صداهایی در شب

by Steven Millhauser, جواد همایون‌پور (Translator)

از نویسنده‌ی برنده‌ی جایزه‌ی پولیتزر و استوری: شانزده داستان تازه، آشفته‌کننده، افسون‌کننده و سرگرم‌کننده که به عمق زندگی و امیال پنهانی مردم عادی می‌روند و بازگوکننده‌ی افسانه‌ها و اسطوره‌هایی است که آرمان‌ها و آرزوهای روح بشر در آن‌ها می‌درخشند.
استیون میلهاوزر در صداهایی در شب از دریچه‌هایی غریب به زندگی یک شهر کوچک می‌نگرد و بخش‌های تاریک درون ما را با جلوه‌ای چشمگیر نمایان می‌کند. داستان‌هایی واقع‌گرایانه و در عین حال پرخیال، داستان‌هایی که اما و اگرهایی مغشوش و فرامـوش‌نشدنی پیـش می‌نهنـد، داسـتان‌ چیـزهایی نحـس و نامحسوس در مرزهای امن شهرها، خانه‌ها و حتی جسممان.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Magical Realism, Literature, Contemporary

360 pages, Paperback

First published April 15, 2015

About the author

Millhauser 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.

Reviews

[Panagiotis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ο Μιλχάουζεν είναι γνωστός για τον τρόπο του να παντρεύει το αλλόκοτο και το μαγικό, με το καθημερινό - αναπάντεχες καταστάσεις, σαν μαγικές εκπλήξεις που μπλέκουν με την ρουτίνα του σύγχρονου ανθρώπου. Κι αυτό το έκανε με έναν καταπληκτικό τρόπο στο We Others,κερδίζοντάς με διαπαντός ως μελλοντικό αναγνώστη του. Εδω, σε αυτή την καινούρια του συλλογή δίνει στον αναγνώστη αυτά τα λογοτεχνικά δώρα. Μερικά είναι εξαιρετικά. Όμως, η πλειοψηφία τους μένει ένα εντυπωσιακό περιτύλιγμα που εμένα με άφησε σε μια σύγχυση.

Κάποια πράγματα εδώ είναι εξαιρετικά: Όπως ο τρόπος που ανοίγει η συλλογή με τον πρωταγωνιστή να αγοράζει από έναν πλανώδιο την μαγική ουσία που μετατρέπει τους καθρέφτες σε παράθυρα μιας γοητευτικής, εναλλακτικής πραγματικότητας. Καθηλωτική στιγμή είναι κι η στοιχειωτική επίσκεψη του γιου στο πατρικό του, στο Mothers and Sons, όπου καθώς η μέρα πέφτει, το σπίτι φανερώνει τις φθορές του χρόνου και η μητέρα του χάνεται στα σκοτάδια της άνοιας, και μιας εφιαλτικής, συμβολικής γεροντικής παράλυσης. Ακόμα περισσότερο, είναι εκείνη η πόλη στην οποία πολίτες πέφτουν πάνω σε φαντάσματα - συναπαντήματα αινιγματικά, τα οποία ο ανώνυμος αφηγητής προσπαθεί να αναλύσει στον αναγνώστη, παραθέτοντας όλες τις εικασίες και θεωρίες που κατά καιρούς διαδίδονται για την παρουσία των σιωπηλών αυτών οντοτήτων. Τέτοιες ιστορίες λάμπουν ως λογοτεχνικά διαμάντια μιας ιδιαίτερης γραφής, μελετημένης και ρυθμικής.

Ωστόσο κάποια πράγματα εδώ δεν δουλεύουν. Και κυρίως είναι πράγματα που στην προηγούμενη συλλογή λειτουργούσαν τόσο αποτελεσματικά, δίνοντας ξεχωριστές ιστορίες. Είναι όλες αυτές οι ιστορίες, όπου ένας ανωνυμος αφηγητής, μιλώντας εκ μέρους μιας φιλήσυχης κοινότητας, εξιστορεί πως κάτι το παράξενο ταράζει τις καθημερινές ζωές όπως η ανακάλυψη μιας νεκρής γοργόνας στην παραλία, ή το ανεξήγητό κύμα αυτοκτονιών, απόρρια της εύκολης, προβλέψιμης ζωής ή για κάποιους τιμωρία για τον αναίσχυντο αστικό βίο. Αν και πατάνε σε κάποια έξυπνη ιδέα, δεν αρκεί η γραφή και η χαρακτιριστική φωνή του Μιλχάουζεν για να τις σώσει από το αδικαιολόγητο μέγεθός τους. Στα μισά της ανάγνωσης ένοιωθα πως είχα συντονιστεί πια πλήρως με τον συγγραφέα, ο οποίο συνέχιζε να επαναλαμβάνει τα μυθοπλαστικά μοτίβα του φορτώντας μέχρι τέλους την ιστορία του. Ήταν επίσης και οι τελευταίες ιστορίες, όπως τα πρώιμα χρόνια του Σιντάρτα (Βούδα), που αποτελούν την πιο πληκτική στιγμή του βιβλίου, καθώς και η τριφωνία της τελευταία ιστορίας με τον Ισμαήλ των Βιβλικών χρόνων και τον γερασμένο συγγραφέα να θυμάται πως νέος περίμενε κι εκείνος να ακούσει μέσα στη νύχτα τη φωνή του Θεού.

Ο Μιλχάουζεν είναι εξαιρετικός συγγραφέας, κάνοντας μέχρι και τις αδύναμες στιγμές του να αποτελούν μια πάντα εξαιρετική επαφή με την αγνή τέχνη της συγγραφής. Αλλά με εξαίρεση κάποιες πολύ καλές ιστορίες, το σύνολο είναι μάλλον κατώτερο των προσδοκιών που έχει καλλιεργήσει η φήμη και το έργο του. Αυτό δεν σημαίνει πως δεν τελώ ακόμα αναγνώστης αφοσιωμένος, προσβλέποντας στα επόμενα της βιβλιογραφίας του!

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was reminded of this author on a recent episode of The Librarian is In podcast from the NYPL. I had read one book of his short stories and went looking for more, finding this collection from last year. All the stories are from 2011 forward.

Short story collections are hard to rate, because the stories vary. Some of these are five-star stories, while some are three, making this a solid five-star collection.

"No, Yasodhara, the happiest of all women, is unhappy only when she is most happy: when, lying with her beloved husband, staring into his eyes as he strokes her cheek tenderly, she sees in his gaze the shadow. It is the shadow of apartness, the shadow of elsewhere."
from The Pleasures and Sufferings of Young Gautama

This story was not my favorite of the collection (in fact it is more of a novella, a pet peeve when encountering story collections!) but it does point to a thread running throughout these stories - the idea of elsewhere. One of the stories is even titled "Elsewhere," and I would have used that as the title for the collection. Each story has an element of not belonging, of longing to be somewhere else, of isolation, discontent. Some of this is accomplished through strange happenings and bits of unreal or weird, and I tended to enjoy stories with these traits most.

Miracle Polish tells the story of a man who buys a polish that makes the reflection shown in a mirror the more ideal life - more energy, more beauty, more contentment. Similar to the mirror of erised, I suppose (for you Harry Potter fans), with the same dangers.

Phantoms is a longer story about a town that seems haunted by supernatural creatures that want nothing to do with the people living there. And it starts to feel like an insult. Ha!

Thirteen Wives - I liked the style of this one, hated the central character, but who wouldn't.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quirky, twisty, things taken to the max, out of all proportion. A very different style of writing. I really took to the mermaid story, with out culture and trend setting, people following blindly, I could almost see this happening. A few strange tweaking of old favorite tales, makes this a collection to ponder, think and savor.

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a strange reading experience.

Read Miracle Polish. Thought: This is going to be a 4-star book. Good writing interesting ideas.
Read Phantoms. Thought: Wow, interesting.
Read Sons and Mothers. Thought: Great book.
Read Mermaid Fever. Thought: Similar to Phantoms, but interesting commentary.
Read The Wife and the Thief. Thought: They can't all be great.
Read A Report on Our Recent Troubles. Thought: Hhmmm, starting to see a pattern here.
Read Coming Soon. Thought: ok.
Read Rapunzul. Thought: This story was really long.
Read Elsewhere. Thought: Haven't I read this story before except it was about phantoms or mermaids?
Read Thirteen Wives. Thought: I like this.
Read Arcadia. Thought: Despite some of the same devices, this was different enough to get back to interesting.
Read The Pleasures and Sufferings of Young Gautama. Thought: Huh? Long. Boring.
Read The Place. Thought: I finally understand why some people criticize works for being self-indulgent. But isn't that the right of the author?
Read Home Run. Thought: Really?
Read American Tall Tale. Thought: Wow, did this book go downhill.
Read A Voice in the Night. Thought: At least it ends on a more positive note, but I'm glad it's over and I can read something else.

[Tamsen · Rating 2 out of 5]

My favorites were "Phantoms" and "Miracle Polish." Unfortunately, these were the first two stories in the collection.

I thought the biggest problem with this collection was the resounding sameness. In every story, there was the same town of sameness with the same neighborliness that collided unwillingly with something magical or odd. I also disliked the dividers that separated paragraphs within the stories, like so:

IN WHICH I TELL YOU HOW I WOULD HAVE PREFERRED THE COLLECTION

Perhaps as stand alone stories in anthologies? I think as a collective, they appeared weaker - where perhaps in an anthology, they'd shine.

[Elise · Rating 4 out of 5]

I rarely sit down and read an entire short story collection cover to cover, but Millhauser's Voices in the Night arrested me from the beginning while I browsed it in the library. It enchanted me, still haunts me, got under my skin, and I suspect it will stay there for quite a while. Voices in the Night takes on the universal theme of the disquiet at the heart of the human condition. We strive for the next degree, the next great job, home, great love, family, yet in spite of our strivings, that angst is still a part of us. This wonderful collection places a mirror in front of humanity to show us that reason, common sense, and creature comforts simply aren't enough to quell that raging beast. And this is why we go in search of the extraordinary to break up the monotony of our lives--the magic of mermaids, the heart-stopping fear of a thief in the night, suicide, the voice that calls to single us out when we sit alone in the darkness. Voices in the Night is a book that reminds us of how much we need to believe in magic, in the spirit world, in the impossible, in something greater than ourselves so that we don't perish in a sea of meaningless common sense and ugliness. Steven Millhauser is the Brothers Grimm of the millennium, or the Brothers Grimm meets Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Shirley Jackson. His writing is top notch. His tales are dark, magical, and nourishing for the intellect and the spirit. I highly recommend this book, but a few of the stories weren't up to the standard of the others, which is why I am giving it 4 stars instead of 5.

[Pablo Hernandez · Rating 3 out of 5]

As in many of his previous short story collections, Millauser's talent and imagination is on full display here: his ability to depict the uncanny, the mysterious and the fantastic is pretty much unrivalled.

Unfortunately, after the halfway mark or so (the book is close to 300 pages long), there are quite a few short stories that felt either too similar, too uninteresting or simply much too drawn out.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Voices In The Night (Short Stories)
by Steven Millhauser

The Pulitzer and Story Prize winner, Steven Millhauser, has created sixteen new short stories that will thrill readers of his previous works.

Several stories view the private musings of ordinary people in an unorthodox way. At times you are in a small town that seems to be infected with something supernatural and extraordinary. In other instances you feel the weight of spiritual reflection as a person struggles to define religion and faith.

Family relationships are explored and raw emotions surface. The face that is seen by the world doesn't always reflect what the person feels or is thinking. The reader shares the confusion, disappointment, fear, anxiety, despair, hopes and hopelessness.

My favorite stories draw on popular fables and the new perspectives will dazzle and amaze. You meet Rapunzel and her Prince like you have never seen them before. Millhausen presents an anecdotal event in the life of Paul Bunyan. that will have you in stitches.

A couple of stories seemed to drag the narrative along too long. The message was there long before the story ended.

Overall I found it to be a wonderful read that was savored one story a night; a delight I looked forward to each evening.

One story, The Place, had a startling effect on my psyche. It touched a familiar yearning in my being and I found myself magically transported to treasured memories.

I was granted access to the digital review copy of Voices in the Night in Edelweiss by Random House.

[Die · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 Sterne 🌟 für diesen außergewöhnlichen Kurzgeschichten Band. Drei dieser KG fand ich mega gut, eine davon hat mich sogar tagelang nicht losgelassen. Die hatte viele Gefühle in mir hervorgerufen.

[Missy (myweereads) · Rating 3 out of 5]

“There is a restless so terrible that you can no longer bear to sit still in your house. You walk from room to room like someone visiting a deserted town.”

Author Steven Millhauser was new to me almost 5 years ago. I began reading this book however I never quite finished it and so I decided to pick it up again and read it in its entirety.

This collection contains sixteen short stories. To say these are a little bizarre is an understatement. What appears is that the author delves deep into what makes humans tick. By presenting his characters in unthinkable and ordinary situations, the reader is a witness to this experiment of how they will deal with their situations.

Some of the stories stem from mythology, others are disturbing yet funny or provocative and unsettling. I seen somewhere that these stories were almost like the X Files. I would say a few are from the same nerve however Black Mirror comes to mind with a few of the others.

Quite a few of the stories I enjoyed however there were a some which weren’t my cup of coffee.

[Chaitra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the prose, the writing itself more than the ideas in the stories. I compulsively don't read short story collections in order. Some times they work out better for the collection, and sometimes they don't. This is the time it didn't. I read the different ideas first - American Tall Tale, A Voice in the Night. Enjoyed them immensely. Then I read Arcadia and loved that too.

But after Arcadia all stories seemed to have a common theme; darkness, melancholy and death. I can take that in small doses, but in this case they felt same-y - the restlessness of a small town, something unexpected happening, and the small town people reacting in odd and spectacular ways.

There was a break or two - Rapunzel, which was an amazing retelling of the fairytale was probably the highlight of the entire book; and I enjoyed The Pleasures and Sufferings of Young Gautama, surprisingly, even though I grew up with the story and have never been particularly enchanted or moved by it.

But on the whole, the collection disappointed me. I fell in love with the writing, but not the ideas. This is my first book by Steven Millhauser, and I'm confident that I'll love Martin Dressler.

[Lewis Szymanski · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the most frustratingly uneven short story collection I've ever read.

The first story "Miracle Polish" is very good, very Bradburyesque. It made me excited for the rest of the book. I was wrong to be.

A few of the stories are so bad that they made me angry to have been tricked into wasting my time on them. Mostly clumsy attempts at slipstream, or fabulism, or whatever you call magical realism when white people do it.

There are several good stories, but they suffer from sameness. The same themes rehashed over and over, similar settings reused repeatedly, same odd narrative structure reused. In an anthology, some of these stories would probably be the standout. In the same volume, they start to blur together.

Strangely, there are two stories that seem to be advocating suicide. It's possible that I am misinterpreting them and they are actually anti-suicide stories. Either way, they are wildly irresponsible.

[Matthew · Rating 1 out of 5]

A collection of short stories that took me nearly 2 months to read probably tells you pretty much all you need to know about this book. It starts off fairly positively, the first story about mirrors is really promising and mermaid story also. It plummets downhill from there with stories that are either the same ideas just constantly rehashed, long boring ideas that should have never made it to the page or embarassing wordplay nonsense. Delighted to finish this, I'd basically mentally checked out for the final third of the book.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Millhauser is always so strange. His prose is beautiful and lyrical and descriptive enough and yet I often feel that I have no idea what his story is really about.

[Krzysztof · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not his best collection, and not the place to start with Millhauser; I'd direct newcomers to "We Others" (his 'greatest hits' collection) or to "The Knife Thrower and Other Stories", instead. For me, the standout in "Voices in the Night" is "Phantoms", an example of the form at which Millhauser excels - a first-person-plural attempt to explain a strange phenomenon from a number of angles, in short, dense paragraphs, with bits of narrative thrown in. He does try new things in this collection, however, allowing the stories to breathe more. Alas, this reader prefers the highly controlled, detached, eerie prose of older stories such as "The Barnum Museum", "The Snowmen" or "The Disappearance of Elaine Coleman"; a few pieces here hark back to that type of narrative, for example "Rapunzel" or "Arcadia". The closing, titular story, "A Voice in the Night," is more touching and (it seems) personal than Millhauser has usually allowed his fiction to be. In short: recommended for long-time Millhauser fans rather than those who are curious about this great writer.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved 'Enchanted Night' and was looking forward to this collection, and several stories hit those heights (The Place, The Wife and the Thief etc) - with fantastically dreamy atmosphere and strange desires - but I got a bit bored with others (re-workings of fairy tales usually). Ummm, not sure I will bother to look for any more of his work now. I feel, perhaps wrongly, that I have read his best in 'Enchanted Night'.

[Max Kleiner · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stories in this book are romantic and vivid, despite being short in length. Millhauser manages to get quickly to the heart of his stories without feeling rushed or laboring too long on more philosophical ideas. On the surface, this collection of short stories covers a wide variety of genres and topics, but the magic that Millhauser has spun within these stories are the common themes and symbols that tie the stories together.

[C · Rating 4 out of 5]

11th wife, though! HAHAHAHAHAHA

[Tobias · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some absolutely fantastic stories in here. For me, it lost a little steam at the end, but regardless: terrific work here (again) from Millhauser.

[Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

A 3.5, as the beginning stories were a 4.0 but then dropped down to a 3.0 as later ones seemed somewhat repetitive in tone.

[Brett Warnke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Steven Millhauser is the best short story writer living today. I've read all of his collections. He writes in the tradition of Ray Bradbury, Franz Kafka, Italo Calvino and J.G. Ballard. His originality, his freshness and the clarity of his prose, and his masterful ability to move into different types of narration is nothing short of extraordinary. Like Nabokov or Saul Bellow, Millhauser makes you wonder if you should ever bother writing fiction. How could you top a weirdly dark story like "Arcadia" which takes the form of a self-helpy brochure, with "testimonials" that have only one destination--death. His style is so various and imaginitive, too! In this collection there's tall-tales, collective narrators, and a story, "The Wife and the Thief" that captures the best voice of anxiety I've ever read, without even being in first-person! The trick to Millhauser is the uncanniness of his writing, the weirdness of his plots and scenes married to a hyper-realistic style of description. If there are strange occurrences, hints of magic, fable, or scientific mystery, these heightened states sit in sentences beside exact descriptions of material reality: "expressions of willed cheerfulness" or the description of a Norway spruce. Turn off Netflix. Pour yourself some strong coffee and grab every one of Steven Millhauser's short stories.

[Taylor Bush · Rating 5 out of 5]

Millhauser is a tour de force. A phenom. The first time I read a story by him I felt like I was discovering an entirely different world. What I love about his work is he doesn't just come up with cool concepts, he always takes them one step further. Some of the stories among this collection are some of the best I've ever read. This collection cemented Millhauser as my favorite writer of all time. Each story deals with our everyday world and the phantom itches that pull at us beyond its borders. Some say Millhauser repeats too much in his work. But what I love about him is how dedicated he is to exploring one set of themes and ideas. As I make my way across his oeuvre I get the feeling that I'm getting to see him explore his obsessions to their fullest extent. There is something so exhilarating getting to see an artist do this, like them finally getting to close in on the bottom of their brain. But each time Millhauser explores a familiar theme he does present it in enough of a new way for it to be worthwhile (so don't listen to haters on here who reduce Millhauser to a reductive one-trick pony). Plus, why does a writer always have to conjure up novelty each time they write? And he branches out plenty in other stories. Anyway, this collection is absolutely remarkable!

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

I pulled this out of the editorial pile at Goodreads because I liked the cover and had read the first story, "Miracle Polish," in the New Yorker. There's so much to love here. One of the strongest and most creative collections I've read in long awhile. Richly atmospheric and thematically cohesive, with many stories showing the darkness beneath quiet, small towns, it made for good quarantine reading since so many of the characters struggle with a deep and causeless restlessness. I loved nearly all the stories in here, with the Saunders-esque "Arcadia" among the top, along with "Thirteen Wives," "The Wife and the Thief," "Phantoms," and the aforementioned "Miracle Polish," which I still find a nearly perfect specimen of a short story.

[Shilo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Millhauser is doing so many interesting things inside these short stories, and he is reaching into the depths of humans and pulling out some of the darkest pieces to examine them through a unique lens. That being said, this just wasn't for me. I didn't enjoy it in the way I feel books should be enjoyed, regardless of subject matter or material a good book should still make me feel more than an exhaustive weight at the idea of reading more of it.

[Robert Morgan Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really the premiere magical realism author in many ways. Millhauser's strengths are many, but primarily atmospheric, conceptual and . There are regular hallmarks of a Millhauser story: They're almost always set in picture-perfect, timeless, whitebread neighborhoods; then the calm is disrupted by some element that goes out of control. It's almost a little formulaic--but Millhauser knows his style, his voice and there's no one really like him. If there is humor, it's very dry and suppressed. He summons scenes and settings from his childhood constantly. I'm always fascinated by his work.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Usually Mr. Millhauser writes short stories that I love, and there were a dozen in this collection that were worth my reading time. However, a novella-length piece about a pre-enlightened Buddha was pretty boring, and the (almost) title story called “A Voice in the Night” was annoying and uninteresting. Kind of a disappointing book from an author I greatly admire.

[Nicola Whitbread · Rating 3 out of 5]

Voices in the Night - Steven Millhauser. Beautifully written and semi-fantastical short stories, hinting at the darker parts of our inner selves. More is left unsaid than said, unseen than seen. Just slightly disturbing and enchanting enough without being too abstract.
Liked, but didn’t love - 3.5/5 ⭐️

[Akemi G.]

These stories are written by a master who knows how to construct stories and how to choose words. Some succeed to be funny in a bit disturbing way. However, I don’t see why the author wrote these stories, other than because he could. I didn’t feel moved, inspired, or anything. I just couldn’t go on to cover all the stories, so I’m not rating the book. It seems to me they are mostly about middle-aged white men wallowing in self-pity.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best stories here are so great that the ones that feel like mere exercises (Rapunzel, Siddhartha) are excusable. I would love to be taught the art of the story by Steven Millhauser.

[Emily Threlkeld · Rating 5 out of 5]

Several times while reading this I began to worry about how I would find another book like this again. There are a few stories in here which I can’t help but consider perfect.