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Content snapshot
Flag an inaccuracy →What's in this book, at a glance — five things readers want to know before they start.
Violence
Some
World War I combat and some violence; death throughout the soldier's experience
Language
Barely any
Mild language in the literary fiction register
Sexual Content
Some
Adult romantic content across a lifetime of love and loss
Substance Use
Barely any
Social drinking appropriate to the Italian and wartime settings
Emotional Intensity
A lot
The cumulative weight of a life lived through war, loss, and beauty creates the novel's deep melancholy
What this book is about
Mark Helprin's sweeping literary novel follows Alessandro Giuliani, a Roman aesthetics professor, as he walks a long road and recounts his extraordinary life — including his youth before the Great War, his time as a soldier, and the decades of love and loss that followed. Helprin writes with enormous ambition and lyrical beauty. The war sections are intense and violent; the love story is adult; the novel is one of the more demanding and rewarding works of American literary fiction.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
World War I combat
Adult content across multiple decades
Reader Verification
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