Steven Millhauser, "In the Penny Arcade" (1986)

I have to admit being just a bit skeptical about book recommendations. Because of my ongoing project, I have refined my tastes to the point that I already know the type of stuff I want to be reading in the upcoming year. So generally I'm not interested in disrupting that continuity. Occasionally someone makes a compelling enough case to convince me that a particular author is worth paying attention to. Even so there are several layers of resistance that such a suggestion has to pass through before I honor it.

One of my sources that I generally trust is Bill over at Copacetic. He has guided me through the world of alt-comix during the last several years. Because I usually enjoy the things he sends my way, he gets the benefit of the doubt. I could create an quick list of cartoonists that I only know about because of Bill. But this post isn't about comics- it's about an author. On more than a few occasions, Bill has seen me browsing through the relatively small but impressive collection of literature that he stocks in his little store. And he's tried to turn me on to one of his all-time favorite authors, Steven Millhauser. It may be solely because of the imprint under which he is published (Pheonix of Orion Books Ltd), but his books were never quite intriguing enough to catch my interest. I admit this exposes a particularly American superficiality, but I am definitely vulnerable to marketing demographics. The packaging of Millhauser's works is plainly stolid. That may reflect the fact that the publisher is British. I'm not 100% certain.

When I was finally ready to take the Pulitzer Prize-winning Martin Dressler (1996) home, I prepared myself for an intensely dry read. That wasn't at all what I discovered. The award-winning book traces the rags-to-riches ascendancy of the title character. Dressler works his way up from cigar store stock-boy to hotel mogul in a couple hundred pages. Along the way his visionary dreams of creating an interior world within the confines of a quickly developing NYC proceed at a break-neck pace. There is a side-plot in which Dressler courts a pair of sisters, but I found that arc a bit contrived. What Millhauser succeeds best at is in evoking grand images through a series of very descriptive lists. He's obviously obsessed by systems theory, and this fetish is enough to sustain the discriminating reader's interest.

After I was done with his magnum opus, I wasn't sure if I needed to return to Millhauser in any expedient fashion. But then I found a couple more of his works in the remainder section of an independent bookstore in Shepherdstown, WV. I recently finished In the Penny Arcade (1986), a collection of short stories. The first entry is called "August Eschenberg", and the character for which it is named is very similar to Martin Dressler. Eschenberg is a man of extraordinary vision and imagination, and he inevitably struggles with social forces that tend to bring visionaries down to the mediocrity of the masses. American attentions are fickle, and tend to focus on the grandiose and sexy aspects of their various entertainments. A true thing of beauty will only engage the consumer mindset until it is no longer novel. Eschenberg's clockwork art becomes a victim of its own co-option, meeting a similar fate as Dressler's hotels. After concluding this story I thought I had a firm grasp on Millhauser's thematic range.

But I was pleasantly surprised at the emotionally resonant tales that followed. It turns out that Millhauser is perfectly capable of documenting the inner lives of his characters, even when they are confined to a more human scale. Stories like In the Penny Arcade, A Day in the Country, and The Sledding Party demonstrate that Millhauser is no stranger to the wonders of the heart. While his sometimes Dickensian prose belies the magical realism tucked away at its center, Millhauser's fictions here contain a deeper strain of understanding for the subtleties of memory and loss. I found both a deeper and wider facility in this writing that I had not expected after my initial reading of Millhauser. And that means I will be returning again soon.

Steven Millhauser, "Little Kingdoms" (1993).

Sometimes when I develop a taste for a certain author, I decide to read his works over a long span of time, in the hope of making a good thing last. In the case of Steven Millhauser, circumstances have led me to make my way through a few titles in a relatively short period. While this has given me a clearer understanding of the continuity of his perspective, I think it may have also led to a subtle fatigue. I still feel that he is an interesting and talented writer, but I found myself continually checking to see how many pages were left in Little Kingdoms. However it's not the case that it contains inferior tales. Maybe Millhauser is simply better appreciated in the depths of winter. While his themes are accessible, his style is often fairly dense.

Regardless of whether or not Millhauser is appropriate beach reading, there is much to savor in Little Kingdoms. It contains three novellas of wildly divergent settings and approaches. The first is entitled "The Little Kingdom of J. Franklin Payne". The titular character is a young man from Cincinnati who steadily distinguishes himself as a newspaper cartoonist. He gets married and finds his way to Manhattan in the first decade of the 20th Century. While he continues to turn out editorial cartoons and Sunday funnies, he labors into the night working on an animated cartoon distinguished by tedious precision and unfettered fantasy. As he does so, his marriage slowly dissolves. Still he manages to create an art that is truly out-of-time.

"The Princess, the Dwarf and the Dungeon" occupies the middle portion of the Little Kingdoms. For this tale Millhauser abandons his typical turn-of-the-century urban milieu in favor of medieval towns and castles. It describes a tale of palace intrigue between a prince, a princess, and a visiting noble. When the sovereign finds himself suspicious of his beautiful wife's fidelity, he decides to engineer a test. He urges her to offer herself to the noble (who happens to be his longtime loyal friend) and report the results of the situation back to him. Obviously this is a no-win situation all around, and the reader sees the eventual outcome as inevitable. The dwarf of the title is particularly treacherous, and perhaps a slight to "little people everywhere".

The final installment is "Catalogue of the Exhibition", and perhaps the most fascinating from a structural standpoint. It is divided by descriptions of various paintings the main character (Edmund Moorash) completed during his lifetime. The notes on the content and style of these works are supplemented by the kind of historical context you might see in curatorial statements. They gradually unveil a story of two pairs of siblings that spend time together in a rural idyllic setting, and the ramifications of their intensely formed individual bonds. Ultimately the developing plot takes on a tragic quality, as we see Moorash increasingly affected by the relationship between his artwork and the events of his life.

I was particularly struck by some of the formal experimentation of Little Kingdoms. As noted above with "Catalogue of the Exhibition", Millhauser has chosen to employ some atypical means to relate his stories. While I found "The Princess, the Dwarf and the Dungeon" fairly trite in terms of the plot-line, I was mildly intrigued by Millhauser's choice to have an anonymous townie as the narrator. He uses this device to examine the nature of folktales in general, with mixed results. Obviously "The Little Kingdom of J. Franklin Payne" hews most closely to the traditions of Millhauser's most celebrated works. While I found the other two included novellas to be a bit contrived, I still enjoyed the author's consistent mastery of the language and his amazing facility for description.

Steven Millhauser, "Martin Dressler" (1996).

The proprietor of a local alternative comics shop had been continously recommending that I read Steven Millhauser, so I finally picked up Martin Dressler (1996). I figured that this would be a proper introduction to the author's work, as it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1997. It concerns the son of European immigrants who own a cigar store in Manhattan in the 1890's, and his meteoric rise in the world of business.

Martin Dressler demonstrates an entrepreneurial spirit at a very young age, while helping his father in the shop. He soon takes a job as a bellboy at an old fashioned hotel, and works his way up to assistant to the general manager. Feeling compelled to further engage in the developing city, he opens up a string of lunchrooms, and follows with a chain of extravagant hotels. Along the way he befriends a trio of related women, one of which he marries, and another that he takes as a business partner.

Throughout much of this book I wondered whether it was simply a straightforward Horatio Alger-type story of a hardworking boy who finds great wealth. It's embrace of unfettered capitalism seemed to me to be a bit blunt. Seeming to parrot the pieties of the American Dream without question, it became a bit tedious. Dressler employs an early advertising agent and a fancilful architect to assist him in realizing his grand dreams. His instincts are surefire, and for the greatest part of the book Martin has his finger on the pulse of the great city's consumers. He is obviously destined for great wealth because of the quality of his ambition.

Perhaps just as obviously, Martin Dressler becomes a tale of hubris by the end. Martin follows his bliss to the point of completely losing touch with the spirit of the evolving city. He builds an all-inclusive entertainment complex within one building. No longer a mere hotel, it becomes a world unto itself. It includes sublevels with indoor parks and simulated vacation environments. There is an integrated theater district and an almost endless set of diversions. In fact it is so overwhelming in its diversity of entertainment that people seem to lose any understanding of its identity or function. We learn that Martin has pursued the "wrong dream".

While it's true that the entire story is allegorical, I can sympathize with readers who find that Millhauser's characterization lacks depth. Dressler's marriage and seemingly complex relationship with his sister-in-law are only vaguely explored, and serve only to superficially complement the main story arc. We never discover who Martin might be in relation to other people- be it his family, in-laws, associates, or friends. That's fine if this is meant to be pure mythological allegory, but not if it aspires to be truly great literature.

Regardless of whether or not this work deserved the Pulitzer Prize, I found Millhauser's descriptive prose fascinating. His ornate descriptions of the growth of the city and its charms on the cusp of of the twentieth century fleshed out the extremely linear plot. He demonstrates the fruits of a substantial amount of research concerning his chosen times and setting. As historical fiction, Martin Dressler is quite effective. But the details morph into a form of magical realism, especially in the accounts of the fantastic hotels that our hero creates. In this manner, Millhauser is able to draw a parallel between the evolution of his construction projects and Dressler's inner state. It's an interesting literary achievement.

My Reading Project: Another Year Toward 1000.

Another year is coming to a close. This day could prompt a range of musings and reflections about the past year, or speculation on what the next will bring. But much of what I've experienced and considered during 2007 is already documented on this blog, and I have no immediate plans to discontinue the project. So I guess it's more appropriate for me to comment on an annual goal that holds personal meaning for me. December 31st is the date that I take stock of my progress toward my reading project. As I mentioned around this time last year, I decided (in my early 20's) that I wanted to read 1000 books, and keep an updated list of them. The standard I set for myself was 40 completed books per year. When I add up my list for 2007, I count 53 titles- one better than last year. My total sum now sits at 671.

I suppose I could take some measure of pride in the fact that I've been averaging one book/week over the last two years. It has required a certain level of focus and commitment to reach these totals. Life is filled with distractions- some meaningful and some merely irritating. In the coming year, I expect to make a lot of adjustments in my life and I'm not certain how my reading habits will be effected. Still I do know that this project is going to remain a priority in my life, for many of the reasons I mentioned last year. It will be interesting to see what I'm willing to sacrifice to meet my new obligations. Likely I will spend less time going out to meet friends and acquaintances. Perhaps I'll watch less movies. Maybe I'll write significantly less. Who knows?

For what it's worth, I present to you my ten most notable reads from 2007 (in no order):

David Simon, Homicide.

- I'd have never guessed that a trade paperback would make this list. Yet this journalistic account of a year with Baltimore homicide detectives was both memorable and haunting. I'm not much for the hour-long police procedural television drama- but the book is worth reading.

Chuck Kinder, Last Mountain Dancer.

-The author's folksy tone provided the backdrop for some interesting anecdotes about a subject of particular interest- West Virginia. If you can't figure out why this state should fascinate me... check this out.

Mary Gaitskill, Bad Behavior.

-This collection of short stories examines the psychosexual obsessions of the women of my generation. I found it enlightening and entertaining. Have you ever seen Shainberg's Secretary? It's loosely based on a tale from this volume.

Steven Millhauser, In the Penny Arcade.

-Whatever Millhauser lacks in emotional depth, he more than makes up for with his fanciful flights of imagination. He creates magical realism in an early Twentieth Century urban setting, and almost makes the case for the prevailing American ethos.

Jason Moss, The Last Victim.

-The author is not a particularly strong writer, nor are his insights especially deep- but this account of a young adult's correspondence with serial killers such as John Wayne Gacy is riveting. The entire setup is just too unique and intriguing to put down.

A.M. Homes, Music for Torching.

-I'm always on the lookout for a distinctive contemporary American voice, as it's fulfilling to follow the development of an author as she enters the prime of her career. Homes is definitely worth watching and exploring in detail. She is mordantly witty and illuminating all at once.

Jon Ronson, The Men Who Stare at Goats.

-I had previously read Ronson's Them- a wacky examination of eccentrics who find their essential meaning through the study of conspiratorial systems. This follow-up was just as entertaining, but with the focus shifted on to the US military... it's a bit spookier as well.

Ann Powers, Weird Like Us: My Bohemian America.

-Here's a sociological study that hit close to home. While reading through this book, I recognized the types of people that Powers interviewed... in fact, I feel as if I've been hanging out with them my whole life. If some future generation finds a reason to be curious about the demographic that I most closely identify with- then this will be an ideal place to start seeking answers.

Gaddis and Long (editors), Panzram: A Journal of Murder.

-If you are squeamish, you might want to skip this one. It is the autobiography of one of the most jaded, vile, unforgiving and prolific criminals in all of American history. And you've likely never heard of him because he was edited out of your public education. Probably a good thing?

George Singleton, The Half-Mammals of Dixie.

-This spot could have easily been filled by one of many fascinating "True Crime" books I've read this year. But given the previous make-up of this list, I figured I'd give you a break. These are rather light stories by a master storyteller of the South. You might not remember reading them a few months later, but you'll laugh if someone jogs your memory with its contents. It happened to me after I lent it out.