A royal odyssey that annoys more than entertains
Freddy and Fredericka
By Mark Helprin
Penguin, 553 pp., $27.95
It is a wise reader who, on encountering the label of ''farce" applied to the work of a serious literary author, approaches it with caution. (Unless, of course, that author is Shakespeare, or certain 17th-century French writers.) In the case of a contemporary farce that features thinly disguised members of the British royal family, the safest course might be to zip up a haz-mat suit.
In Mark Helprin's latest novel, ''Freddy and Fredericka," the Prince of Wales must prove his fitness for the throne by parachuting with his ditzy wife into New Jersey -- naked -- in order to conquer America.
Prince Frederick, known as Freddy, is big-eared and socially awkward. Though intelligent, he comes off instead as clownishly eccentric. Sound familiar? There's more. His wife, Fredericka, is blond, beautiful, shallow, consumed with fashion, and beloved by the press. Freddy copes with her, and with his wait to ascend the throne, by a longtime dalliance with a mistress. His life is a string of mishaps and social disasters with which, of course, the press has a field day. When press barons plot to trip him up even further, his family summons an adviser, who may or may not be Merlin. Freddy is sent packing with a mandate to earn the throne by conquering the colonies.
This could have been a promising premise, especially in the hands of Helprin, known for story collections and novels of intelligence and imagination, like ''Ellis Island," ''A Soldier of the Great War," and ''Winter's Tale." For the last few years, he has also contributed Wall Street Journal commentaries on politics and military history. Why he chose to infuse his latest work with this latter background, instead of his usual fictional grace, is a mystery. Alas, what his publisher promises as ''de Tocqueville rewritten by Mark Twain" is instead a strained, overstuffed, and overlong work that reads more like Evelyn Waugh rewritten by Benny Hill.
On their descent into New Jersey, the royals collide in midair, knocking out their front teeth. After they land, their adventures involve stealing motorcycles, getting picked up by a gypsy in a white Cadillac, disguising themselves as Jamaicans with self-tanning gel, hopping a train across country, cleaning toilets, serving as fire tower lookouts, and, eventually, studying to be dentists. None of these efforts reveal themselves to be even dimly related to Freddy's vague mission, but the result of mishaps piled onto happenstance. They live for a time in Chicago, cold and poor, learning to enjoy the simple pleasures of life. They eventually light out again, meeting up with presidential candidate Dewey Knott, who quickly sees the value of someone of Freddy's intelligence and expertise in military strategy to run his campaign. When Freddy gets the chance to lead the nation, he realizes he has learned what he needs to merit the throne, and flies home. Although a few years have passed, readers are asked to buy the official story that Freddy and Fredericka have spent two weeks in Pakistan.
Instead of trenchant observation, we get a cartoon, and a not particularly funny one at that. Although Freddy's observations of the physical majesty of America often provide a welcome respite from the clowning, on the whole, Helprin describes the colonies as inhabited not by people, but by con artists, police, and stupid politicians. There's a chapter titled ''Freddy Escapes From the Mental Hospital and Enters American Politics. What's the Difference?" This is about as trenchant as it gets. Occasional beautifully written passages tease us into familiar Helprin terrain, but they provide little solace, and jar against irritating, overlong jokes of the ''who's on first" variety.
Take the crisis that leads to Freddy's banishment to New Jersey. He is forced to chase after Fredericka's dog, which is named, phonetically, after an obscenity. His downfall comes from crying the dog's name out loud in the streets. (You may have to say the name aloud to get the joke.) But it's just one of many oddly unfunny names throughout the novel, which include Freddy's mistress, Phoebe Boilingehotte, and the press barons Lord Psnake and Lord Didgeridoo.
These names are ridiculous instead of inspired, especially when considering an earlier work of Helprin's that invites comparison. ''Winter's Tale" was an imaginative and evocative leap into a beautiful fictional realm, in which Helprin created characters like Romeo Tan, Blacky Womble, Pearly Soames, Dorado Canes.
Helprin has drawn Freddy as a likable, even admirable character from the start. His greatest flaw is that he does not love his wife. Who would? The trek through America changes him in this regard, but even this transformation has no apparent connection to his greater mission.
It's Fredericka who undergoes the most change over the course of the novel, but even here, Helprin hedges his bets, and suggests that it is not she who has changed, but Freddy's ability to truly see her. The lesson seems to be about the resilience and importance of opening one's eyes to love.
It's a small lesson for such a hefty tale, and one for which we are made to pay too dearly.
Sandra Shea is the author of the novel ''The Realm of Secondhand Souls." 
