Winter's Tale

Just finished this amazing novel by Mark Helprin. The prose is dense, but very satisfying. I don't usually go for authors who use more words than they need to, but Helprin has managed to work his way around that.

The cast of characters is full of interesting and/or lovable people. There's someone there for everyone. I was particularly drawn to Pearly Soames, the closest thing the novel has to an antagonist. He has this Captain Ahab thing going on and it makes for some really exciting confrontations.

Has anyone else read this? If not, I recommend it. Some of you may have heard of it due to the upcoming film adaptation starring Colin Farrell and Russell Crowe. I had high hopes, but based on the trailer it seems as if quite a bit of the story will be changed and that the entire middle section of the book will be cut entirely, which is unfortunate.