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rocketiza's review against another edition
3.0
He's such a unique, great voice that even if you don't like a story, you'll find it interesting and fun to read. However, I do recommend breaking it up and only reading a few stories at a time.
gjmaupin's review against another edition
4.0
Tremendous stuff, especially the new stories. "The Next Thing" is scarier & more real than an dystopian future tale ever.
gabesteller's review against another edition
4.0
Soo fun if you like a little taste of the fantastic but not too much! Theres a great one about an idyllic town that is terrorized by a mysterious man who just comes up to people, slaps em (really hard!) and then is just gone!
or another one about a guy who used who visits his long lost best friend from college when they were both big enviro guys,(our hero sold out, while his friend remained committed to the cause). As it turns out this friends ongoing commitment now includes a beautiful farm and a strange “marriage” to a humongous Frog! Friends, what can ya say, sometimes you grow apart.
Anyway they can sound kinda stupid, but i promise they're way kool. if you love borges , or Kelly Link, or Karen Russell, or George saunders, Milhauser is ur man! (I’ve heard these folks grouped under the label Fabulism which is maybe sorta pretentious but it has helped me find some really sick authors so who cares)
Also has a sweet cover
or another one about a guy who used who visits his long lost best friend from college when they were both big enviro guys,(our hero sold out, while his friend remained committed to the cause). As it turns out this friends ongoing commitment now includes a beautiful farm and a strange “marriage” to a humongous Frog! Friends, what can ya say, sometimes you grow apart.
Anyway they can sound kinda stupid, but i promise they're way kool. if you love borges , or Kelly Link, or Karen Russell, or George saunders, Milhauser is ur man! (I’ve heard these folks grouped under the label Fabulism which is maybe sorta pretentious but it has helped me find some really sick authors so who cares)
Also has a sweet cover
jmcphers's review against another edition
4.0
I made the mistake of reading this collection of Millhauser's stories immediately after another collection of his, [b:Dangerous Laughter|1540810|Dangerous Laughter|Steven Millhauser|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1437485127s/1540810.jpg|1533013]. This was a mistake only because this collection borrows liberally from that one, so when I thought I had more stories, I actually only had stories which I had already read in a different book.
Another reason this was a mistake is that after enough repetitions Millhauser's short fiction begins to feel formulaic in pieces. He has a steampunk-like obsession with art and performance prior to the digital age, and many of his protagonists trade in magic outright or ply their skill in such a way that it seems indistinguishable from it. His prose is also invariably stuffed with the concrete and sensory, and often finds itself sitting alone reciting details in just the way one might remember them from a dream--fractured, but strong impressions (smells, glints of light, freewheeling and Bradbury-esque metaphors, symbolic objects, etc) form much of the mental picture. I counted three different stories in which a "green Coke bottle" made an appearance in a recounting.
Much of Millhauser's work falls under what I'd term Magical Realism, and differs from the worlds created by some of his contemporaries in that it is often more real than magical, and some of the characters are just as incredulous as the reader would be in a similar situation. It somehow manages to be both dispassionate--as it rarely describes emotion or sometimes even individual characters directly, eschewing them for "we" or "us"--and affecting, as his writing so expertly pricks the imagination with ideas and imagery that it can induce feelings of wonder, nostalgia, and even voyeurism.
It's not hard to see why many of these stories have been read aloud in Selected Shorts, or turned into films (The Illusionist is in fact based on one of them). Like many of his characters, Millhauser is an unconventional but gifted artist.
Another reason this was a mistake is that after enough repetitions Millhauser's short fiction begins to feel formulaic in pieces. He has a steampunk-like obsession with art and performance prior to the digital age, and many of his protagonists trade in magic outright or ply their skill in such a way that it seems indistinguishable from it. His prose is also invariably stuffed with the concrete and sensory, and often finds itself sitting alone reciting details in just the way one might remember them from a dream--fractured, but strong impressions (smells, glints of light, freewheeling and Bradbury-esque metaphors, symbolic objects, etc) form much of the mental picture. I counted three different stories in which a "green Coke bottle" made an appearance in a recounting.
Much of Millhauser's work falls under what I'd term Magical Realism, and differs from the worlds created by some of his contemporaries in that it is often more real than magical, and some of the characters are just as incredulous as the reader would be in a similar situation. It somehow manages to be both dispassionate--as it rarely describes emotion or sometimes even individual characters directly, eschewing them for "we" or "us"--and affecting, as his writing so expertly pricks the imagination with ideas and imagery that it can induce feelings of wonder, nostalgia, and even voyeurism.
It's not hard to see why many of these stories have been read aloud in Selected Shorts, or turned into films (The Illusionist is in fact based on one of them). Like many of his characters, Millhauser is an unconventional but gifted artist.
runningbeard's review against another edition
5.0
Not a review, just quotes:
"Matthew had his own theory, which he sometimes believed: that everyone had a secret, a shameful thing they had done, and the reason they feared the stranger was that he made them remember that thing. He himself, for example, had done some things in college he'd rather forget. He stepped up to his car, bent over to glance through the window-- one of his ideas was that the stranger concealed himself in parked cars, which he knew how to open-- and placed his key in the door. He heard a step, a single crunch of gravel, and turned with a feeling of excitement and intense curiosity. The man in the trench coat had already raised a hand, and as the palm cracked against his cheek with a force that brought tears to his eyes, Matthew was aware of the look of stern anger in the stranger's eyes, as if he was delivering a judgment." PG 25, The Slap
"We became awared of small groups, which perhaps had always been there, with names like Daughters of Jericho and Prophets of the Heavenly Host; members of the latter proclaimed that the stranger had been sent by the Lord to warn us of his wrath unless we mended our ways. Even those of us who dismissed such ideas as ignorant or childish could not escape the thought that the stranger was punishing us, like an angry father, for something we had done, or for something we had failed to do, or for something else, which we ought to have known but did not." pg 28 The Slap
"Matthew had his own theory, which he sometimes believed: that everyone had a secret, a shameful thing they had done, and the reason they feared the stranger was that he made them remember that thing. He himself, for example, had done some things in college he'd rather forget. He stepped up to his car, bent over to glance through the window-- one of his ideas was that the stranger concealed himself in parked cars, which he knew how to open-- and placed his key in the door. He heard a step, a single crunch of gravel, and turned with a feeling of excitement and intense curiosity. The man in the trench coat had already raised a hand, and as the palm cracked against his cheek with a force that brought tears to his eyes, Matthew was aware of the look of stern anger in the stranger's eyes, as if he was delivering a judgment." PG 25, The Slap
"We became awared of small groups, which perhaps had always been there, with names like Daughters of Jericho and Prophets of the Heavenly Host; members of the latter proclaimed that the stranger had been sent by the Lord to warn us of his wrath unless we mended our ways. Even those of us who dismissed such ideas as ignorant or childish could not escape the thought that the stranger was punishing us, like an angry father, for something we had done, or for something we had failed to do, or for something else, which we ought to have known but did not." pg 28 The Slap
jasonchamb's review against another edition
4.0
Great stories. Includes new ones like The Slap and a number of classics from previous collections. Highly reccommended.
pearseanderson's review against another edition
4.0
One of those classic new and selecteds that helps if you read it real slow, as the Millhauserness starts to build up in your system: must . . . praise circuses and similar houses of strange comfort and consumerism. Must . . . discuss a coming of age story with bright, select details in an America that could be the 1950s or the 1990s, really timeless qualities. Mush . . . show the quiet loss and unreality of the world, and that all we love is layered with masks and disguises, whether seen through gloves or criminal alises or the opaque life of ghosts. Okay Millhauser! Go off I guess. He selected the stories in an interesting way, and I feel drawn to only a good 3/5ths of them, the others retreaded the same themes and topics in ways that didn't connect or feel like they breached especially new ground (See: Snowmen v Flying Carpets, for example). What Millhauser does do wonderfully are these dense historical paragraphs that hold a certain taughtness and authority I'm amazed at. His work is brilliant if I wanted to study how to do a 1890s Bildingsroman, or a 1950s surrealist piece. On that alone I'm sure I'll be returning to his work, it's really enchanting and inspiring. 7/10 overall for the antho.
psalmcat's review against another edition
2.0
I didn't finish all of these stories and excerpts. They just got too weird for me to read at bedtime. Interesting, and good writing throughout, but after a couple of nights of strange, restless dreams I need to move to something less freaky.
jnkay01's review against another edition
3.0
Only picked it up for "Eisenheim the Illusionist," which I enjoyed, along with "We Others" and "The Barnum Museum." Made me think of a grown-up's Bradbury, but perhaps I should reread some Bradbury to verify.