Steven Millhauser

Read this Pulitzer Prize winning book as part of a shared read around here. Martin is a young kid in a growing New York City at the end of the 19th century. He works in his father's cigar shop but has ambitions. He becomes a bell boy at a hotel, then a clerk then an assistant manager, then he opens a lunch room, then his own hotel. It seems like everything he touches is a success, until its not. This was an okay read. Its not a very deep story, I'd say. He gets one success and immediately moves on, and he seems to leave those who helped him behind. Then in the later part of the book, there's his weird relationship with his wife, who seems to almost be a robot and her sister who becomes his best friend and almost right hand associate. I'm not sure I would recommend it, but if you're on a journey to read all the Pulitzers, you should.… (mehr)

“...Was there then something wrong with him, that he couldn't just rest content? Must he always be dreaming up improvements? And it seemed to Martin that if only he could imagine something else, something great, something greater, something as great as the whole world, then he might rest awhile.”

The setting is New York City, in the late 19th century. Martin Dressler is a teenager with big ideas and even bigger dreams, as he toils industriously at his father’s cigar shop. In his mid-teens he finds work at a famous hotel landmark and quickly begins to move up in the world.
By his early 20s, he owns a string of restaurants. During this rise, he has befriended a pair of sisters- one he marries and one becomes a business partner.

This novel is an odd mix of the mundane and the fantastical, as Martin’s dreams become mystically grotesque, growing so unwieldy and unlikely that he is destined for a downfall. I was reminded of the over-indulgences of Citizen Kane. The first two- thirds of the book is fairly conventional and well-written. For me, in the final third, as the American Dream begins to implode, the narrative falters. That might have been the author’s intention but it was a failing in the story for me. Guardedly recommended.… (mehr)

Disappointed with it, only 3 of the 13 stories get a 4 or 5 rating for me. Millhauser is an imaginative writer who excels at describing very specific details in a certain dryly whimsical way, and I find his style quite appealing. But too many of the ideas in this book didn't match that appeal for me. Others did, but then the result was unaffecting. Only 'In the Reign of Harad IV' really gets me excited from this collection, a story that marries Millhauser's style, plot, and human being to create wonderment and feeling.

Merged review:

All time favorite short story.… (mehr)