A prince errant

THE kingship of Freddy Finney depends on a bird.

If a tiercel falcon leaps from his arm and flies, then he is suited for the English throne -- such birds, the narrator explains in Mark Helprin’s novel “Freddy and Fredericka,” have been used for centuries to judge the character of kings.

As this novel by the author of “Winter’s Tale” opens, we know what will happen. On a Scottish hillside, with a whipping wind and wide-open spaces calling seductively, the falcon grips tightly to the Prince of Wales’ arm -- “as if to say, I was willing to fly but you have failed me once again” -- and brings the monarchy to a crisis point. Freddy and his wife, Fredericka -- loosely recalling Charles and Diana -- must go on a crazy quest to test their mettle, redeem themselves and reverse the falcon’s judgment.

Where? The bumbling prince is told that he must conquer a land “inhabited by fierce, clever, and industrious creatures -- monsters.” It must be a deadly, fiery place that “even the Norsemen dared not mention.” According to Mr. Neil, a mysterious privy counselor (rearrange all six letters and you’ll have an Arthurian reference), this can mean only one place: New Jersey.

“ ‘New Jersey is but a tile in a land so vast that, as far as anyone knows, it has no name,’ Mr. Neil said in a mad whisper.

“ ‘Yes it does, you idiot,’ Freddy told him. ‘It’s called the United States of America.’

“ ‘It is this, then, that you must conquer.’ ”

And so, because an ancient rite demands it, the Prince and Princess of Wales parachute naked into a New Jersey industrial park. (Now there’s a sentence one would never expect to write about a Helprin novel.)

After converting their parachutes into floppy suits (“We’ll bunch them up the way Chaco did two years ago in Paris,” Fredericka decides), the couple encounter Hells Angels, gypsies, Rastafarians and wealthy disaffected elites, but no dragons or knights. The American myth of reinvention is true for them many times over: They become naive art thieves in New York City, fire watchers for the forestry service, Salvation Army corps members, dental students, mental patients and political advisors. They learn to enjoy the pleasures of wandering as their whims take them across the nation. “That’s half the fun of the quest, isn’t it, not knowing what you’re looking for?” Freddy says at one point.

It’s also half the fun for Helprin, who uses the couple’s wanderings to fill his canvas with a carnivalesque portrait of America at the end of the 20th century. It is an unexpected, delightful departure for the author, whose 2004 book, “The Pacific and Other Stories,” was a carefully wrought collection with the delicacy and magic of his earlier novel “A Soldier of the Great War.” “Freddy and Fredericka” recalls American journeys of self-discovery by Mark Twain, John Steinbeck and Jack Kerouac.

“Fredericka rested in the meadow,” Helprin writes, after the pair leap from a boxcar somewhere in the Midwest, “her arms outstretched, her hair somewhat dishevelled, and Freddy saw her as if for the first time. . . . Now she nearly floated up to him, because for the first time she was getting what she deserved, and for the first time he was looking at her with love for all she was, even her imperfections, which no longer put him off but drew him in.”

The Finneys learn a simple lesson -- that adversity and unfamiliar surroundings often change people for the better, for themselves and for each other. Without the flash of paparazzi cameras to blind them, they can look clearly into each other’s eyes. Left behind are her liaisons with a chevalier named the Jus D’Orange and his sexual escapades with the aptly named Lady Boylinghotte.

Helprin borrows a page from Voltaire, showing his couple bearing Candide-like pains with the jaunty innocence of teenagers. Fredericka’s ego does suffer when she and Freddy are given oversized front teeth by a cut-rate dentist -- theirs were knocked out during the parachute jump -- and they end up resembling beavers (until the new teeth are filed down). But they make this a positive experience: It turns them to the practice of dentistry and gives their vague quest, finally, some sort of clarity.

A hopeless presidential candidate (dubbed the “emperor of density”) visiting the Midwestern town where they’ve settled needs emergency oral surgery minutes before a crucial TV interview. Freddy volunteers to interpret for the candidate, who groans through a mouthful of hardware and tubes. Freddy’s polished, princely English and easy comments on world politics -- which no one cared about in Britain -- stun millions of listeners, who realize that this dental Cyrano de Bergerac, not his patient, is the right choice to lead this country.

Many of Helprin’s previous novels have an air of the fairy tale about them, of an imagined reality just outside our own, and that’s true here too. Innocence prevails -- the couple never really suffer despite the many misfortunes they encounter on their long road trip. Freddy’s effect on the emperor of density’s campaign clearly stems from Helprin’s wish for a politician to speak honestly without any spin or agenda -- another fairy tale.

Ultimately, Freddy must face that stubborn falcon for another try. But you hardly care what happens, for the journey is worth every gag-stuffed page. I promise you, this will be one of the fastest 500-plus-page novels you’ll ever read. *