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A review by jasonfurman
Voices in the Night by Steven Millhauser
3.0
I liked most of the stories individually but collectively they felt like less than the sum of their parts, a little repetitive, a little too much artifice, and I felt like I was not gaining new insights or being dazzled by complete creativity.
Many of the stories are about uncanny events in small Northeastern towns that are treated realistically and almost normally as they spread through the town--a mermaid dies on shore and starts a fad in a town; a wave of suicides are described almost like a wave of colds and phantoms appear in the town. In some cases, the focus is less on a community than on an individual or individuals, like the opening story "Miracle Polish" about a polish that makes mirrors show their subjects in a much more positive light and a man that becomes increasingly obsessed with seeing everything in mirrors. Finally, a set of stories are retellings of a fairy tale (Rapunzel), biblical story (Samuel), and legend (Paul Bunyan), and history/myth (Siddhartha Gautama). Rapunzel was an amusing attempt to tell the story in a psychologically realistic, modern manner--that in the process shed light on weaknesses both in the story and in the modern manner of telling. The Buddha story read like an interesting biopic. And Paul Bunyan was, for me, unreadable.
Many of the stories are about uncanny events in small Northeastern towns that are treated realistically and almost normally as they spread through the town--a mermaid dies on shore and starts a fad in a town; a wave of suicides are described almost like a wave of colds and phantoms appear in the town. In some cases, the focus is less on a community than on an individual or individuals, like the opening story "Miracle Polish" about a polish that makes mirrors show their subjects in a much more positive light and a man that becomes increasingly obsessed with seeing everything in mirrors. Finally, a set of stories are retellings of a fairy tale (Rapunzel), biblical story (Samuel), and legend (Paul Bunyan), and history/myth (Siddhartha Gautama). Rapunzel was an amusing attempt to tell the story in a psychologically realistic, modern manner--that in the process shed light on weaknesses both in the story and in the modern manner of telling. The Buddha story read like an interesting biopic. And Paul Bunyan was, for me, unreadable.