great War" (Novel), is that when you finish one of them you experience something akin to parting from friends - a respectful sense of bereavement.

Short stories are often short. Helprin packs a full load into his pages. The ending of the final story is a gut jerker, but only if you have read the whole story.