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Product Description: An old American who lives in Brazil is writing his memoirs. An English teacher at the naval academy, he is married to a woman young enough to be his daughter and has a little son whom he loves. He sits in a mountain garden in Niterói, overlooking the ocean.
As he reminisces and writes, placing the pages carefully in his antproof case, we learn that he was a World War II ace who was shot down twice, an investment banker who met with popes and presidents, and a man who was never not in love. He was the thief of the century, a murderer, and a protector of the innocent. And all his life he waged a valiant, losing, one-man battle against the world’s most insidious enslaver: coffee.
Mark Helprin combines adventure, satire, flights of transcendence, and high comedy in this "memoir" of a man whose life reads like the song of the twentieth century.
Customer Reviews: Rating: 
Date: 2008-02-24
Mark Helprin will be remembered from our age as one of the three best writers.
I began reading Mark Helprin's short stories when I was studying for my MFA-W. Then I picked up WINTER'S TALE. Flying horses, burglars and robbers who steal colors, gorgeous scenes of New York City when there were horses, snow, and inexplicable good guys and bad guys. I've read everything he's done since.
MEMOIRS FROM ANT-PROOF CASE is a look at war and the oddities, courage, memories, and reflections of man at his most excellent (?) memory - which are stories - and man's troubling misunderstanding of the acts of war. It is written with such heartbreaking insight, such elegant style, and such fulfilling personal acclimatization to the human enigmas I predict you will keep it in your library for good. I have two copies of his every work for fear I, by having gone once too often to sanctuary from the sins of confusion, may fail to retain one.
Philip Shelton
Novelist Rating:
Date: 2007-03-25
A terrific read
This was the third of Helprin's books I've read, and the one I like the best. It is along the lines of humorous historical fantasy like Freddy and Fredericka. The writing is outstanding, and like Freddy & Fredericka, replete with many many laugh out loud lines. There seems be some difference of opinion among the reviews of Helprin's books, since it seems that if you loved Winter's Tale, you didn't like this one. I bought Winter's Tale after reading Freddy & Fredericka, but Winter's Tale was so dull, boring, and downright silly that I stopped reading after getting only a thrid into it. Rating:
Date: 2006-06-19
My all time favorite work of fiction
An old man, living in Brazil and barely eking out a living teaching English to Brazilian military cadets, looks back on his long life as a New York Investment banker, his marriage to a billionaire heiress, his exploits as a P-51 pilot in World War II-- and a lifelong hatred of coffee.
I would warn you- Helprin's style is to reveal a little now, then come back to it later in his story telling. If that style bothers you, then you probably wouldn't enjoy this book.
Funny? Oh, my. Very. On several occasions I had to put down the book as I was laughing so hard. I found myself on several occasions reading some sections to my wife.
I won't give the plot away, but let's let is suffice to say that the protagonist "gets away with it" as he reveals in the book. And in the end, he passes his knowledge on to his Brazillian son via a manuscript which is stored safely in an antproof case.
Hysterically funny, though-provoking, witty and different, this is prose at its best. And if you like this one, get a copy of Helprin's A Soldier of the Great War. Rating: 
Date: 2006-01-22
My grave disappointment
Years ago, my sister-in-law gave my wife a copy of Helprin's Winter's Tale. I was enthralled by the book, willingly falling into its fantasy world and happily accepting its swashbuckling escapism. I keep a copy of it in my own small library, which is something I usually reserve for books not readily available at the library. Since reading it, I've read many of Helprin's other works, always hoping I'd find another I enjoyed as much. His gift for lush description and glorious renditions of love are engulfing, but they need to be tied together with an engaging story. I have not found this in any other works since Winter's Tale.
If obesity were Antproof Case's only shortcoming, it might be worth 3 stars if cut to 300 pages. But even if that were done, it would still be smug, self-righteous, self-indulgent and self-congratulatory. The narrator's tiresome obsession with the evils of coffee present him as more mentally unbalanced than I think the author intended. If this man is this whacked out over something as trivial and overstated as the dangers and prevalence of coffee addiction, why would I give credence to his other views?
The coffee issue is just one example of persistant overstatement in this book; everything happens on a hyperbolic scale. There needs to be a middle ground between the highest highs and the lowest lows to give the characters and story a point of reference that allows me to relate to them. Rating: 
Date: 2005-12-30
4.5 stars, really
I'd like those of you who criticized this novel to give Memoir from Antproof Case a second try. In my high school junior
English class, we have to read 2,000 pages by one author and write a literary criticism/analysis on each novel that we read, as well as a persuasive paper and a comparitive analysis, and finally a 25 page thesis. I chose Mark Helprin.
So far I have read three of his novels, and I find his idealistic, romantic, pure outlooks on the human soul and his frustration at the fact that the world is corrupt (yet full of innocent hopefuls who will never be able to change the world as a whole, no matter how hard they try) truly compelling. This novel is not my favorite novel by him, however - if you would
like to give him a second try, as I recommend, I would suggest that you read Freddy and Fredericka. It is his latest novel, published just 5 months ago, and is an anachronism on British monarchy and American government. Unlike his other novels, the entire thing has an underlying thread of immensely fun humor, as well as conveying his well-loved theme of innocence, purity,
and a hatred of corruption. My copy is a well-dog-eared book, and I think you should give it a try.
Thank you so much for your time.
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