"Words were all he knew; they possessed him and over-whelmed him, as if they were a thousand white cats with whom he shared a one-room apartment." This description, of a character from Winter's Tale, is emblematic of the current critical punch-up over Helprin's sprawling, picaresque novel. Are its hundreds of century-spanning, myth-discovering pages finally "overwhelmed" by words, or has Helprin—subtly in control of what seems to be a runaway—taught his old cats new tricks? Like Peter Lake supporting the mayoral campaign of Praeger de Pinto, I vote 12 times with the enthusiasts….

Helprin, extending the factory fugue in Refiner's Fire, has launched a full-fledged romantic assault on the lingering grasp of realism. For beyond the flying horses and unspeakable villains, the music-swept love and beady-eyed vengeance, the whir of machinery and silence of ice, the most elaborate cruelties and gentle charities, beyond even the magic geography and...