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Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer
Young Martin Dressler begins his career as an industrious helper in his father's cigar store. In the course of his restless young manhood, he makes a swift and eventful rise to the top, accompanied by two sisters--one a dreamlike shadow, the other a worldly business partner. As the eponymous Martin's vision becomes bolder and bolder he walks a haunted line between fantasy and reality, madness and ambition, art and industry, a sense of doom builds piece-by-hypnotic piece until this mesmerizing journey into the heart of an American dreamer reaches its bitter-sweet conclusion.
293 pages, Hardcover
First published March 25, 1996
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10395 people want to read
About the author
Steven Millhauser
67 books472 followersMillhauser was born in New York City, grew up in Connecticut, and earned a B.A. from Columbia University in 1965. He then pursued a doctorate in English at Brown University. He never completed his dissertation but wrote parts of Edwin Mullhouse and From the Realm of Morpheus in two separate stays at Brown. Between times at the university, he wrote Portrait of a Romantic at his parents' house in Connecticut. His story "The Invention of Robert Herendeen" (in The Barnum Museum) features a failed student who has moved back in with his parents; the story is loosely based on this period of Millhauser's life.
Until the Pulitzer Prize, Millhauser was best known for his 1972 debut novel, Edwin Mullhouse. This novel, about a precocious writer whose career ends abruptly with his death at age eleven, features the fictional Jeffrey Cartwright playing Boswell to Edwin's Johnson. Edwin Mullhouse brought critical acclaim, and Millhauser followed with a second novel, Portrait of a Romantic, in 1977, and his first collection of short stories, In The Penny Arcade, in 1986.
Possibly the most well-known of his short stories is "Eisenheim the Illusionist" (published in "The Barnum Museum"), based on a pseudo-mythical tale of a magician who stunned audiences in Vienna in the latter part of the 19th century. It was made into the film, The Illusionist (2006).
Millhauser's stories often treat fantasy themes in a manner reminiscent of Poe or Borges, with a distinctively American voice. As critic Russell Potter has noted, "in (Millhauser's stories), mechanical cowboys at penny arcades come to life; curious amusement parks, museums, or catacombs beckon with secret passageways and walking automata; dreamers dream and children fly out their windows at night on magic carpets."
Millhauser's collections of stories continued with The Barnum Museum (1990), Little Kingdoms (1993), and The Knife Thrower and Other Stories (1998). The unexpected success of Martin Dressler in 1997 brought Millhauser increased attention. Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories made the New York Times Book Review list of "10 Best Books of 2008".
Millhauser lives in Saratoga Springs, New York and teaches at Skidmore College.
Until the Pulitzer Prize, Millhauser was best known for his 1972 debut novel, Edwin Mullhouse. This novel, about a precocious writer whose career ends abruptly with his death at age eleven, features the fictional Jeffrey Cartwright playing Boswell to Edwin's Johnson. Edwin Mullhouse brought critical acclaim, and Millhauser followed with a second novel, Portrait of a Romantic, in 1977, and his first collection of short stories, In The Penny Arcade, in 1986.
Possibly the most well-known of his short stories is "Eisenheim the Illusionist" (published in "The Barnum Museum"), based on a pseudo-mythical tale of a magician who stunned audiences in Vienna in the latter part of the 19th century. It was made into the film, The Illusionist (2006).
Millhauser's stories often treat fantasy themes in a manner reminiscent of Poe or Borges, with a distinctively American voice. As critic Russell Potter has noted, "in (Millhauser's stories), mechanical cowboys at penny arcades come to life; curious amusement parks, museums, or catacombs beckon with secret passageways and walking automata; dreamers dream and children fly out their windows at night on magic carpets."
Millhauser's collections of stories continued with The Barnum Museum (1990), Little Kingdoms (1993), and The Knife Thrower and Other Stories (1998). The unexpected success of Martin Dressler in 1997 brought Millhauser increased attention. Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories made the New York Times Book Review list of "10 Best Books of 2008".
Millhauser lives in Saratoga Springs, New York and teaches at Skidmore College.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 737 reviews
December 27, 2022
Martin Dressler is a book about an American dream or, to be more precise, about a man dreaming a big American dream. Martin Dressler dreams to rival God and to create his own perfect world within the God’s big imperfect world…
Hype can do anything for you…
However even the most beautiful dreams can be pompous and hollow and in glaringly bad taste.
Imagine two stones – gray, smooth, flattish: small enough to hold comfortably in your hand. There is nothing interesting about these stones. Now, imagine that I single out one of them. Either one will do. I describe the pleasing feel of the stone in my hand. I compare its color to the color of an exotic animal. I admire its remarkable shape. I say that this stone fills me with well-being and confidence. Then I tell you that you may have either of the two stones. Which one are you more likely to choose? That’s advertising.
Hype can do anything for you…
However even the most beautiful dreams can be pompous and hollow and in glaringly bad taste.
June 8, 2022
I was underwhelmed by Martin Dressler. I felt his character was one-dimensional and was not enamored with either Caroline or Emma. The descriptions of Manhattan and Brooklyn in the late 19th and early 20th centuries are certainly interesting and this is what saved the book for this reviewer from a 2* rating. I felt like slapping the hapless Martin around for his blindness to love which is fine but the author kept returning to this theme a painful number of times that I felt he was beating me over the head with it. There is such a tiny character arc for Martin as well - he only achieves enlightenment during the last 5 pages of this short novel. Also, it seemed a bit unrealistic especially towards the end how Martin seemed to wave a magic wand and his dreams would just appear in his hotel. This would be fine in a book by Marquez but anchored in the realism with which the author was attempting to portray the building explosion in the city, it seemed incongruous to me.
I do not quite see what the Pulitzer committee of 1997 was aiming for in awarding the prize for Dressler that year, but then I have come to question their judgment at several occasions (The Known World, Tinkers, All the Light We Cannot See).
Thankfully the book is short (I read it in about 2 1/2 hours) so I don't feel like I completely wasted my time. Not sure if I will seek out other books from this author without a strong recommendation.
My list of all the Pulitzer winners here
I do not quite see what the Pulitzer committee of 1997 was aiming for in awarding the prize for Dressler that year, but then I have come to question their judgment at several occasions (The Known World, Tinkers, All the Light We Cannot See).
Thankfully the book is short (I read it in about 2 1/2 hours) so I don't feel like I completely wasted my time. Not sure if I will seek out other books from this author without a strong recommendation.
My list of all the Pulitzer winners here
November 30, 2011
A cautionary tale for ambitious people, because who likes ambitious people? Not me. I can best describe it as kind of like Atlas Shrugged, but you know, the complete opposite, so good. Also, it's short. So if you hated Atlas Shrugged—and there are plenty of reasons to hate Atlas Shrugged—you'll probably love Martin Dressler.
True story: I went out to eat at a restaurant in Brooklyn, The Dressler. I asked our waiter if the restaurant was named after this book. It turns out it was, indeed, named after this book, and in fact, it's the owner's favorite book. I think we got a free desert out of it. I've never gotten free desert from an Ayn Rand fan. Have you?
True story: I went out to eat at a restaurant in Brooklyn, The Dressler. I asked our waiter if the restaurant was named after this book. It turns out it was, indeed, named after this book, and in fact, it's the owner's favorite book. I think we got a free desert out of it. I've never gotten free desert from an Ayn Rand fan. Have you?
September 11, 2015
This one caught me by surprise . . .
Though it's not an action-packed page-turner, I was completely absorbed by this book.
Just read the author's description of New York City circa 1894:
. . . Martin lead the Vernon women down clattering station stairways to look at details: strips of sun and shadow rippling across a cabhorse's back under a curving El track, old steel rails glinting in the cobblestones. He bought them bags of hot peanuts from a peanut wagon with a steam whistle. He showed them Mott Street pushcarts heaped with goats' cheese and green olives and sweet fennel, took them along East River docks bowspirits and jib booms reached halfway across the street. He walked them through an open market down by Pier 19, where horses in blankets stood hitched to wagons loaded with baskets of cabbages and turnips. 'Look at that!' he cried, pointing to an old-clothes seller wearing a swaying stack of twelve hats, a gigantic pair of wooden scissors over a cutter's shop. Down a narrow sidestreet in a bright crack between warehouses, an East River scow filled with cobblestones slipped by.
What a beautiful piece of writing; it's almost magical in the way it conjures up not only images, but sounds and smells as well.
Here is the story of almost three decades in the life of Martin Dressler, a young go-getter who starts with nothing and works hard to build a fortune. (The kind of man Donald Trump likes to think he is . . .) From humble beginnings in his father's cigar shop, Martin comes to own a luncheonette which he manages to turn into a chain of successful eateries. This leads to hotels, ever larger, ever grander and more fanciful.
At first, the character of Martin seemed too good, too sickeningly perfect, but he is soon revealed as having a fondness for visiting whores, though technically, this is patronizing a "business," so it may have been acceptable. He then makes the rookie mistake of marrying a lovely, though oddly listless woman instead of her less attractive sister who is so obviously his soulmate. Another flaw is that he seems to never be satisfied - everything must be newer, bigger and better. When it comes to the business world, I suppose dissatisfaction can be a driving factor, but it leads to a rather unhappy life for Martin.
The first three quarters of the book are utterly, utterly charming. Then things start to get a bit weird with the sisters. The hotels grow more fantastical and the whole book becomes divorced from reality, though it is here that Millhauser's creation realizes the ephemeral nature of his own creations:
That was the way of things in New York: they were there one day and gone the next. Even as his new building rose story by story it was already vanishing, the trajectory of the wrecker's ball had been set in motion as the blade of the first bulldozer bit into the earth. And as Martin turned the corner he seemed to hear, in the warm air, a sound of crumbling masonry, he seemed to see, in the summer light, a faint dust of old buildings sitting down.
All in all, the book remains a love letter to old New York and a paean to the entrepreneurial spirit.
Though it's not an action-packed page-turner, I was completely absorbed by this book.
Just read the author's description of New York City circa 1894:
. . . Martin lead the Vernon women down clattering station stairways to look at details: strips of sun and shadow rippling across a cabhorse's back under a curving El track, old steel rails glinting in the cobblestones. He bought them bags of hot peanuts from a peanut wagon with a steam whistle. He showed them Mott Street pushcarts heaped with goats' cheese and green olives and sweet fennel, took them along East River docks bowspirits and jib booms reached halfway across the street. He walked them through an open market down by Pier 19, where horses in blankets stood hitched to wagons loaded with baskets of cabbages and turnips. 'Look at that!' he cried, pointing to an old-clothes seller wearing a swaying stack of twelve hats, a gigantic pair of wooden scissors over a cutter's shop. Down a narrow sidestreet in a bright crack between warehouses, an East River scow filled with cobblestones slipped by.
What a beautiful piece of writing; it's almost magical in the way it conjures up not only images, but sounds and smells as well.
Here is the story of almost three decades in the life of Martin Dressler, a young go-getter who starts with nothing and works hard to build a fortune. (The kind of man Donald Trump likes to think he is . . .) From humble beginnings in his father's cigar shop, Martin comes to own a luncheonette which he manages to turn into a chain of successful eateries. This leads to hotels, ever larger, ever grander and more fanciful.
At first, the character of Martin seemed too good, too sickeningly perfect, but he is soon revealed as having a fondness for visiting whores, though technically, this is patronizing a "business," so it may have been acceptable. He then makes the rookie mistake of marrying a lovely, though oddly listless woman instead of her less attractive sister who is so obviously his soulmate. Another flaw is that he seems to never be satisfied - everything must be newer, bigger and better. When it comes to the business world, I suppose dissatisfaction can be a driving factor, but it leads to a rather unhappy life for Martin.
The first three quarters of the book are utterly, utterly charming. Then things start to get a bit weird with the sisters. The hotels grow more fantastical and the whole book becomes divorced from reality, though it is here that Millhauser's creation realizes the ephemeral nature of his own creations:
That was the way of things in New York: they were there one day and gone the next. Even as his new building rose story by story it was already vanishing, the trajectory of the wrecker's ball had been set in motion as the blade of the first bulldozer bit into the earth. And as Martin turned the corner he seemed to hear, in the warm air, a sound of crumbling masonry, he seemed to see, in the summer light, a faint dust of old buildings sitting down.
All in all, the book remains a love letter to old New York and a paean to the entrepreneurial spirit.
May 25, 2009
The first time I picked this up I devoured it, like the meal you begin eating simply because it is placed before you, but which tastes so good you cannot stop until you have finished it. When I put the book down I had to spend several minutes trying to figure out where I was. As it turns out, I happened to be in a hotel room in Berlin, listening to the light-rail rattle by outside. I felt tired and confused and I wasn't sure what to do next.
Other reviewers have tried to make the case that this book is bad – or, not as good as it "could be," – because it meanders, because it is too emotional or because it is too matter-of-fact, or because it has too light a touch, or it's too focused on the hotels or too focused on relationships with women, grounded in too much materialism or skewed too heavily towards the fantastical, etc... All of these comments seem to me to miss the point. They approach the point, and all form a circle around it, but cannot quite find the center.
Steven Millhauser's primary concern is not what his character's dream is and is not. For the record, Martin Dressler's dream is not the money which he makes easily, it is not the adventuresome society of burgeoning laissez-faire capitalism he is born into, and it is not love or sex, though all these forces are present and serve to complicate matters. Believe it or not, his dream is not even a perfect hotel.
All dreamers, all artists, all creators wish simply to build a world: a microcosm which actively encompasses and contains their singular vision of the macrocosm in which they find themselves. Thus, like any great novel or painting or piece of music, the Grand Cosmo – Dressler's last attempt at creation - seeks to hold inside of it an entire city, perhaps an entire world by extension. However, as I said, it is not the Grand Cosmo which is important to Millhauser, but rather what the Grand Cosmo does to its creator. Millhauser's goal is to reproduce what it feels like to have a dream, an overwhelming dream, and to have one's dreams slip into one's daily life and vice versa. Millhauser wants us to see through the eyes of a dreamer.
Therein lies the frustration for the average reader: In the form of fascinating subplots, themes, and characters, they see Millhauser stumble seemingly at random upon perfect jewels. He picks them up, lets us stare for a moment through their beauty, and then returns them to the ground and moves on. We want him to collect them, to follow the trail to its conclusion, but he will not. He skims the surface of many topics our imagination might like him to dive into, but again and again he refuses. That is because to a dreamer, when contrasted with a dream, these things are ultimately trivial and unimportant.
Millhauser is showing us that in the mind of the dreamer and in the fantasy world Dressler has created for himself, the concerns of the material world fade to white noise. A previous reviewer calls Martin Dressler "out of touch," and though I find the term somewhat pejorative I think it is accurate. But let us not confuse our characters with our authors. Millhauser is much too talented to simply abandon or gloss over that which could have made his story better. No, each detail presented to us by and through the macrocosm (otherwise known as the "real world") is merely a study in contrast, a grey version of the fully-colored thing as it exists in Dressler's fantasies, a landmark showing him and us the way to our eventual goal, which is the Ideal. Yes, Martin Dressler is out of touch with the world around him; but he is very much in touch with the world of dreams, and this comes through the text, beautiful and subtly.
Other reviewers have tried to make the case that this book is bad – or, not as good as it "could be," – because it meanders, because it is too emotional or because it is too matter-of-fact, or because it has too light a touch, or it's too focused on the hotels or too focused on relationships with women, grounded in too much materialism or skewed too heavily towards the fantastical, etc... All of these comments seem to me to miss the point. They approach the point, and all form a circle around it, but cannot quite find the center.
Steven Millhauser's primary concern is not what his character's dream is and is not. For the record, Martin Dressler's dream is not the money which he makes easily, it is not the adventuresome society of burgeoning laissez-faire capitalism he is born into, and it is not love or sex, though all these forces are present and serve to complicate matters. Believe it or not, his dream is not even a perfect hotel.
All dreamers, all artists, all creators wish simply to build a world: a microcosm which actively encompasses and contains their singular vision of the macrocosm in which they find themselves. Thus, like any great novel or painting or piece of music, the Grand Cosmo – Dressler's last attempt at creation - seeks to hold inside of it an entire city, perhaps an entire world by extension. However, as I said, it is not the Grand Cosmo which is important to Millhauser, but rather what the Grand Cosmo does to its creator. Millhauser's goal is to reproduce what it feels like to have a dream, an overwhelming dream, and to have one's dreams slip into one's daily life and vice versa. Millhauser wants us to see through the eyes of a dreamer.
Therein lies the frustration for the average reader: In the form of fascinating subplots, themes, and characters, they see Millhauser stumble seemingly at random upon perfect jewels. He picks them up, lets us stare for a moment through their beauty, and then returns them to the ground and moves on. We want him to collect them, to follow the trail to its conclusion, but he will not. He skims the surface of many topics our imagination might like him to dive into, but again and again he refuses. That is because to a dreamer, when contrasted with a dream, these things are ultimately trivial and unimportant.
Millhauser is showing us that in the mind of the dreamer and in the fantasy world Dressler has created for himself, the concerns of the material world fade to white noise. A previous reviewer calls Martin Dressler "out of touch," and though I find the term somewhat pejorative I think it is accurate. But let us not confuse our characters with our authors. Millhauser is much too talented to simply abandon or gloss over that which could have made his story better. No, each detail presented to us by and through the macrocosm (otherwise known as the "real world") is merely a study in contrast, a grey version of the fully-colored thing as it exists in Dressler's fantasies, a landmark showing him and us the way to our eventual goal, which is the Ideal. Yes, Martin Dressler is out of touch with the world around him; but he is very much in touch with the world of dreams, and this comes through the text, beautiful and subtly.
October 23, 2025
When I first moved to New York in 1986 Times Square was a bit of a seething pit filled with adult movie theaters, sex shops, Off-Track Betting counters, seedy bars, and restaurants offering $5 steak dinners. I sort of loved it. Set among the filth were a few very cool bars and elegant little restaurants that had seen it all for years. A few years later, Disney came in and cleaned it up, painting over the graffiti with Disney princess blue and replacing billboards with electronic signage and establishments like the M&M Store. I hate Times Square now, my body seizes up when I have to scamper across Broadway to reach a theater or get to Hell's Kitchen. It is safer, it is cleaner, but it lacks humanity and has replaced the magic of discovery with the assault of bombast and the surprise of unique (if sometimes repellent) visuals with the limitless embrace of iconography. I thought about that a lot as I read this fairy tale, written at the end of the 20th century and set at the end of the 19th.
Our hero, a Horatio Alger type, grows from the dutiful son of a cigar store owner to a mogul, immersed in an endless urge to create new worlds, eventually separating himself from the majesty of his city to an invented wonderland that extends far into the sky and almost as far down into the island's bedrock. A number of women ride alongside Martin on the journey, and his relationships mirror his professional life, valuing the illusion over the substance at every turn.
The writing is pure magic. There is lots of humor and plenty of pathos. I am glad that I opted for the audiobook, though I am sure this is marvelous in print, since George Guidall infuses Martin with life and spirit. I swear I don't know how I am going to limit my Fiction Best of list to 10 this year when books this good keep jumping in front of me and assaulting me with their excellence.
Our hero, a Horatio Alger type, grows from the dutiful son of a cigar store owner to a mogul, immersed in an endless urge to create new worlds, eventually separating himself from the majesty of his city to an invented wonderland that extends far into the sky and almost as far down into the island's bedrock. A number of women ride alongside Martin on the journey, and his relationships mirror his professional life, valuing the illusion over the substance at every turn.
The writing is pure magic. There is lots of humor and plenty of pathos. I am glad that I opted for the audiobook, though I am sure this is marvelous in print, since George Guidall infuses Martin with life and spirit. I swear I don't know how I am going to limit my Fiction Best of list to 10 this year when books this good keep jumping in front of me and assaulting me with their excellence.
December 19, 2019
Martin Dressler is the central protagonist of this novel. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1997. We follow him for approximately the first three decades of his life. He is born in 1872 and lives in New York City. His father owned a shop selling cigars. Would he follow in his father’s footsteps? No, he would not. He had dreams, much bigger dreams.
So, this is about life in New York City a decade or two before and at the turn 19th century. It is chock full of period detail. The city was in a state of rapid expansion and transformation. Optimism filled the air; prospects were there for the taking. The world was in flux. Much was changing from the old to the new. Alongside stone arches and hand carved wood were steel, dynamos and electric inventions. The latest and the most up-to-date pulled in one direction. Nostalgia and a longing for the old, the tried, trusted and true, in the other. The energy of the time vibrates in the book’s wonderful depiction of the era.
Think Theodore Dreiser. At times one thinks you are reading a story of his, except beside the practical and the real, lie the allure and the magic of dreams. If you have dreams, and if you are willing to put in hard work to achieve them, anything is possible.
Martin Dressler is determined. He is intelligent and a hard worker. He works himself up from being a bellhop in a hotel to owning three hotels himself, each one better and more fantastic than the last.
Martin Dressler is ambitious, but he is not after money or glory or fame. It is the fulfillment of his dreams that spurs him on. The first dream and then the next and the next. This book puts you in the head of a dreamer, a dreamer willing to work and fight for what he wants. This book allows us to see the world through the eyes of a dreamer. In Millhauser’s hands the dreams are vivid; they sparkle with fantasy and imagination. Martin’s dreams became dreams I could see.
How will this all end? In success or failure? It depends on how you look at it. He is !
Along the way we watch how Martin relates to women. How do those, such as Martin, focused on and devoted to the attainment of a goal, treat others? What is drawn is realistic, although not necessarily uplifting. Martin is no knight in shining armor. He is married to one woman but attracted to her sister. One is vivacious and a go-getter as he is. The other is “empty within”, a woman simply “waiting to be filled”. On the other hand, she is pretty. Do we all choose the right person to marry? Why should he? Must a book’s central protagonist be perfect? The interactions between the three are interesting.
George Guidall narrates the audiobook very well. He never gets between the listener and the author’s words. He reads at a good tempo and is easy to follow. I have given the narration four stars.
So, this is about life in New York City a decade or two before and at the turn 19th century. It is chock full of period detail. The city was in a state of rapid expansion and transformation. Optimism filled the air; prospects were there for the taking. The world was in flux. Much was changing from the old to the new. Alongside stone arches and hand carved wood were steel, dynamos and electric inventions. The latest and the most up-to-date pulled in one direction. Nostalgia and a longing for the old, the tried, trusted and true, in the other. The energy of the time vibrates in the book’s wonderful depiction of the era.
Think Theodore Dreiser. At times one thinks you are reading a story of his, except beside the practical and the real, lie the allure and the magic of dreams. If you have dreams, and if you are willing to put in hard work to achieve them, anything is possible.
Martin Dressler is determined. He is intelligent and a hard worker. He works himself up from being a bellhop in a hotel to owning three hotels himself, each one better and more fantastic than the last.
Martin Dressler is ambitious, but he is not after money or glory or fame. It is the fulfillment of his dreams that spurs him on. The first dream and then the next and the next. This book puts you in the head of a dreamer, a dreamer willing to work and fight for what he wants. This book allows us to see the world through the eyes of a dreamer. In Millhauser’s hands the dreams are vivid; they sparkle with fantasy and imagination. Martin’s dreams became dreams I could see.
How will this all end? In success or failure? It depends on how you look at it. He is !
Along the way we watch how Martin relates to women. How do those, such as Martin, focused on and devoted to the attainment of a goal, treat others? What is drawn is realistic, although not necessarily uplifting. Martin is no knight in shining armor. He is married to one woman but attracted to her sister. One is vivacious and a go-getter as he is. The other is “empty within”, a woman simply “waiting to be filled”. On the other hand, she is pretty. Do we all choose the right person to marry? Why should he? Must a book’s central protagonist be perfect? The interactions between the three are interesting.
George Guidall narrates the audiobook very well. He never gets between the listener and the author’s words. He reads at a good tempo and is easy to follow. I have given the narration four stars.
March 25, 2011
It's about work, and fairly unglamorous work at that, hotel construction and management. How dull is that? I'd say a reading of over 90 on the dullometer. But then the hotels which the hero builds get ever more elaborate and weirder and the book shimmies into magical realism which is a thing where you write about something blatantly impossible as if it's just boring and everyday and complete zoos on the 54th floor and an Arabian desert on the 70th floor is something an ambitious hotel entrepreneur would be able to pull off in the 1920s if he had flair. So Steven Millhauser writes these really lovely sentences and this is just a simply swoozy cup of literary tea but on balance, weighing it all up, and debating it with several of my friends, i think my time would have been better spent if I'd played Woolly Bully by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs twelve times consecutively very loudly with the windows down.
December 20, 2025
An American Dreamer
Steven Millhauser’s 1996 novel, “Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer" is a fable about the allure and limitations of the American dream. Set in a rapidly-developing New York City at the beginning of the Twentieth Century and recounted in an oracular style by an omniscient narrative voice, the book tells the story of "a man named Martin Dressler, a shopkeeper's son, who rose from modest beginnings to a height of dreamlike good fortune." As the story develops Martin "dreamed his dream" and was at length "lucky enough to do what few people even dare to imagine: he satisfied his heart's desire." But, as might be expected, the connivance of the gods "brings everything to ruin at the end."
Martin is in part a Horatio Alger figure. He works to pull himself up by his bootstraps, to seize the main chance, and to make his own way. Martin is also a loner and a dreamer. He spends hours lost in his own thoughts and images. From his youth, Martin walks the streets of a developing New York looking at the Brooklyn Bridge, the harbor, Central Park, the undeveloped areas on the City’s West Side, and the still uncompleted elevated railway and subway. Martin tries to envision what could be rather than merely see what is before his eyes. Millhauser’s book explores the tensions between Martin’s businessman’s realism and his idealistic dreaming.
As a young boy, Martin helps his immigrant father, Otto, in the small family cigar and tobacco shop on Broadway. Even as a boy, Martin is full of suggestions for expanding the store’s trade. Otto reluctantly accepts his son’s small suggestions while continuing to manage the store in the accustomed manner. This is not to be Martin’s way.
Young Martin soon works his way into a job as a bellhop at the Vanderlyn, an old,ornate hotel down the street from the cigar store. Martin is punctilious in serving the needs of the hotel’s guests. In the rooms and corridors of the Vanderlyn, Martin gets his first visions of an artistic life, in figures of a shadowy troupe of actors and his first hint of sexuality from a hotel guest, a frustrated, middle-aged woman.
Martin opportunistically secures the lease for and revitalizes the run-down cigar stand in the Vanderlyn’s lobby. He rises within the Vanderlyn management to become second in command, but he is dissatisfied with his prospects. He develops a chain of urban restaurants called the “Metropolitan” which achieve large commercial success. Still dissatisfied, Martin sells his restaurants to purchase and refurbish the staid old Vanderlyn Hotel, which under its previous owners had not adopted to modern conditions.
With an all-consuming but unfocused ambition, Martin then builds and operates three additional hotels, the Dressler, the New Dressler, and the Grand Cosmos which are progressively larger and ever more unrealistically outlandish. Millhauser describes the hotels in long passages of descriptive intentionally unbelievable prose. The first two of Martin’s hotels succeed while the final hubris-filled Grand Cosmos, an extraordinary world within a world, brings Martin down.
Martin’s business ventures, with their mixture of realism and dream, and lack of fixed purpose, are mirrored in his relationships with women. As a bellhop at the Vanderlyn, the occasional hotel guest offers him the possibility of sexual adventure. Martin moves on to brothels and to hotel maids before becoming friendly with a mysterious family of three obscure women: Margaret Vernon, a widow, and her two daughters, the beautiful but ghostlike and recessive Caroline and her plain but energetic and insightful younger sister Emmeline. Martin is attracted to and marries Caroline but, with his bride’s frigidity and ignorance, spends his wedding night with a maid at the hotel. Emmeline, with barely concealed anger, becomes his business confidant. The sisters become jealous and virtually interchangeable. Martin loses them both.
Martin dreams and strives, but he does not know himself or what he wants. Before Martin’s marriage to Caroline, Emmeline confronts him with his lack of direction in the middle of apparent success. “But what do you want, Martin? What is it you actually want?” she asks. When Martin evasively replies, “Oh everything.” Emmaline presses her question: “But I don’t think you do, not in the usual way. In a way you don’t want anything. You don’t care if you’re rich. Suppose you were rich, really rich. What would you do then?” Only after the double failure of the Grand Cosmos and of his marriage to Caroline does Martin admit to himself that he had "dreamed the wrong dream" in his unexamined pursuit of the world-substituting hotel complex and in his lack of attention to his own desires, both in his life work and in his need for love.
Millhauser’s novel compares the limitations of the American dream, with its emphasis on materialism, endless economic growth, and ceaseless, thoughtless activity, with the dream’s still unrealized potential. With his quest to realize his dream and the products of his imagination, unformed as they may be, Martin Dressler is the true American artist. At one point, as Martin walks the city streets alone, he has one of his many imaginative visions: “Martin imagined a city with trains in the air and trains under the ground, a fierce and magical city of moving iron, while along the trembling avenues there rose, in the clashing air, higher and higher, still buildings.” Later, after making a success of one of his smaller hotels, Martin has an epiphany leading to his disastrous final venture in which he sees that "deep under the earth, in darkness impenetrable, an immense dynamo was humming." The vision of the dynamo, and the contrast between a simple past and a complex, industrialized future which pervades this book, owes a great deal to Henry Adams’ similar dichotomy of modern life between the traditional and the new in his chapter the "Virgin and the Dynamo" from “The Education of Henry Adams.”
Millhauser’s writing is precise and evocatively surrealistic at the same time. Millhauser evokes as do few other writings the sights, sounds, and character of New York City at the turn of the 20th Century. He portrays the city looking back from the standpoint of the late 20th Century, with its size, eclecticism, impersonality and, all too often, individual loneliness. The writing also has a dreamlike quality as the various characters in the story, especially Caroline and Emmeline whose names themselves invite confusion, seem to meld into and become interchangeable with one another. Martin's tale moves between hard headed commercialism and realism and the flights of fancy and outrageous impossibility.
“Martin Dressler” offers a thoughtful, troubled look at the United States and at its dreamers. The book holds out an important potential of American life in the form of self-knowledge and growth of understanding combined with the ability to articulate and to pursue a dream. Wisdom comes to Martin at the end, financially ruined and alone sitting in a park on an early Spring day, even though it comes late. In its exploration of American life and self-knowledge, “Martin Dressler”" offers a philosophical portrayal of what the American dream may become. The book is rare in the manner that seriousness and whimsy are combined. As a meditation on American life, “Martin Dressler" received the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and made what is likely to be a lasting contribution to American literature.
Robin Friedman
Steven Millhauser’s 1996 novel, “Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer" is a fable about the allure and limitations of the American dream. Set in a rapidly-developing New York City at the beginning of the Twentieth Century and recounted in an oracular style by an omniscient narrative voice, the book tells the story of "a man named Martin Dressler, a shopkeeper's son, who rose from modest beginnings to a height of dreamlike good fortune." As the story develops Martin "dreamed his dream" and was at length "lucky enough to do what few people even dare to imagine: he satisfied his heart's desire." But, as might be expected, the connivance of the gods "brings everything to ruin at the end."
Martin is in part a Horatio Alger figure. He works to pull himself up by his bootstraps, to seize the main chance, and to make his own way. Martin is also a loner and a dreamer. He spends hours lost in his own thoughts and images. From his youth, Martin walks the streets of a developing New York looking at the Brooklyn Bridge, the harbor, Central Park, the undeveloped areas on the City’s West Side, and the still uncompleted elevated railway and subway. Martin tries to envision what could be rather than merely see what is before his eyes. Millhauser’s book explores the tensions between Martin’s businessman’s realism and his idealistic dreaming.
As a young boy, Martin helps his immigrant father, Otto, in the small family cigar and tobacco shop on Broadway. Even as a boy, Martin is full of suggestions for expanding the store’s trade. Otto reluctantly accepts his son’s small suggestions while continuing to manage the store in the accustomed manner. This is not to be Martin’s way.
Young Martin soon works his way into a job as a bellhop at the Vanderlyn, an old,ornate hotel down the street from the cigar store. Martin is punctilious in serving the needs of the hotel’s guests. In the rooms and corridors of the Vanderlyn, Martin gets his first visions of an artistic life, in figures of a shadowy troupe of actors and his first hint of sexuality from a hotel guest, a frustrated, middle-aged woman.
Martin opportunistically secures the lease for and revitalizes the run-down cigar stand in the Vanderlyn’s lobby. He rises within the Vanderlyn management to become second in command, but he is dissatisfied with his prospects. He develops a chain of urban restaurants called the “Metropolitan” which achieve large commercial success. Still dissatisfied, Martin sells his restaurants to purchase and refurbish the staid old Vanderlyn Hotel, which under its previous owners had not adopted to modern conditions.
With an all-consuming but unfocused ambition, Martin then builds and operates three additional hotels, the Dressler, the New Dressler, and the Grand Cosmos which are progressively larger and ever more unrealistically outlandish. Millhauser describes the hotels in long passages of descriptive intentionally unbelievable prose. The first two of Martin’s hotels succeed while the final hubris-filled Grand Cosmos, an extraordinary world within a world, brings Martin down.
Martin’s business ventures, with their mixture of realism and dream, and lack of fixed purpose, are mirrored in his relationships with women. As a bellhop at the Vanderlyn, the occasional hotel guest offers him the possibility of sexual adventure. Martin moves on to brothels and to hotel maids before becoming friendly with a mysterious family of three obscure women: Margaret Vernon, a widow, and her two daughters, the beautiful but ghostlike and recessive Caroline and her plain but energetic and insightful younger sister Emmeline. Martin is attracted to and marries Caroline but, with his bride’s frigidity and ignorance, spends his wedding night with a maid at the hotel. Emmeline, with barely concealed anger, becomes his business confidant. The sisters become jealous and virtually interchangeable. Martin loses them both.
Martin dreams and strives, but he does not know himself or what he wants. Before Martin’s marriage to Caroline, Emmeline confronts him with his lack of direction in the middle of apparent success. “But what do you want, Martin? What is it you actually want?” she asks. When Martin evasively replies, “Oh everything.” Emmaline presses her question: “But I don’t think you do, not in the usual way. In a way you don’t want anything. You don’t care if you’re rich. Suppose you were rich, really rich. What would you do then?” Only after the double failure of the Grand Cosmos and of his marriage to Caroline does Martin admit to himself that he had "dreamed the wrong dream" in his unexamined pursuit of the world-substituting hotel complex and in his lack of attention to his own desires, both in his life work and in his need for love.
Millhauser’s novel compares the limitations of the American dream, with its emphasis on materialism, endless economic growth, and ceaseless, thoughtless activity, with the dream’s still unrealized potential. With his quest to realize his dream and the products of his imagination, unformed as they may be, Martin Dressler is the true American artist. At one point, as Martin walks the city streets alone, he has one of his many imaginative visions: “Martin imagined a city with trains in the air and trains under the ground, a fierce and magical city of moving iron, while along the trembling avenues there rose, in the clashing air, higher and higher, still buildings.” Later, after making a success of one of his smaller hotels, Martin has an epiphany leading to his disastrous final venture in which he sees that "deep under the earth, in darkness impenetrable, an immense dynamo was humming." The vision of the dynamo, and the contrast between a simple past and a complex, industrialized future which pervades this book, owes a great deal to Henry Adams’ similar dichotomy of modern life between the traditional and the new in his chapter the "Virgin and the Dynamo" from “The Education of Henry Adams.”
Millhauser’s writing is precise and evocatively surrealistic at the same time. Millhauser evokes as do few other writings the sights, sounds, and character of New York City at the turn of the 20th Century. He portrays the city looking back from the standpoint of the late 20th Century, with its size, eclecticism, impersonality and, all too often, individual loneliness. The writing also has a dreamlike quality as the various characters in the story, especially Caroline and Emmeline whose names themselves invite confusion, seem to meld into and become interchangeable with one another. Martin's tale moves between hard headed commercialism and realism and the flights of fancy and outrageous impossibility.
“Martin Dressler” offers a thoughtful, troubled look at the United States and at its dreamers. The book holds out an important potential of American life in the form of self-knowledge and growth of understanding combined with the ability to articulate and to pursue a dream. Wisdom comes to Martin at the end, financially ruined and alone sitting in a park on an early Spring day, even though it comes late. In its exploration of American life and self-knowledge, “Martin Dressler”" offers a philosophical portrayal of what the American dream may become. The book is rare in the manner that seriousness and whimsy are combined. As a meditation on American life, “Martin Dressler" received the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and made what is likely to be a lasting contribution to American literature.
Robin Friedman
August 23, 2020
2.5 stars
This is one strange book about the perils of the American Dream. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1997. Perhaps it’s a masterpiece but it is not one that I could appreciate. It started out well enough with descriptions of old NYC but in evolved into the endless descriptions of buildings, constructions plans and lists that became boring and repetitive. When the novel veered into fantasy and magical realism he lost me completely as a willing reader. The very strange relationships Martin has with women is on par with the rest of the book, meaning strange and nonsensical. I wanted to knock some sense into him.
A cautionary tale or fable, Martin Dressler is Steven Millhauser’s form of the egomaniacal dream chaser with more money than sense. The more money and success the more nonsensical and outlandish his dreams become and he doesn’t know how or when to stop. Martin, a shopkeeper's son, rises from modest beginnings to a height of dreamlike good fortune which evolves into a nightmare.
The novel starts out well enough. The setting is late-19th-century New York City on the Upper West Side. Martin begins as a helper in his father's Broadway cigar store, does a clever kindness for a customer and as a result becomes a bellboy at a nearby hotel. He is diligent and attentive to customers and he rises to day clerk, then becomes the manager's private secretary. His aptitude is for serving customers, meeting their every need and enjoying doing so. Martin is good at satisfying the difficult clients and enjoys doing so. But as he becomes more and more successful his view of satisfying customers changes to imagining the desires of customers before they even know they have these desires. This is the world of advertising to which he is introduced and which mesmerizes and enchants him and which meshes so well with Martin’s ambitions. But Martin’s ambitions never stop. No matter how well he does he cannot stop dreaming of further successes. He wonders to himself:
'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.''
And he does just that. He eventually acquires the hotel he originally worked for and he builds a whole world of his own. The world he builds is a hotel that is not a hotel, The Grand Cosmo, that incorporates elements of a theme park, Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, under-city waterfalls and Hindu temples, caves, castles, forests, clairvoyants, nickelodeon parlors, fortunetellers, photography studios, waxworks, conjurers, dragons and vampires. Remember, this is on the Upper West Side of NYC!
His hotel had so few patrons that Martin arranged for actors to play the part of hotel customers so that the hotel would look busy. Somewhere along the way he lost sight completely of what people wanted as he became more and caught up in his own dream and ambitions.
This is one strange book about the perils of the American Dream. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1997. Perhaps it’s a masterpiece but it is not one that I could appreciate. It started out well enough with descriptions of old NYC but in evolved into the endless descriptions of buildings, constructions plans and lists that became boring and repetitive. When the novel veered into fantasy and magical realism he lost me completely as a willing reader. The very strange relationships Martin has with women is on par with the rest of the book, meaning strange and nonsensical. I wanted to knock some sense into him.
A cautionary tale or fable, Martin Dressler is Steven Millhauser’s form of the egomaniacal dream chaser with more money than sense. The more money and success the more nonsensical and outlandish his dreams become and he doesn’t know how or when to stop. Martin, a shopkeeper's son, rises from modest beginnings to a height of dreamlike good fortune which evolves into a nightmare.
The novel starts out well enough. The setting is late-19th-century New York City on the Upper West Side. Martin begins as a helper in his father's Broadway cigar store, does a clever kindness for a customer and as a result becomes a bellboy at a nearby hotel. He is diligent and attentive to customers and he rises to day clerk, then becomes the manager's private secretary. His aptitude is for serving customers, meeting their every need and enjoying doing so. Martin is good at satisfying the difficult clients and enjoys doing so. But as he becomes more and more successful his view of satisfying customers changes to imagining the desires of customers before they even know they have these desires. This is the world of advertising to which he is introduced and which mesmerizes and enchants him and which meshes so well with Martin’s ambitions. But Martin’s ambitions never stop. No matter how well he does he cannot stop dreaming of further successes. He wonders to himself:
'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.''
And he does just that. He eventually acquires the hotel he originally worked for and he builds a whole world of his own. The world he builds is a hotel that is not a hotel, The Grand Cosmo, that incorporates elements of a theme park, Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, under-city waterfalls and Hindu temples, caves, castles, forests, clairvoyants, nickelodeon parlors, fortunetellers, photography studios, waxworks, conjurers, dragons and vampires. Remember, this is on the Upper West Side of NYC!
His hotel had so few patrons that Martin arranged for actors to play the part of hotel customers so that the hotel would look busy. Somewhere along the way he lost sight completely of what people wanted as he became more and caught up in his own dream and ambitions.
August 27, 2016
Como ya dije en su momento en la reseña de 'Risas peligrosas', Millhauser es un escritor esquivo, que huye tanto del éxito como del fracaso. Con 'Martin Dressler. Historia de un soñador americano' obtuvo el Premio Pulitzer en 1997, algo que parece no haber influido en la vida de Millhauser, que ya veía reconocida su obra por la crítica especializada. Con todo lo que se publica en este país, es una pena que escritores de su talla, y en concreto de novelas como 'Martin Dressler', pasen de puntillas por las librerías. Y es que Millhauser en un escritor que sabe narrar.
La historia transcurre en Nueva York, a finales del siglo XIX, en plena expansión de esta gran ciudad, cuando los edificios empezaban a querer rozar las nubes. Una ciudad en la que tenían cabida todo tipo de individuos, desde charlatanes, hasta genios y visionarios de un futuro que estaba al alcance de sus manos. Un mundo donde los soñadores tenían material sobre el que poder trabajar. Es el Sueño Americano, y Martin Dressler es un soñador. Martin, hijo de un humilde tabaquero, tiene la cabeza llena de sueños a los que dar rienda suelta. Siendo tan solo un niño, su mente desborda de ideas imaginativas. Desde su puesto en la tabaquería de sus padres, Martin irá ascendiendo, en una espiral de ambición pero también de obsesión por alcanzar un ideal. Millhauser nos va contando este ascenso en un argumento lineal, por lo que es mejor contar lo menos posible para no desbaratar su lectura.
La creación del mundo que Martin tiene en la cabeza resulta fascinante, mezcla de un 'Ciudadano Kane' o un 'Metrópolis' visto por Tim Burton, en los que tiene lugar el particular imaginario de Millhauser, con sus arquitecturas imposibles, sus miniaturas y su imaginación desbordante. Y es que Millhauser nos propone un cuento, una fábula en la que un sueño puede ser un fin en sí mismo, y en donde la redención y la paz pueden residir más en el fracaso que en el éxito. Un cuento, en fin, compuesto por dos tramas, una la del soñador irredento en busca del ideal, y otra en la que tienen lugar tres mujeres, una madre y sus dos hijas, una bella, etérea y melancólica, y la otra fea, enérgica y vivaz, dando lugar a una cierta duplicidad.
'Martin Dressler' es una historia magnífica, que nos habla del afán de superación y de los bellos sueños del protagonista, sin importar la cruel realidad.
La historia transcurre en Nueva York, a finales del siglo XIX, en plena expansión de esta gran ciudad, cuando los edificios empezaban a querer rozar las nubes. Una ciudad en la que tenían cabida todo tipo de individuos, desde charlatanes, hasta genios y visionarios de un futuro que estaba al alcance de sus manos. Un mundo donde los soñadores tenían material sobre el que poder trabajar. Es el Sueño Americano, y Martin Dressler es un soñador. Martin, hijo de un humilde tabaquero, tiene la cabeza llena de sueños a los que dar rienda suelta. Siendo tan solo un niño, su mente desborda de ideas imaginativas. Desde su puesto en la tabaquería de sus padres, Martin irá ascendiendo, en una espiral de ambición pero también de obsesión por alcanzar un ideal. Millhauser nos va contando este ascenso en un argumento lineal, por lo que es mejor contar lo menos posible para no desbaratar su lectura.
La creación del mundo que Martin tiene en la cabeza resulta fascinante, mezcla de un 'Ciudadano Kane' o un 'Metrópolis' visto por Tim Burton, en los que tiene lugar el particular imaginario de Millhauser, con sus arquitecturas imposibles, sus miniaturas y su imaginación desbordante. Y es que Millhauser nos propone un cuento, una fábula en la que un sueño puede ser un fin en sí mismo, y en donde la redención y la paz pueden residir más en el fracaso que en el éxito. Un cuento, en fin, compuesto por dos tramas, una la del soñador irredento en busca del ideal, y otra en la que tienen lugar tres mujeres, una madre y sus dos hijas, una bella, etérea y melancólica, y la otra fea, enérgica y vivaz, dando lugar a una cierta duplicidad.
'Martin Dressler' es una historia magnífica, que nos habla del afán de superación y de los bellos sueños del protagonista, sin importar la cruel realidad.
July 28, 2017
I feel fairly certain this won the Pulitzer because it's about New York. I couldn't possibly be for any other reason. It couldn't have been for good writing, which doesn't exist in this, nor for good characterization, which is missing entirely. The worst of it is that the last 70 or so pages turned into description after boring description of the interior of a new hotel. It was absolutely awful.
The time period is approximately the same as in Finney's Time and Again and in Carr's The Alienist. Both of those were published before this one, and, while I didn't especially care for either of them, I think they did a better job with the setting and time period.
Oh well. Crossed one off the Pulitzer list. I can truly hope the earlier Pulitzer's are worthwhile, because it seems, for the most part, the ones of the last 20 or so years are not.
The time period is approximately the same as in Finney's Time and Again and in Carr's The Alienist. Both of those were published before this one, and, while I didn't especially care for either of them, I think they did a better job with the setting and time period.
Oh well. Crossed one off the Pulitzer list. I can truly hope the earlier Pulitzer's are worthwhile, because it seems, for the most part, the ones of the last 20 or so years are not.
December 5, 2023
Though the setting is turn of the 19th century New York, reading Martin Dressler brought to mind a favourite TV series of mine, Mad Men. Though the differences are obvious--more than 60 years separate the settings--many of themes and nostalgic terroir pervade both pieces. As I settled into Millhauser's technically proficient, readable, and evocative prose I found myself quite happy to be dipping my toe into a somewhat forgotten fictional pool.
Indeed, as the book wore on I mentally cast the characters, buildings, and prominent description of interior spaces in sepia tones. In Dressler's late 1800s New York, the world is just starting to turn from the humble apartments and hotels to edifices that attempt to soar into the sky. The setting here is inseparable from the greater themes of Martin's pursuit of the American Dream and its notable shortcomings.
Though the novel works as a character study, Martin's trials and tribulations hewed closer to fable in my mind. The moral in question might be that the American Dream, while nice in theory, can lead to an insatiable hunger and pursuit of the impossible. Certainly as the novel nears its end, Martin's hotels veer sharply into the fantastic in a spectacle of...capitalism? absurdity? It is left to the reader to decide the Grand Cosmo's meaning.
I really enjoyed Martin's relationship with the Vernon sisters and wish the book had spent more time diving into their strange romantic turmoil as Martin continued his societal climb. Certainly, for me, these sections were the most captivating at the start of the book and those that I missed most near it's end. Unfortunately, the end of the book too often feels like walls of text enumerating the knick-knacks and absurd structures of the New Dressler or Grand Cosmo. It deflated the rest of the short book for me and knocked it from a solid 4 stars to 3 or 3.5.
Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer is definitely a stylish and Dickensian Pulitzer Prize winner. I was initially quite enamoured with the novel and was disappointed to see it shift gears so sharply in the last couple chapters. I sometimes get a craving for a New York-set novel and this definitely scratched that itch. I'm looking forward to reading reviews from other Goodreadians to see what you all made of it!
This the ninth book of my 2020 Pulitzer Challenge!
Indeed, as the book wore on I mentally cast the characters, buildings, and prominent description of interior spaces in sepia tones. In Dressler's late 1800s New York, the world is just starting to turn from the humble apartments and hotels to edifices that attempt to soar into the sky. The setting here is inseparable from the greater themes of Martin's pursuit of the American Dream and its notable shortcomings.
Though the novel works as a character study, Martin's trials and tribulations hewed closer to fable in my mind. The moral in question might be that the American Dream, while nice in theory, can lead to an insatiable hunger and pursuit of the impossible. Certainly as the novel nears its end, Martin's hotels veer sharply into the fantastic in a spectacle of...capitalism? absurdity? It is left to the reader to decide the Grand Cosmo's meaning.
I really enjoyed Martin's relationship with the Vernon sisters and wish the book had spent more time diving into their strange romantic turmoil as Martin continued his societal climb. Certainly, for me, these sections were the most captivating at the start of the book and those that I missed most near it's end. Unfortunately, the end of the book too often feels like walls of text enumerating the knick-knacks and absurd structures of the New Dressler or Grand Cosmo. It deflated the rest of the short book for me and knocked it from a solid 4 stars to 3 or 3.5.
Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer is definitely a stylish and Dickensian Pulitzer Prize winner. I was initially quite enamoured with the novel and was disappointed to see it shift gears so sharply in the last couple chapters. I sometimes get a craving for a New York-set novel and this definitely scratched that itch. I'm looking forward to reading reviews from other Goodreadians to see what you all made of it!
This the ninth book of my 2020 Pulitzer Challenge!
June 28, 2020
This is a novel that harks back to the great novels of the early 20th century, those of Theodore Dreiser, Edith Wharton, Sherwood Anderson, etc. It is about a man who is a dreamer, and, up until the end, very adept at realizing those dreams. Martin is the son of the owners of a cigar store in late 19th century New York. The family lives on a modest income and very much part of the NYC middle class. He works at his father's cigar store from an early age. At the age of fourteen, he takes a job as a bellboy at a hotel nearby. Slowly but surely he rises through the ranks, and eventually takes over the failing hotel cigar store.
Eventually, he starts building his own restaurants and hotels, each one surpassing the other in size and splendor. He meets a mother and her two grown daughters and becomes deeply inv0lved with them. One of the daughters, plain but crafty, becomes a business partner. The other, pretty but very withdrawn, becomes his wife. The marriage is one of the strangest ever depicted in a novel, for it is very difficult to see, beyond a physical attraction, how it could succeed on any other level.
The author offers vivid depictions of the development of New York City in the latter part of the 19th and early 20th centuries. And this was also the description of a man who could never be satisfied with what he had. He always needed more, bigger, better, newer, more innovative, needing to impress the masses. There were parts of the book that got just a bit cumbersome--the detailed descriptions of a new hotel/apartment. But the overall sentiment and the exposure of the growth of New York made this novel a very worthy read for me and a worthy winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
Eventually, he starts building his own restaurants and hotels, each one surpassing the other in size and splendor. He meets a mother and her two grown daughters and becomes deeply inv0lved with them. One of the daughters, plain but crafty, becomes a business partner. The other, pretty but very withdrawn, becomes his wife. The marriage is one of the strangest ever depicted in a novel, for it is very difficult to see, beyond a physical attraction, how it could succeed on any other level.
The author offers vivid depictions of the development of New York City in the latter part of the 19th and early 20th centuries. And this was also the description of a man who could never be satisfied with what he had. He always needed more, bigger, better, newer, more innovative, needing to impress the masses. There were parts of the book that got just a bit cumbersome--the detailed descriptions of a new hotel/apartment. But the overall sentiment and the exposure of the growth of New York made this novel a very worthy read for me and a worthy winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
February 14, 2016
So. Steven Millhauser sends your thoughts swirling, and he does it with perfectly transparent intent ----- you are not supposed to dissect a Millhauser piece. You're supposed to dance with it.
It baffles me that this novel won a Pulitzer. Not because it's not deserving -- I think it is -- but because it's so dreamily strange. It's hard, if not impossible, to pin down -- and I don't think trying to do so helps, actually. But, a few particularly salient thoughts that stuck out from the dreamswirl.
1. Nostalgia, exemplified. I wasn't alive in turn-of-the-century New York City, and neither was Millhauser, but somehow I missed it, vibrantly. The descriptions, particularly in the first half, lit up a city fueled by gaslights, not electricity, somewhere deep in the collective unconscious. I am sure this, too, is intentional.
2. The American Dream is a sham -- not because of its difficulty to attain, but because of the parameters of the desire. What next? Martin Dressler keeps wondering, or being asked. What happens when you're rich, what happens when you've achieved what you set out to achieve? Well, you start wanting more. Except you don't start wanting more, you've always wanted more, you just never really knew what you wanted, but you were told you could do it, and you realized you could, so you kept going, until you failed -- because the parameters of the dream mean it can never end unless it is disastrously.
3. Apartment buildings -- hotels, communal living generally -- are such terrifyingly full places. The illusion of privacy permeates because we need it to, but we are all together in these spaces: I am closer in proximity to people I have never met than people I love with all of me. But rip the veil, and everything falls apart.
4. Were there hints of misogyny? I can't really tell. Dressler, as a character, needs to be confused or he can't represent the chaos of the American Dream. So his relation(ship)s with women are necessarily confused, as well -- with men, too, but the female characters present more frustratingly. They weren't flat or uninteresting, per se, or at least not all of them -- but they were tools, in a lot of ways, for Dressler to complete his vision.
5. The book is uneven. There are pages and pages of unnecessary description, and then the last line of a chapter will be so cutting and flawless it may as well be a goddamn diamond. But Millhauser is at his best when he writes fables, I suspect, so the latter half of the book -- when dreams and reality merge confluent -- is most impressive.
6. This may have worked better as a short story, or at least a novella. The pacing was strange -- overly fast at parts, painfully slow at others. But again: this is a dream; this is the story of a dream. And dreams don't make sense; they don't flow at natural speeds or work within our laws of understanding.
So.
We just have to dance, as best we can, within the confines of Millhauser's American Dream.
It baffles me that this novel won a Pulitzer. Not because it's not deserving -- I think it is -- but because it's so dreamily strange. It's hard, if not impossible, to pin down -- and I don't think trying to do so helps, actually. But, a few particularly salient thoughts that stuck out from the dreamswirl.
1. Nostalgia, exemplified. I wasn't alive in turn-of-the-century New York City, and neither was Millhauser, but somehow I missed it, vibrantly. The descriptions, particularly in the first half, lit up a city fueled by gaslights, not electricity, somewhere deep in the collective unconscious. I am sure this, too, is intentional.
2. The American Dream is a sham -- not because of its difficulty to attain, but because of the parameters of the desire. What next? Martin Dressler keeps wondering, or being asked. What happens when you're rich, what happens when you've achieved what you set out to achieve? Well, you start wanting more. Except you don't start wanting more, you've always wanted more, you just never really knew what you wanted, but you were told you could do it, and you realized you could, so you kept going, until you failed -- because the parameters of the dream mean it can never end unless it is disastrously.
3. Apartment buildings -- hotels, communal living generally -- are such terrifyingly full places. The illusion of privacy permeates because we need it to, but we are all together in these spaces: I am closer in proximity to people I have never met than people I love with all of me. But rip the veil, and everything falls apart.
4. Were there hints of misogyny? I can't really tell. Dressler, as a character, needs to be confused or he can't represent the chaos of the American Dream. So his relation(ship)s with women are necessarily confused, as well -- with men, too, but the female characters present more frustratingly. They weren't flat or uninteresting, per se, or at least not all of them -- but they were tools, in a lot of ways, for Dressler to complete his vision.
5. The book is uneven. There are pages and pages of unnecessary description, and then the last line of a chapter will be so cutting and flawless it may as well be a goddamn diamond. But Millhauser is at his best when he writes fables, I suspect, so the latter half of the book -- when dreams and reality merge confluent -- is most impressive.
6. This may have worked better as a short story, or at least a novella. The pacing was strange -- overly fast at parts, painfully slow at others. But again: this is a dream; this is the story of a dream. And dreams don't make sense; they don't flow at natural speeds or work within our laws of understanding.
So.
We just have to dance, as best we can, within the confines of Millhauser's American Dream.
December 12, 2008
I learned a valuable lesson from this book: don't buy anything just because it won the Pulitzer Prize. I saw that little gold sticker on the cover of the paperback edition. The story sounded like an interesting take on the American drive to make things ever bigger and better. Maybe that's what Millhauser meant to do, but he got lost somewhere checking into the Grand Cosmopolitan or Grand Martini or whatever the name of that white elephant hotel was. Endless pages of lists and dull people doing... nothing, I believe. I read it ten years ago, but the dullness is such that it stays with you. If that's your thing, run out and grab a copy. Otherwise, join the crowd and avoid a stay in Dressler's hotel.
September 21, 2012
I once read somewhere that people err not for want of doing what is bad, but for misdirected want of what is good. Martin Dressler starts out as a simple young man with unquestionable intelligence and ambition, and perhaps a little luck. He rises step by step and watches his vision of making a big businessman, an hotel owner, of himself grow broader and broader. And in the process he makes the choice that most of us tend to find themselves making, loving the elusive, the difficult to attain and the mysterious ones when right beside us is the one who brings us closer to reality. But its the frame of human desires, I guess.
In the end Martins success does not satisfy him. In true fashion of dreamers - of the American dream(!) - Martin wants to achieve even more, probably that which seems impossible. And funny enough he does. Not knowing he has gone too far. And the very achievement, blown out of proportion, spells his disaster.
Millhauser's writing is intense, yet very readable and engaging. Towards the end, when he describes the building, and the completed Grand Cosmo, the narrative tends towards something of a dream itself, say a sort of science fiction 'other world' kind of stuff. Good book, worth a second read with a closer attention paid to the language!
In the end Martins success does not satisfy him. In true fashion of dreamers - of the American dream(!) - Martin wants to achieve even more, probably that which seems impossible. And funny enough he does. Not knowing he has gone too far. And the very achievement, blown out of proportion, spells his disaster.
Millhauser's writing is intense, yet very readable and engaging. Towards the end, when he describes the building, and the completed Grand Cosmo, the narrative tends towards something of a dream itself, say a sort of science fiction 'other world' kind of stuff. Good book, worth a second read with a closer attention paid to the language!
June 26, 2021
L'ambizione del sognatore muove la realtà, ma la realtà risponde solo fino a quando quella ambizione è contenibile dentro una logica che cede alla norma.
Tra favola e realtà, Millhauser ci porta nella vita in continua ascesa di Martin Dressler.
Sognatore e visionario ragazzo prodigio, alla conquista dell'America di fine 800, che sacrificherà la sua esistenza per la sua ambizione....
Ho cercato di immaginare questa città tra vent'anni. Mi piace, sono in gamba a fantasticare. Oggi però è successo qualcosa, non ci riuscivo. Restava tutto com'era. E mi sono detto: per la maggior parte delle persone deve essere proprio così. Ogni cosa senza futuro, ferma dov'è.
La metropoli era un malato febbricitante in ospedale in preda a un sonno inquieto che sfociava in sogni di modernità.
Martin abbracciò il proprio errore, si gettò a capofitto nell'idea di fallire come si era gettato in ogni nuova entusiasmante creazione.
E se alla fine si era trovato a sognare il sogno sbagliato, quello nel quale gli altri non avevano voglia di entrare, così funzionava allora con i sogni, c'era da saperlo, e Martin non aveva alcun rimpianto per non aver sognato diversamente.
Tra favola e realtà, Millhauser ci porta nella vita in continua ascesa di Martin Dressler.
Sognatore e visionario ragazzo prodigio, alla conquista dell'America di fine 800, che sacrificherà la sua esistenza per la sua ambizione....
Ho cercato di immaginare questa città tra vent'anni. Mi piace, sono in gamba a fantasticare. Oggi però è successo qualcosa, non ci riuscivo. Restava tutto com'era. E mi sono detto: per la maggior parte delle persone deve essere proprio così. Ogni cosa senza futuro, ferma dov'è.
La metropoli era un malato febbricitante in ospedale in preda a un sonno inquieto che sfociava in sogni di modernità.
Martin abbracciò il proprio errore, si gettò a capofitto nell'idea di fallire come si era gettato in ogni nuova entusiasmante creazione.
E se alla fine si era trovato a sognare il sogno sbagliato, quello nel quale gli altri non avevano voglia di entrare, così funzionava allora con i sogni, c'era da saperlo, e Martin non aveva alcun rimpianto per non aver sognato diversamente.
June 8, 2024
A young and tireless man on the make in late 19th century New York City - this really isn't my thing. Teenage Martin Dressler works in his father's cigar store, then begins to work part time as a hotel bellhop. He has huge ambitions, an affinity for risk, and his bosses like him. He rises quickly, goes into business with a partner operating lunchrooms, all before his mid-twenties. He manages and builds hotels. Then he builds an enormous nutso luxury hotel which is more like an early Disneyland, with strange rooms and displays, rooms filled with activities - a "destination" hotel. Millhauser writes long, list-filled paragraphs cluttered with stuff - almost like literary cabinets of curiosities. All of this bored me.
What was interesting was all of the dreamlike sexuality, sometimes gender-bending. Bellhop Martin is seduced by an older woman in the hotel who has asked him to bring her a pitcher of ice water. "The silk-smoothness of her skin surprised him, and under the skin was bone, lots of bone, skin stretched over bone, and then a sudden warm wet sinking and sinking, and somehow he was standing in his uniform with an empty pitcher in his hand..."
He meets a wealthy woman (Margaret Vernon) and her two daughters in the hotel he manages or owns and begins to spend hours with them in the lobby, and then on walks in Central Park. One daughter, Emmeline, is dark-haired and energetic, the other, Caroline, is blonde and rarely speaks. Emmeline's hair is "thicker and more tangled and lay across her forehead in small tense ringlets, and her dark intelligent eyes looked out from under thick brownish-black eyebrows with small black visible hairs between them. On her cheeks, dusky beside her mother's whiteness, he saw faint traces of dark down." When the silent Caroline has left her chair "he studied the faint impression in the dark red cushion.....And all the while he felt pleasurably penetrated by the gaze, playtul and intense, by the deep inner attention, of Margaret and Emmeline Vernon." Later he will be "penetrated" (figuratively) by Claire, an intense friend of Caroline's.
Martin hires Emmeline in his restaurant and hotel business, and he marries Caroline because he's sexually intrigued by her, but still the wraithlike, somnolent Caroline hardly ever speaks. Their wedding night is a disaster.
Another encounter with a woman in one of his hotels is abruptly arrived at:
"If you have a minute, Mr. Dressler," she said, "I need to discuss something with you. Kindly follow me." ...A sense of marvelous danger hung in the air. Martin, tense with energy, followed her into the bedroom, where she turned with a look of challenge. He was surprised by the length of her forearms, by the matting of blond hairs on her stomach, and by a kind of cool, wary ardor; she kept her combs in her hair and scarcely moved under him, though he noticed a line of dampness by the hair of her temple."
Emmeline will never tempt him, though:
"Look, Em. I want someone in there who knows the business, someone I can trust. You know I can count on you. You're my right-hand man."
"I'm not a man."
"Right-hand woman, then."
He realizes he has married the wrong sister. "But at the thought of marrying the right sister an irritation came over him, for he felt repelled by the thick eyebrows, the broad back, the strong hands with their blunt fingernails. For he had been able to desire only the pretty and delicate sister, the sister with the difficult twist in her, the sister lost in dream, who lay motionless beneath him and turned away in silence. And an anger came over Martin, at the mumbo-jumbo of love, the damage of it."
It's even stranger than that: Caroline and Emmeline "had married each other and shut him out. For really there was no room for him in that dark marriage of sisters, each deep-twisted into each. He imagined Emmeline sitting in his flowered armchair, stepping into a pair of his pajamas, slipping into his side of the bed."
February 2, 2024
[3.5]
Martin è un pensatore solitario e un sognatore. Sogna sempre di più, sempre più in grande.
Ma cosa vuole davvero? Tutto, per sua stessa ammissione.
Ma tutto equivale a niente (e infatti non è interessato ai soldi, non è interessato alla fama...).
Vuole tutto, ma non sa davvero cosa vuole.
La realtà, la concretezza iniziale della storia, viene poi sostituita dai sogni sempre più maestosi di Martin. (Ho visto che diverse persone parlano di realismo magico. Per me non è corretto. È proprio il sogno che entra a far parte della realtà. Forse è un filo sottile, non saprei, ma per me non si tratta di realismo magico).
Martin finisce per sognare il sogno sbagliato. O forse il suo sogno era corretto, e sono le altre persone a non sognare abbastanza in grande? O forse il proprio sogno - il nostro e/o quello di Martin - non equivale al sogno degli altri e quindi non può essere condiviso e supportato? Chissà.
Anche l'amore si intreccia costantemente tra realtà e sogno (al di là delle atmosfere oniriche delle scene tra Martin e Caroline). Quello che voglio dire è che Caroline è il sogno per eccellenza: è intoccabile, perfetta, eterea; la moglie da sogno con cui avere un matrimonio da sogno.
Emmeline invece equivale alla realtà (nonostante sia una sognatrice come Martin): è concreta, imperfetta, terrena; è l'anima gemella di Martin, ma lui è troppo impegnato a sognare e a fantasticare su Caroline per accorgersene.
Un libro decisamente interessante, ma non facilmente godibile da tutti.
Martin è un pensatore solitario e un sognatore. Sogna sempre di più, sempre più in grande.
Ma cosa vuole davvero? Tutto, per sua stessa ammissione.
Ma tutto equivale a niente (e infatti non è interessato ai soldi, non è interessato alla fama...).
Vuole tutto, ma non sa davvero cosa vuole.
La realtà, la concretezza iniziale della storia, viene poi sostituita dai sogni sempre più maestosi di Martin. (Ho visto che diverse persone parlano di realismo magico. Per me non è corretto. È proprio il sogno che entra a far parte della realtà. Forse è un filo sottile, non saprei, ma per me non si tratta di realismo magico).
Martin finisce per sognare il sogno sbagliato. O forse il suo sogno era corretto, e sono le altre persone a non sognare abbastanza in grande? O forse il proprio sogno - il nostro e/o quello di Martin - non equivale al sogno degli altri e quindi non può essere condiviso e supportato? Chissà.
Anche l'amore si intreccia costantemente tra realtà e sogno (al di là delle atmosfere oniriche delle scene tra Martin e Caroline). Quello che voglio dire è che Caroline è il sogno per eccellenza: è intoccabile, perfetta, eterea; la moglie da sogno con cui avere un matrimonio da sogno.
Emmeline invece equivale alla realtà (nonostante sia una sognatrice come Martin): è concreta, imperfetta, terrena; è l'anima gemella di Martin, ma lui è troppo impegnato a sognare e a fantasticare su Caroline per accorgersene.
Un libro decisamente interessante, ma non facilmente godibile da tutti.
December 26, 2016
“Giấc mơ Mỹ” chuyển mình một cách khéo léo, sang cái lạch hay ho, ở điểm này, khi độc giả nhanh chóng nhận ra, Martin không khao khát một cái gì đó cụ thể. Tiền: không phải. Chủ cửa hàng điểm tâm: không phải. Chủ khách sạn: không phải. Khởi nghiệp nói chung: không phải. Cái Martin khao khát là một thế giới do anh tạo ra, một hệ thống vận chuyển theo phương cách mà anh muốn: qua mỗi thành công là một lần anh lại tự đập nát để rồi lại tái tạo lại chính mình. Anh là Chúa trời trong cái thế giới mà anh muốn tạo nên, là kẻ kiến tạo tất cả, là nơi bao trọn mọi thứ từ cỏn con đến kỳ vỹ, là nơi con người đi vào và trú ngụ trọn trong đó mà không phải đi ra nữa. Khách sạn mà Martin xây, giờ đây không còn là nơi con người đến ở ngắn hạn, mà dưới tham vọng của anh, là nơi trú ngụ lâu dài, là một vũ trụ thu nhỏ với hàng nghìn các loại phòng ốc, tiện nghi, cây xanh, thác nước, bảo tàng, rạp hát, quán ăn, trung tâm mua sắm, là cái phá vỡ và thủ tiêu cái ý niệm về thế giới cũ.
Độc nốt review: https://www.facebook.com/phianhaz/pos...
Độc nốt review: https://www.facebook.com/phianhaz/pos...
May 23, 2018
2,5/5
Steven Millhauser deservedly received the Pulitzer Prize...
... but for the wrong book. Where his short story collection Dangerous Laughter excells in unpredictability and wit, this one is so cliché and tedious.
There is still a certain Roald Dahl magical vibe coming through, but not nearly enough to uplift the whole thing
Steven Millhauser deservedly received the Pulitzer Prize...
... but for the wrong book. Where his short story collection Dangerous Laughter excells in unpredictability and wit, this one is so cliché and tedious.
There is still a certain Roald Dahl magical vibe coming through, but not nearly enough to uplift the whole thing
December 26, 2014
This was more than a disappointment. It was utterly confounding. I'm a fan of Millhauser's short stories. I have taught "Miracle Polish" in fiction workshops. Several of his story collections have delivered cover to cover. This novel though is a perplexing conception. It seems to be marketed as book in classic tradition, a story of American gusto, ingenuity, of an ethnic Brooklyn kid with smarts who makes something of himself. It seems in the beginning to tell the tale of the growth of Manhattan, of industry, of thus of America itself. But it gets strangely bogged down. The protagonist starts as a bellboy in a hotel, moves up, moves up again, opens a shop, opens a chain of shops. Then he starts hanging out with these two sisters, and for reasons that are unexplained he marries the reclusive, depressive one. He opens more shops and dreams of bigger buildings. His marriage is poor, and he really seems to love the other sister. Then that repeats. Ambitions of growing his empire and marital happiness, but they are not fulfilled. He becomes inconceivable and uncreditable as a character. The prose fixates for page after page after page on artifacts of the era. The setting is replete, and the main character a total enigma.
February 6, 2011
I loved the early descriptions of New York. The writing style was lovely and prosey and I felt it suited the descriptions and the feelings of a growing economy, changing times, entrepreneurial spirit, etc. I was quite pleased with the first half of the book. I hated the passages with the wife, and as they increased my irritation with the main character also grew. Eventually I found him irritating as hell. Then we sort of veered into magic realism, which is not my strong point. While his dreams were realistic, I was rooting for him, but as he got more impractical and absurd, I didn't stop rooting exactly: I stopped caring at all. The end of the book was lists and lists and lists that didn't so much build a tension as they did read like the author himself was pretty eager to get to the end, but he promised himself 300 pages. I was relieved when it was over.
April 15, 2011
I liked it, but probably appreciated it more because I was first introduced to Millhauser through his short stories. He loves lists, and describing successive items, stringing them together in a fantastical image and creating an overwhelming image. This style is challenging in a novel, but overall he did better than I thought he would at holding my attention. The historical NY setting was especially interesting as the trains are tunneled underground and uptown lots are being sold to speculators. The main character's poorly managed female relationships were disappointing and uncomfortable for me, creating a main character that showed traits of egocentricity and self-absorption.
December 28, 2019
3, 65 (?).
Một cuốn sách khiến mình choáng váng, chỉ khi lần giở đến những trang cuối cùng. Mình cũng không nghĩ mình lại nâng hạng đánh giá cho cuốn sách này chỉ vì cách tác giả điều chỉnh câu chuyện ở phút cuối. Tất thảy mang đến cho mình một cú lộn trong cảm xúc. Hơi rối rắm, nhưng rõ ràng.
Giấc mơ Mỹ là câu chuyện về một chàng thanh niên thông minh, biết nắm bắt thời cơ tại mảnh đất của những giấc mơ, Martin Dressler. Hàng loạt những thành công trong kinh doanh, đã nâng bước cho Martin trong hành trình chạm đến giấc mơ lớn nhất đời anh: tạo ra một thế giới mới, nơi anh có thể thoả thích đắm chìm vào những cơn mộng tưởng về niềm say thích sáng tạo, cái đẹp và hoàn mĩ.
Thú thật, cuốn sách này đã gợi cho mình rất nhiều suy nghĩ về những giấc mơ, về mục đích con người ta thay nhau kiến tạo nên những cải tiến, những vĩ đại và hoàn chỉnh của một bản thể tốt đẹp hơn cho thế giới này, đương nhiên là dựa vào góc độ đánh giá của nhân cách, nhục vọng và khả thể. Mình không ngừng băn khoăn về những ẩn dụ, những hình thức ẩn dưới tầng tầng lớp lớp những con người xuất hiện trong cuộc đời Martin. Từ cuộc hôn nhân đơn điệu tuyệt vọng, sự chiều chuộng quá vãng dành cho Caroline, cho tới những suy sụp trong tâm tưởng của anh khi cảm nhận được sự thiếu vắng dòng nhựa s���ng từ cô gái mà anh “từng” cho là thô ráp. Rồi những người làm cùng Martin trong các dự án, họ cũng đóng một vai trò then chốt trong việc phản chiếu xã hội, hay cái nhìn của xã hội về những ước mơ tầm vóc của Martin.
Vậy rốt cuộc, Martin đang mơ cho ai? Cho những khát vọng chống đối sự tẻ nhạt, lạnh lùng, nhàm chán của một khuôn mẫu sẵn có, thước đo của tiền tài, thành công? Hay chàng đang cố vùng vẫy thoát ra khỏi giấc mơ được mơ thật lớn, tạo ra những kiệt tác, để rồi bị chính nỗi đau khi không thể lựa chọn giữa phân-vân và quyết-liệt, giữa hư-ảo và thực-tế nuốt trọn?
Mình đã đọc lại chương cuối rất nhiều lần, chỉ để tìm câu trả lời. Nhưng dường như là vẫn chưa đủ để mình cảm nhận và giải đáp hết tất cả những nút thừng đang còn cuộn bện chéo trong suy nghĩ của mình.
Một cuốn sách khiến mình choáng váng, chỉ khi lần giở đến những trang cuối cùng. Mình cũng không nghĩ mình lại nâng hạng đánh giá cho cuốn sách này chỉ vì cách tác giả điều chỉnh câu chuyện ở phút cuối. Tất thảy mang đến cho mình một cú lộn trong cảm xúc. Hơi rối rắm, nhưng rõ ràng.
Giấc mơ Mỹ là câu chuyện về một chàng thanh niên thông minh, biết nắm bắt thời cơ tại mảnh đất của những giấc mơ, Martin Dressler. Hàng loạt những thành công trong kinh doanh, đã nâng bước cho Martin trong hành trình chạm đến giấc mơ lớn nhất đời anh: tạo ra một thế giới mới, nơi anh có thể thoả thích đắm chìm vào những cơn mộng tưởng về niềm say thích sáng tạo, cái đẹp và hoàn mĩ.
Thú thật, cuốn sách này đã gợi cho mình rất nhiều suy nghĩ về những giấc mơ, về mục đích con người ta thay nhau kiến tạo nên những cải tiến, những vĩ đại và hoàn chỉnh của một bản thể tốt đẹp hơn cho thế giới này, đương nhiên là dựa vào góc độ đánh giá của nhân cách, nhục vọng và khả thể. Mình không ngừng băn khoăn về những ẩn dụ, những hình thức ẩn dưới tầng tầng lớp lớp những con người xuất hiện trong cuộc đời Martin. Từ cuộc hôn nhân đơn điệu tuyệt vọng, sự chiều chuộng quá vãng dành cho Caroline, cho tới những suy sụp trong tâm tưởng của anh khi cảm nhận được sự thiếu vắng dòng nhựa s���ng từ cô gái mà anh “từng” cho là thô ráp. Rồi những người làm cùng Martin trong các dự án, họ cũng đóng một vai trò then chốt trong việc phản chiếu xã hội, hay cái nhìn của xã hội về những ước mơ tầm vóc của Martin.
Vậy rốt cuộc, Martin đang mơ cho ai? Cho những khát vọng chống đối sự tẻ nhạt, lạnh lùng, nhàm chán của một khuôn mẫu sẵn có, thước đo của tiền tài, thành công? Hay chàng đang cố vùng vẫy thoát ra khỏi giấc mơ được mơ thật lớn, tạo ra những kiệt tác, để rồi bị chính nỗi đau khi không thể lựa chọn giữa phân-vân và quyết-liệt, giữa hư-ảo và thực-tế nuốt trọn?
Mình đã đọc lại chương cuối rất nhiều lần, chỉ để tìm câu trả lời. Nhưng dường như là vẫn chưa đủ để mình cảm nhận và giải đáp hết tất cả những nút thừng đang còn cuộn bện chéo trong suy nghĩ của mình.
July 2, 2021
This book begins like a narration by a stentorian voice, “There once lived a man named Martin Dressler…”, but I see this more as some fantasy being narrated by Rod Serling. Picture yourself vision about to start a vacation which you’ve fantasized about all your life and you encounter with one problem after another as you prepare to leave but you finally arrive at the airport, only to find your flight is delayed. Nevertheless, you finally board, strapped in only to have the captain announce that there will be another delay because there are 87 planes in line for the only runway as the others have been damaged due to excessive seagull guano or something but be patient, the flight attendants will be passing out extra bags of peanuts to compensate for this unanticipated problem. After 90 minutes or so, there is another announcement that the airport of your destination is fogged in so to keep you amused, they will now show a bonus in-flight movie, “The Brady Bunch Meet Dracula”, or some such – but the projector breaks. Luckily for you, your neighbor has brought along snapshots of EVERY vacation he or she has been on before and proceeds to show them to you, accompanied by family anecdotes such as when Uncle Lester fell out of the tree or Mom burned the cookies and the fire department arrived. Soon darkness falls, passengers are snoring and you finally come to the conclusion that this flight will NEVER EVER take off – much like this book. You’re in…The Twilight Zone!!!! Why do I say this? This book has a very thin plot – wafer thin – interspersed with Martin’s dreams – but then the plot mostly runs out and you’re left with all of his remaining phantasmagorical fantasies, like one of those books of unfeasible architectural projects. The setting of an emerging New York at the end of the 19th century is interesting but this is finally “The Winchester Mystery House Meets the Tower of Babel”, an endless and pointless exercise in writing.
The biggest wonder here was how this ever won the Pulitzer. The runners-up were a book of short stories by Ursula K. Le Guin, “Unlocking the Air”, that weren’t fantasy and also included unfinished drafts, and “The Mannikin”, by Joanna Scott, a mix of a creepy house, taxidermy and the arrival of a housekeeper who keeps the young mistress “intrigued”, which may have been too much thrown in for some judges. I smell compromise between warring factions. The non-fiction winner, “Angela’s Ashes”, may have been the real quality that year but that’s my personal opinion; obviously, there were those who were captivated by this book but to quote AbeBooks list on 10 most-forgotten Pulitzer fiction winners, this book deserves a mention because no one’s buying it. Nor did I.
The biggest wonder here was how this ever won the Pulitzer. The runners-up were a book of short stories by Ursula K. Le Guin, “Unlocking the Air”, that weren’t fantasy and also included unfinished drafts, and “The Mannikin”, by Joanna Scott, a mix of a creepy house, taxidermy and the arrival of a housekeeper who keeps the young mistress “intrigued”, which may have been too much thrown in for some judges. I smell compromise between warring factions. The non-fiction winner, “Angela’s Ashes”, may have been the real quality that year but that’s my personal opinion; obviously, there were those who were captivated by this book but to quote AbeBooks list on 10 most-forgotten Pulitzer fiction winners, this book deserves a mention because no one’s buying it. Nor did I.
July 3, 2012
a pre wwi novel set in new york city, where the titular martin strives to achieve his dreams....of what? being a rich business man? no, not really. being a hotel builder and owner? no, not really. having a family and enjoying his friends and loved ones? no, not really.
what does martin want? what he gets is a feeling that he has luck and that this force of good is directing his steps to maximize modern inventions but hidden behind facades of classicism to build bigger and bigger "skyscrapers" in manhattan, after first making some big cash renovating older buildings into cafeterias. so martin becomes a mogul of sorts. pushing north of the city to buy lots on the boulevard (the street that will become broadway) and build taller and grander and weirder visions of totally encapsulated worlds where the renters will never have to leave if they don;t want to.
the author tries to depict the eclecticism of the early 20th century as an out-of-control fever dream of modernity clad in all the fairy tales of the classic like red arm chairs, gargoyles, dark woods glinting in the light of electric chandeliers, electric dynamos in the basements running the elevators to the rooftop gardens.
not a bad novel, i think he won a pulizter prize for it, but it is up to the reader to recognize the puzzle the characters fiddle with as the modern world takes them over.
what does martin want? what he gets is a feeling that he has luck and that this force of good is directing his steps to maximize modern inventions but hidden behind facades of classicism to build bigger and bigger "skyscrapers" in manhattan, after first making some big cash renovating older buildings into cafeterias. so martin becomes a mogul of sorts. pushing north of the city to buy lots on the boulevard (the street that will become broadway) and build taller and grander and weirder visions of totally encapsulated worlds where the renters will never have to leave if they don;t want to.
the author tries to depict the eclecticism of the early 20th century as an out-of-control fever dream of modernity clad in all the fairy tales of the classic like red arm chairs, gargoyles, dark woods glinting in the light of electric chandeliers, electric dynamos in the basements running the elevators to the rooftop gardens.
not a bad novel, i think he won a pulizter prize for it, but it is up to the reader to recognize the puzzle the characters fiddle with as the modern world takes them over.
February 18, 2009
This story is about the quintessential concept that defines American culture: the American dream. Martin Dressler begins the book as a clerk in a cigar store in New York at the dawn of the 20th century. As he watches the city spring up around him, he's filled with ideas of his own on improving the landscape. He starts with a restaurant, which becomes a chain, then moves to hotels. Along the way, he picks up several consumer concepts that are in their infancy, like subliminal advertising campaigns and department stores. While each new project enjoys great success, Martin is filled with the sensation that he wants to make more. His final creation, a sprawling edifice called The Cosmos that resembles Disney World and the Mall of America, strives so hard to be everything that it ends up being nothing. This novel is particularly resonant today as we experience the effects our insatiable appetite for wealth and property.
September 5, 2007
I very much enjoyed this story of a poor boy who becomes a hotel entrepreneur in turn of the century New York, who dreams of a marvelous place where vistors can enter the building and experience otherworldly wonders. Like most fictional dreamers, he's ahead of his time, and his dream can't survive in his world.
Martin's fantasy of a place you can visit that takes you with a few easy steps from the world as you know it to any number of places around the world, under the sea, or in the heavens, was as good a metaphor for the Internet as any I've encountered, and I enjoyed seeing how Millhauser describes that feeling of hyperlinked virtual worlds in a physical way. Millhauser is great at playing with themes of worlds within worlds, fantasies come to life, and magic tricks, and it's great fun to inhabit this space with him.
Martin's fantasy of a place you can visit that takes you with a few easy steps from the world as you know it to any number of places around the world, under the sea, or in the heavens, was as good a metaphor for the Internet as any I've encountered, and I enjoyed seeing how Millhauser describes that feeling of hyperlinked virtual worlds in a physical way. Millhauser is great at playing with themes of worlds within worlds, fantasies come to life, and magic tricks, and it's great fun to inhabit this space with him.
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