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The Barnum Museum
The Barnum Museum is a combination waxworks, masked ball, and circus sideshow masquerading as a collection of short stories. Within its pages, note such sights a study of the motives and strategies used by the participants in the game of Clue, including the seduction of Miss Scarlet by Colonel Mustard; the Barnum Museum, a fantastic, monstrous landmark so compelling that an entire town finds its citizens gradually and inexorably disappearing into it; a bored dilettante who constructs an imaginary woman - and loses her to an imaginary man! - and a legendary magician so skilled at sleight-of-hand that he is pursued by police for the crime of erasing the line between the real and the conjured.
237 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
35 people are currently reading
1271 people want to read
About the author
Steven Millhauser
67 books473 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 113 reviews
April 22, 2024
[9/10]
Do you think it’s easy for us, we solitary ones, we attic dwellers and noontime dreamers, with the mark of midnight on our brow?
Where do we go when reality turns dreary, grey and repetitive, when the daily strife seems pointless and soul crushing? A visit to the Barnum Museum might help. We might get lost crossing its M. C. Escher architecture of twisted rooms with shifting doorways and branching stairways leading into the unknown, but Millhauser’s cabinet of curiosities invites the reader ... to believe that the world outside the museum is a delusion and that only within its walls is a true life possible.
We know nothing except that we must. We walk the familiar and always changing halls now in amusement, now in skepticism, now seeing little but cleverness in the whole questionable enterprise, now struck with enchantment.
If the Barnum Museum were to disappear, we would continue to live our lives much as before, but we know we would experience a terrible sense of diminishment.
My first visit to the meta-fictional universe of Steven Millhauser was full of surprises, most of them pleasant, only rarely repetitive and boring. Most importantly, this collection is, like the stories of Italo Calvino, a challenge and an invitation to the reader to become an active participant in the creative process, with the author only providing a guiding hand and a few landmarks, all the interpretative labour left to the done by the visitor. [ ... attempts have been made to disguise or blur the intermingling of passages and create confusion in the unwary wanderer. ]
As we progress from one story to the next, it becomes evident that these are not random episodes or simple exercises in style, but variations on the themes of the labyrinth and on the porous border between reality and dream. My own pet interpretation is that the Barnum Museum represents literature made architecture.
A Game of Clue [4/5] is exactly what it says on the cover: the description of a session of puzzle solving, made easier to unravel for me by a recent replay of the classic 1985 comedy. Millhauser captures the frantic pace and the confusion of the twisted plot, but adds his own signature moves of mingling fictional space with real space and with the inner mindscapes of both players and board actors.
The flatness of the board startles him: it is a depthless world, devoid of shadow. There are no rooms, no doors, no secret passages, only the glare of the overhead light on the black lines, the yellow spaces. For a moment he wants to shout: is that all? is that all?
Behind the Blue Curtain [4/5] moves the setting from the game board to the silver screen of an old movie theatre, where a young boy experiences something similar to Woody Allen’s “Purple Rose of Cairo” shift in reality.
The beings behind the curtain had nothing to do with childish flip-books or the long strips of gray negatives hanging in the kitchen from silver clips. They led their exalted lives beyond mine, in some other realm entirely, shining, desirable, impenetrable.
The Barnum Museum [5/5] gives not only the title, but is the true anchor of the collection, an exuberant celebration of diversity and weirdness, a playful-serious exploration of yearning coupled with anxiety.
The meaning of the exhibits is obscure. It is possible that the directors of the museum wish to enhance the reality of the other displays by distinguishing them from this one? Or is it rather that the directors here wittily or brazenly allude to the nature of the entire museum? Another interpretation presents itself: that the directors intend no meaning, but merely wish to pique our interest, to stimulate our curiosity, to lure us by whatever means deeper and deeper into the museum.
The references to M. C. Escher and my own parallels with the style of Calvino were reinforced by the use of first-person plural narration, by the ironic tone and by the deliberate deconstruction of the story into the role of fiction in our lives. The more books we read, the more we want to add to our collection.
It is said that if you enter the Barnum Museum by a particular doorway at noon and manage to find your way back by three, the doorway through which you entered will no longer lead to the street, but to a new room, whose doors give glimpses of further rooms and doorways.
I would argue that we are most sharply aware of our town when we leave it to enter the Barnum Museum, without our museum, we would pass through life as in a daze or dream.
The Sepia Postcard [4/5] has a lonely traveller to a sea-side resort in the rainy off-season, where he manages to discover a new labyrinth in a tiny bookstore [ ... a warren of small rooms connected by short dark passages lined with books. ], a more whimsical and sad version of the Barnum mega-structure.
There is a poetry of old postcards, which belong in the same realm as hurly-gurdy tunes, merry-go-round horses, circus sideshows, silent black-and-white cartoons, tissue-paper-covered illustrations, old movie theaters, kaleidoscopes, and storm-faded figureheads of women with their wooden hair blown back.
The Eighth Voyage of Sindbad [4/5] reminds me of an earlier lecture this year from John Barth, another American deconstructionist. Like Barth, Millhauser explores multiple variations of the art of the storyteller with the help of the traditional template from the Arabian Nights.
Klassik Komix #1 [3/5] is one of the stories that left me less convinced about the author’s effort to make a paper labyrinth by describing in words each panel picture of a comic album, an eminently visual art form. The story does have its own charm in the way it lets the characters in the comic album gain free will and self-awareness.
Rain [5/5] is a little shorter than the other novellas, but more impressive to me, in a Ray Bradbury fashion, for the poetry of loneliness and its more clear horror flavour.
The rain was falling harder. It hammered against the car top like sharp fingernails drumming against a metal table. Who will come? No one comes, no one will ever come, though the fingernails drum drum drum against the metal table.
Alice, Falling [3/5] introduces a vertical labyrinth under the influence of erratic gravity, a tunnel whose walls are filled with household items. Falling slowly down is Alice from Lewis Carroll’s famous portal fantasies.
But if the fall never ends, then everything is changed: the fall itself becomes the adventure, and the tunnel through which she is falling becomes the unknown world, with its magic and mystery.
The stream of conscience from Alice touches on the real friendship between Lewis Carroll and the children who inspired him. Intellectually, I responded positively to the exercise, but frankly by this time I was starting to get bored by the endless repetitions of the labyrinth and by the extended, detailed descriptions of ordinary items.
The Invention of Robert Herendeen [4/5] is an oddball variation of the Pygmalion myth, with a young man who takes refuge from the world into his own mind. His powerful imagination conjures a beautiful woman, builds her a house and a history.
We are such stuff and nonsense as dreams are made of.
His creation becomes so life-like that he is unable to make the distinction between the real and the imaginary world, while the woman gains free will and rebels against the life scripted by her creator.
Eisenheim the Illusionist [5/5] ends the collection on a high note, with the most coherent and complex plot, the most polished lead character and the inevitable conclusions of the meta-fictional exercise.
Stories, like conjuring tricks, are invented because history is inadequate to our dreams, but in this case it is reasonable to suppose that the future master had been profoundly affected by some early experience of conjuring.
Like Mr. Herendeen in the previous novella, the magician Eisenheim captures the audience’s imagination with impossible feats of imagination, conjuring real people with the power of his mind. It’s exactly what a writer of fiction does for us readers, isn’t it? Or is all a trick of the light?
In this the master illusionist was rejecting the modern conjurer’s increasing reliance on machinery and returning the spectator to the troubled heart of magic, which yearned beyond the constricting world of ingenuity and artifice toward the dark realm of transgression.
Are dreams a dangerous form of transgression, a sick retreat from our real life? or a coping mechanism, a way of enriching our existence?
The police of the Hapsburg empire want to arrest Eisenheim as a trickster and a subversive influence on the population, maintaining ... that certain distinctions must be strictly maintained. Art and life constitute one such distinction; illusion and reality, another. Eisenheim deliberately crossed boundaries and therefore disturbed the essence of things.
Even today as in 1900, some people want to ban books and to cancel authors who dare to explore tabu subjects or who claim that imaginary worlds are there to teach us how to live better in the real world. I believe the essence of things is to change, and not to become stagnant (I’m reading Octavia Butler right now, by the way) and that provocative stories like these here are a healthy exercise of the imagination.
Do you think it’s easy for us, we solitary ones, we attic dwellers and noontime dreamers, with the mark of midnight on our brow?
Where do we go when reality turns dreary, grey and repetitive, when the daily strife seems pointless and soul crushing? A visit to the Barnum Museum might help. We might get lost crossing its M. C. Escher architecture of twisted rooms with shifting doorways and branching stairways leading into the unknown, but Millhauser’s cabinet of curiosities invites the reader ... to believe that the world outside the museum is a delusion and that only within its walls is a true life possible.
We know nothing except that we must. We walk the familiar and always changing halls now in amusement, now in skepticism, now seeing little but cleverness in the whole questionable enterprise, now struck with enchantment.
If the Barnum Museum were to disappear, we would continue to live our lives much as before, but we know we would experience a terrible sense of diminishment.
My first visit to the meta-fictional universe of Steven Millhauser was full of surprises, most of them pleasant, only rarely repetitive and boring. Most importantly, this collection is, like the stories of Italo Calvino, a challenge and an invitation to the reader to become an active participant in the creative process, with the author only providing a guiding hand and a few landmarks, all the interpretative labour left to the done by the visitor. [ ... attempts have been made to disguise or blur the intermingling of passages and create confusion in the unwary wanderer. ]
As we progress from one story to the next, it becomes evident that these are not random episodes or simple exercises in style, but variations on the themes of the labyrinth and on the porous border between reality and dream. My own pet interpretation is that the Barnum Museum represents literature made architecture.
A Game of Clue [4/5] is exactly what it says on the cover: the description of a session of puzzle solving, made easier to unravel for me by a recent replay of the classic 1985 comedy. Millhauser captures the frantic pace and the confusion of the twisted plot, but adds his own signature moves of mingling fictional space with real space and with the inner mindscapes of both players and board actors.
The flatness of the board startles him: it is a depthless world, devoid of shadow. There are no rooms, no doors, no secret passages, only the glare of the overhead light on the black lines, the yellow spaces. For a moment he wants to shout: is that all? is that all?
Behind the Blue Curtain [4/5] moves the setting from the game board to the silver screen of an old movie theatre, where a young boy experiences something similar to Woody Allen’s “Purple Rose of Cairo” shift in reality.
The beings behind the curtain had nothing to do with childish flip-books or the long strips of gray negatives hanging in the kitchen from silver clips. They led their exalted lives beyond mine, in some other realm entirely, shining, desirable, impenetrable.
The Barnum Museum [5/5] gives not only the title, but is the true anchor of the collection, an exuberant celebration of diversity and weirdness, a playful-serious exploration of yearning coupled with anxiety.
The meaning of the exhibits is obscure. It is possible that the directors of the museum wish to enhance the reality of the other displays by distinguishing them from this one? Or is it rather that the directors here wittily or brazenly allude to the nature of the entire museum? Another interpretation presents itself: that the directors intend no meaning, but merely wish to pique our interest, to stimulate our curiosity, to lure us by whatever means deeper and deeper into the museum.
The references to M. C. Escher and my own parallels with the style of Calvino were reinforced by the use of first-person plural narration, by the ironic tone and by the deliberate deconstruction of the story into the role of fiction in our lives. The more books we read, the more we want to add to our collection.
It is said that if you enter the Barnum Museum by a particular doorway at noon and manage to find your way back by three, the doorway through which you entered will no longer lead to the street, but to a new room, whose doors give glimpses of further rooms and doorways.
I would argue that we are most sharply aware of our town when we leave it to enter the Barnum Museum, without our museum, we would pass through life as in a daze or dream.
The Sepia Postcard [4/5] has a lonely traveller to a sea-side resort in the rainy off-season, where he manages to discover a new labyrinth in a tiny bookstore [ ... a warren of small rooms connected by short dark passages lined with books. ], a more whimsical and sad version of the Barnum mega-structure.
There is a poetry of old postcards, which belong in the same realm as hurly-gurdy tunes, merry-go-round horses, circus sideshows, silent black-and-white cartoons, tissue-paper-covered illustrations, old movie theaters, kaleidoscopes, and storm-faded figureheads of women with their wooden hair blown back.
The Eighth Voyage of Sindbad [4/5] reminds me of an earlier lecture this year from John Barth, another American deconstructionist. Like Barth, Millhauser explores multiple variations of the art of the storyteller with the help of the traditional template from the Arabian Nights.
Klassik Komix #1 [3/5] is one of the stories that left me less convinced about the author’s effort to make a paper labyrinth by describing in words each panel picture of a comic album, an eminently visual art form. The story does have its own charm in the way it lets the characters in the comic album gain free will and self-awareness.
Rain [5/5] is a little shorter than the other novellas, but more impressive to me, in a Ray Bradbury fashion, for the poetry of loneliness and its more clear horror flavour.
The rain was falling harder. It hammered against the car top like sharp fingernails drumming against a metal table. Who will come? No one comes, no one will ever come, though the fingernails drum drum drum against the metal table.
Alice, Falling [3/5] introduces a vertical labyrinth under the influence of erratic gravity, a tunnel whose walls are filled with household items. Falling slowly down is Alice from Lewis Carroll’s famous portal fantasies.
But if the fall never ends, then everything is changed: the fall itself becomes the adventure, and the tunnel through which she is falling becomes the unknown world, with its magic and mystery.
The stream of conscience from Alice touches on the real friendship between Lewis Carroll and the children who inspired him. Intellectually, I responded positively to the exercise, but frankly by this time I was starting to get bored by the endless repetitions of the labyrinth and by the extended, detailed descriptions of ordinary items.
The Invention of Robert Herendeen [4/5] is an oddball variation of the Pygmalion myth, with a young man who takes refuge from the world into his own mind. His powerful imagination conjures a beautiful woman, builds her a house and a history.
We are such stuff and nonsense as dreams are made of.
His creation becomes so life-like that he is unable to make the distinction between the real and the imaginary world, while the woman gains free will and rebels against the life scripted by her creator.
Eisenheim the Illusionist [5/5] ends the collection on a high note, with the most coherent and complex plot, the most polished lead character and the inevitable conclusions of the meta-fictional exercise.
Stories, like conjuring tricks, are invented because history is inadequate to our dreams, but in this case it is reasonable to suppose that the future master had been profoundly affected by some early experience of conjuring.
Like Mr. Herendeen in the previous novella, the magician Eisenheim captures the audience’s imagination with impossible feats of imagination, conjuring real people with the power of his mind. It’s exactly what a writer of fiction does for us readers, isn’t it? Or is all a trick of the light?
In this the master illusionist was rejecting the modern conjurer’s increasing reliance on machinery and returning the spectator to the troubled heart of magic, which yearned beyond the constricting world of ingenuity and artifice toward the dark realm of transgression.
Are dreams a dangerous form of transgression, a sick retreat from our real life? or a coping mechanism, a way of enriching our existence?
The police of the Hapsburg empire want to arrest Eisenheim as a trickster and a subversive influence on the population, maintaining ... that certain distinctions must be strictly maintained. Art and life constitute one such distinction; illusion and reality, another. Eisenheim deliberately crossed boundaries and therefore disturbed the essence of things.
Even today as in 1900, some people want to ban books and to cancel authors who dare to explore tabu subjects or who claim that imaginary worlds are there to teach us how to live better in the real world. I believe the essence of things is to change, and not to become stagnant (I’m reading Octavia Butler right now, by the way) and that provocative stories like these here are a healthy exercise of the imagination.
January 22, 2011
The driest and most difficult of Millhauser's collections, with only maybe a 50-60% success rate, but more richly varied than the others and full of alluring ideas even in the stories that don't work. It's hard to talk about Millhauser in general terms -- you can say things like, "he's interested in imagination and creation and the mysteries of art and narrative, and the relationship between reality and artifice, and he loves to overload the reader with physical details," and that would be true, but would sound cornier and less fun than Millhauser's actual writing (although, this particular book is often not particularly fun -- SM was working out some more experimental ideas that, as far as I know, he hasn't really returned to since, maybe because they weren't all that fun), so I think I'll just go story by story here:
A Game of Clue: If you've read the "Cat and Mouse" story in Dangerous Laughter (and you should), which delves into the inner lives of a cartoon cat and cartoon mouse locked in a predator-prey struggle of gamesmanship, this story has a similar operating principle, but with the characters in the board game Clue. Millhauser toggles between the potential murderers in the game and the family members playing the game in (our) reality. Col. Mustard is a rape-y playboy who won't quit until he seduces Miss Scarlet; Prof. Plum is addicted to wandering the seemingly endless secret passageways of the mansion; Mr. Green is a damnably indecisive nebbish who spends pages waffling on what room he should or should not enter; meanwhile, the psyches of the players are plumbed as well, creating two distinct layers of reality. It's a great idea and for the most part well-executed, but it has a circular structure that means the story could have gone on for hundreds of pages, and Millhauser just stops it abruptly after about 50, with no clear resolution in either reality. But it's a cool world to hang out in.
Behind the Blue Curtain: This is one with a good idea that doesn't really work. A boy goes to the movies by himself for the first time, and wanders behind the screen where he finds movie characters hanging out in real life. This premise could have led anywhere but Millhauser fashions only a vague and banal bit of sexual awakening in the boy's experience with one of the lady film characters. Disappointing.
The Barnum Museum: This is classic Millhauser, an exploration of a fictional institution of strange enchantment. The titular museum's fantastical exhibitions are described in Millhauser's great verbless sentences, lists of strange objects and creatures, while equal attention is given to the human reactions to the museum, to what it has done to the residents of its town. SM has written half a dozen stories with pretty much this same format, and they're always great.
The Sepia Postcard: Very dry, dull. I'm not sure what he was going for here but a bit of googling suggests it might be some kind of Henry James pastiche.
The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad: Also dry but worthwhile. Millhauser explores the nature of narrative itself on three tracks: a first-person retelling of some of Sinbad's adventures, a third-person account of Sinbad's melancholy reminiscences as an old man, and a meta-history of the Sinbad story itself. Full of cool ideas.
Klassik Komix #1: I stopped reading this one when I realized it was a retelling of a T.S. Eliot poem that I was only vaguely familiar with. Boring unless you're an Alfred Prufrock scholar.
Rain: I honestly have no idea where he was going with his one. A guy comes out of a theater in the rain, drives home in the rain, and then melts into the rain, or dissolves, or something? I have no idea. I don't mind Millhauser's deluge of detail when it's in service of some Millhauser-y obsessive fascination, but this was just a trial.
Alice, Falling: Millhauser's riff on Alice in Wonderland. The premise is that when Alice jumped down the rabbit hole, she stayed in a perpetual state of falling and never actually got to Wonderland. The descriptions of the walls of the hole/tunnel are a bit much, but SM gets to play around with different levels of dream and reality to mostly interesting effect.
The Invention of Robert Herendeen: OK, Millhauser saved the two best for last. This story is like if the movie Weird Science was written by Vladimir Nabokov. A wannabe artist, unmotivated for life after finishing college, creates a female companion out of his obsessively detailed imagination, but ends up creating a male rival as well. Herendeen gets lost in his new reality, but we can't always control our imaginations...great stuff, written in a more ornate prose style than the other stories (more similar to Millhauser's Nabokovian novel Edwin Mullhouse).
Eisenheim the Illusionist: One of his most famous pieces thanks to Neil Burger's loose film adaptation The Illusionist. A turn-of-the-century magician forsakes elaborate mechanical tricks in favor of manifestations that seem to be conjured out of supernatural powers. A great encapsulation of Millhauser's enduring interest in the limits of reality and "the indestructible realm of mystery and dream." Suspenseful, weird, beautiful -- one of his best.
Although I prefer his later collections like The Knife Thrower and Dangerous Laughter and would recommend neophytes start with those, there is a slightly formulaic quality to those stories that isn't present here, so even though this book frustrated me I appreciated it for opening up Millhauser's range. I understand he has a new collection coming out this year with the great title We Others, so start getting caught up now!
A Game of Clue: If you've read the "Cat and Mouse" story in Dangerous Laughter (and you should), which delves into the inner lives of a cartoon cat and cartoon mouse locked in a predator-prey struggle of gamesmanship, this story has a similar operating principle, but with the characters in the board game Clue. Millhauser toggles between the potential murderers in the game and the family members playing the game in (our) reality. Col. Mustard is a rape-y playboy who won't quit until he seduces Miss Scarlet; Prof. Plum is addicted to wandering the seemingly endless secret passageways of the mansion; Mr. Green is a damnably indecisive nebbish who spends pages waffling on what room he should or should not enter; meanwhile, the psyches of the players are plumbed as well, creating two distinct layers of reality. It's a great idea and for the most part well-executed, but it has a circular structure that means the story could have gone on for hundreds of pages, and Millhauser just stops it abruptly after about 50, with no clear resolution in either reality. But it's a cool world to hang out in.
Behind the Blue Curtain: This is one with a good idea that doesn't really work. A boy goes to the movies by himself for the first time, and wanders behind the screen where he finds movie characters hanging out in real life. This premise could have led anywhere but Millhauser fashions only a vague and banal bit of sexual awakening in the boy's experience with one of the lady film characters. Disappointing.
The Barnum Museum: This is classic Millhauser, an exploration of a fictional institution of strange enchantment. The titular museum's fantastical exhibitions are described in Millhauser's great verbless sentences, lists of strange objects and creatures, while equal attention is given to the human reactions to the museum, to what it has done to the residents of its town. SM has written half a dozen stories with pretty much this same format, and they're always great.
The Sepia Postcard: Very dry, dull. I'm not sure what he was going for here but a bit of googling suggests it might be some kind of Henry James pastiche.
The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad: Also dry but worthwhile. Millhauser explores the nature of narrative itself on three tracks: a first-person retelling of some of Sinbad's adventures, a third-person account of Sinbad's melancholy reminiscences as an old man, and a meta-history of the Sinbad story itself. Full of cool ideas.
Klassik Komix #1: I stopped reading this one when I realized it was a retelling of a T.S. Eliot poem that I was only vaguely familiar with. Boring unless you're an Alfred Prufrock scholar.
Rain: I honestly have no idea where he was going with his one. A guy comes out of a theater in the rain, drives home in the rain, and then melts into the rain, or dissolves, or something? I have no idea. I don't mind Millhauser's deluge of detail when it's in service of some Millhauser-y obsessive fascination, but this was just a trial.
Alice, Falling: Millhauser's riff on Alice in Wonderland. The premise is that when Alice jumped down the rabbit hole, she stayed in a perpetual state of falling and never actually got to Wonderland. The descriptions of the walls of the hole/tunnel are a bit much, but SM gets to play around with different levels of dream and reality to mostly interesting effect.
The Invention of Robert Herendeen: OK, Millhauser saved the two best for last. This story is like if the movie Weird Science was written by Vladimir Nabokov. A wannabe artist, unmotivated for life after finishing college, creates a female companion out of his obsessively detailed imagination, but ends up creating a male rival as well. Herendeen gets lost in his new reality, but we can't always control our imaginations...great stuff, written in a more ornate prose style than the other stories (more similar to Millhauser's Nabokovian novel Edwin Mullhouse).
Eisenheim the Illusionist: One of his most famous pieces thanks to Neil Burger's loose film adaptation The Illusionist. A turn-of-the-century magician forsakes elaborate mechanical tricks in favor of manifestations that seem to be conjured out of supernatural powers. A great encapsulation of Millhauser's enduring interest in the limits of reality and "the indestructible realm of mystery and dream." Suspenseful, weird, beautiful -- one of his best.
Although I prefer his later collections like The Knife Thrower and Dangerous Laughter and would recommend neophytes start with those, there is a slightly formulaic quality to those stories that isn't present here, so even though this book frustrated me I appreciated it for opening up Millhauser's range. I understand he has a new collection coming out this year with the great title We Others, so start getting caught up now!
January 19, 2021
‘Museo Barnum’ (2020), del estadounidense Steven Millhauser, nos trae cinco relatos extraídos de The Barnum Museum (1990), que constaba de diez cuentos. Me resulta incomprensible por qué no se ha editado el libro completo. Dejando esto a un lado, Millhauser me parece un autor maravilloso. Mezcla realidad y ficción, siendo así que yo lo encuadraría en el género fantástico. Sus historias nos hablan de un mundo que no fue, pero que bien pudo ser, con un deje de nostalgia.
Museo Barnum. Mediante breves fragmentos, conocemos este fantástico museo, laberíntico, con una arquitectura fabulosa, con maravillas múltiples, como sirenas, grifos, dejándonos la confusa sensación de que pueda o no ser real. En mi opinión, el mejor relato del libro.
La invención de Robert Herendeen. El protagonista tiene un don, es capaz de imaginar cualquier cosa hasta el más mínimo detalle llegando a parecer real en su mente. Un día decide probar con una mujer.
El octavo viaje de Sinbad. El autor utiliza cuatro líneas argumentales. En una nos narra un viaje de Sinbad. En otra se nos muestra a un Sinbad anciano, recordando o no su pasado. En otra rememora los diferentes acercamientos al personaje en la literatura, traducciones y demás. Y por último, el propio autor nos cuenta sus recuerdos infantiles.
La postal sepia. El protagonista adquiere una postal que cambia paulatinamente.
Eisenheim, el ilusionista. Relato que se adaptó al cine bajo el título de El ilusionista, narra la vida de este mago vienés cuyos prodigios llegan a los sublime. Magnífico relato, y película.
Museo Barnum. Mediante breves fragmentos, conocemos este fantástico museo, laberíntico, con una arquitectura fabulosa, con maravillas múltiples, como sirenas, grifos, dejándonos la confusa sensación de que pueda o no ser real. En mi opinión, el mejor relato del libro.
La invención de Robert Herendeen. El protagonista tiene un don, es capaz de imaginar cualquier cosa hasta el más mínimo detalle llegando a parecer real en su mente. Un día decide probar con una mujer.
El octavo viaje de Sinbad. El autor utiliza cuatro líneas argumentales. En una nos narra un viaje de Sinbad. En otra se nos muestra a un Sinbad anciano, recordando o no su pasado. En otra rememora los diferentes acercamientos al personaje en la literatura, traducciones y demás. Y por último, el propio autor nos cuenta sus recuerdos infantiles.
La postal sepia. El protagonista adquiere una postal que cambia paulatinamente.
Eisenheim, el ilusionista. Relato que se adaptó al cine bajo el título de El ilusionista, narra la vida de este mago vienés cuyos prodigios llegan a los sublime. Magnífico relato, y película.
January 29, 2017
I read this collection of stories by Steven Millhauser for two reasons. First, I read The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern last year, and I've seen several people comparing that book to The Barnum Museum and Millhauser in general. Second, I really enjoyed the movie The Illusionist, and this collection contains the short story that inspired the film.
So how did it turn out? Overall, it was good. Millhauser writes like a slightly more surrealist Borges with a dash of Eco thrown in. Some of the stories were, from my perspective, phenomenally good. Some just fell flat. I usually rate collections of short stories by rating each story and then giving an average rating to the whole book. So here are the individual stories:
"A Game of Clue" 1 star
I am glad that I pressed on with the book after reading this story, because I very nearly didn't. Most of Millhauser's stories leave a clear sensation or impression in the mind of the reader; all the divergent and disjointed elements that cannot be logically combined still conjure up a single vivid emotional state or idea that sticks around. "A Game of Clue" went in too many different directions and dragged on for far too long. I'm not sure why the editor decided to place this story front and center.
"Behind the Blue Curtain" 3 stars
A boy's first trip to the theater alone leads to an interesting discovery about the nature of movies.
"The Barnum Museum" 5 stars
This should have been the first story in this collection. It is fantastic and evocative.
"The Sepia Postcard" 4 stars
"The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad" 5 stars
This is probably the most Umberto Eco-ish story in the collection, and it's also very good.
"Klassik Komix #1" 4 stars
At first I thought this one was too surreal to be worthwhile until I neared the end and realized what the author was doing.
"Rain" 3 stars
"Alice, Falling" 2 stars
"The Invention of Robert Herendeen" 4 stars
"Eisenheim the Illusionist" 5 stars
Average rating: 3.6
My recommendation: If you like surrealist writing, read this book. But skip the first story; it's not worth your time.
So how did it turn out? Overall, it was good. Millhauser writes like a slightly more surrealist Borges with a dash of Eco thrown in. Some of the stories were, from my perspective, phenomenally good. Some just fell flat. I usually rate collections of short stories by rating each story and then giving an average rating to the whole book. So here are the individual stories:
"A Game of Clue" 1 star
I am glad that I pressed on with the book after reading this story, because I very nearly didn't. Most of Millhauser's stories leave a clear sensation or impression in the mind of the reader; all the divergent and disjointed elements that cannot be logically combined still conjure up a single vivid emotional state or idea that sticks around. "A Game of Clue" went in too many different directions and dragged on for far too long. I'm not sure why the editor decided to place this story front and center.
"Behind the Blue Curtain" 3 stars
A boy's first trip to the theater alone leads to an interesting discovery about the nature of movies.
"The Barnum Museum" 5 stars
This should have been the first story in this collection. It is fantastic and evocative.
"The Sepia Postcard" 4 stars
"The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad" 5 stars
This is probably the most Umberto Eco-ish story in the collection, and it's also very good.
"Klassik Komix #1" 4 stars
At first I thought this one was too surreal to be worthwhile until I neared the end and realized what the author was doing.
"Rain" 3 stars
"Alice, Falling" 2 stars
"The Invention of Robert Herendeen" 4 stars
"Eisenheim the Illusionist" 5 stars
Average rating: 3.6
My recommendation: If you like surrealist writing, read this book. But skip the first story; it's not worth your time.
November 29, 2007
Mostly these stories are forgettable and in many cases, a struggle to read and enjoy. In fact, I felt that most of these weren't even stories, but rather, long treatise on subject, or location, or mood.
Only the last story, "Eisenheim the Illusionist" struck any chord in me. It was as if all the other pieces were working up to putting the various elements together and producing "Eisenheim" -- though even the story of "Eisenheim" is not worthy of such a long preamble.
I love the short story as a literary form, and Millhauser seemed to be pushing the boundaries of what makes a short story, and for that I give him credit. Unfortunately, most of his attempts seem to fail.
I would not recommend this collection.
Only the last story, "Eisenheim the Illusionist" struck any chord in me. It was as if all the other pieces were working up to putting the various elements together and producing "Eisenheim" -- though even the story of "Eisenheim" is not worthy of such a long preamble.
I love the short story as a literary form, and Millhauser seemed to be pushing the boundaries of what makes a short story, and for that I give him credit. Unfortunately, most of his attempts seem to fail.
I would not recommend this collection.
August 19, 2017
Ten short stories gently probing secret boundaries of the imagined, and beyond.
Thrilling, thought-provoking, seductive.
It's the sort of writing one reads without realizing they're holding their breath, and, when arriving at this realization, it doesn't much matter as remembering how to breathe without conscious thought to its bodily mechanics seems secondary to what's truly important.
I enjoyed these quite a bit, and would have liked to wander a bit more in underground exhibits or through the back passages lit by lamp and flame, or fallen a bit deeper, or traversed one more dark step.
I find it oddly curious how something as benign as a lobster buoy hanging on a wall can stick so long after reading...
Thrilling, thought-provoking, seductive.
It's the sort of writing one reads without realizing they're holding their breath, and, when arriving at this realization, it doesn't much matter as remembering how to breathe without conscious thought to its bodily mechanics seems secondary to what's truly important.
I enjoyed these quite a bit, and would have liked to wander a bit more in underground exhibits or through the back passages lit by lamp and flame, or fallen a bit deeper, or traversed one more dark step.
I find it oddly curious how something as benign as a lobster buoy hanging on a wall can stick so long after reading...
December 3, 2014
Steven Millhauser sure has a flair for detail. I don't think I'll ever approach the game of Clue again without imagining the personalities of each of the characters in rich detail.
Also, I really want one of those little pink rubber balls. You know the ones that have the little line of flashing all the way around? About 3 inches in diameter?
But I don't think I would even call these stories. Some are. I don't even know how to characterize the other ones.
The reason I read this was for the story Klassik Komix #1, which is a panel-by-panel description of a comic book (based on a T.S. Eliot poem). But even the story contained in the comic book doesn't follow normal convention.
In some ways I want to rate this a 5 for creativity and thinking outside the box. In some ways I want to rate it a 2 for being befuddling and nonsensical. I'll leave it at a 3. The writing just didn't grab me, I guess. Probably worth reading if you like more experimental writing - but at the time, I just wasn't in the mindset.
Also, I really want one of those little pink rubber balls. You know the ones that have the little line of flashing all the way around? About 3 inches in diameter?
But I don't think I would even call these stories. Some are. I don't even know how to characterize the other ones.
The reason I read this was for the story Klassik Komix #1, which is a panel-by-panel description of a comic book (based on a T.S. Eliot poem). But even the story contained in the comic book doesn't follow normal convention.
In some ways I want to rate this a 5 for creativity and thinking outside the box. In some ways I want to rate it a 2 for being befuddling and nonsensical. I'll leave it at a 3. The writing just didn't grab me, I guess. Probably worth reading if you like more experimental writing - but at the time, I just wasn't in the mindset.
February 17, 2017
This book is going to be all about personal preference. This is a great example of the literary short story that places detail over plot. His writing is very accomplished, and he uses detail to a level that makes everything he describes perfectly real in your mind.
But for me, holy smoking Mary, I was bored.
Personal story highlights within this collection: The Barnum Museum, Eisenheim The Illusionist.
The rest all have merits, but if you're looking for stories with a beginning, middle and end, you ain't gonna find 'em. Finishing this book was, for me, like pulling teeth with greased tweezers.
But for me, holy smoking Mary, I was bored.
Personal story highlights within this collection: The Barnum Museum, Eisenheim The Illusionist.
The rest all have merits, but if you're looking for stories with a beginning, middle and end, you ain't gonna find 'em. Finishing this book was, for me, like pulling teeth with greased tweezers.
January 25, 2021
Like being swept along by a waterfall of many cascades. The fascination and satisfaction of passing from one room to the next. There is lucid discovery in each of the stories. Their slightly faded or broken or antique art direction adds weight and mystery to ordinary objects, like someone opening the attic of their deep past to ask the myth of their own origin.
VERY compelling, sympathetic.
I hate when reviewers pick out favorite stories -- I feel it skews one's own reading. That said, 'Alice Falling' is a dynamic tumbling, a perpetually unfolding origami, its paper printed on three or four sides.
DO read this!
July 23, 2022
I liked the first story, about the board game Clue and the last, about a Viennese magician, which is the basis of the film The Illusionist, and which MD might like. The rest didn't really do too much for me.
November 6, 2018
mükemmel dil, kusursuz üslup ve kurgu. Yer yer sıkılan okurlar olacaktır ama bu kitabın eksikliğinden değil.
March 31, 2014
I could not get into this book at all. The characters were shallow, the writing was dull. I have no idea why he won a Pulitzer prize. To be fair, I didn't actually finish any of the stories, but I did read six pages of Alice, Falling before I got bored. I also tried to read two pages of A Game of Clue, but was put off by the lack of ANYTHING INTERESTING HAPPENING AT ALL. I'd be interested in the description of something as mundane as a Clue board game if it had any life or beauty, but this was like reading a textbook. Don't waste your time on this book, ever.
Can I give negative stars, please?
Can I give negative stars, please?
July 16, 2014
Very interesting. The "Clue" story was fascinating, and the title story was enthralling. Millhauser creates a great atmosphere with his words, and really puts the reader into the location. However, many of the stories lacked sufficient plot or motivation or resolution to really feel satisfying. Definitely worth a read, though.
Read
December 22, 2017This was a real toss up, but three stories (The BM obviously, Alice, Falling and Eisenheim the Illusionist) made the entire collection worth it for me. Magical (even if the physical descriptions could sometimes fall into cliches) and strange!
September 26, 2021
فوق العاده بود
گذر از یک نسل به نسل دیگه، برخورد افراد با تغییرات با تفاوت
حالت تدافعی یا تهاجمی افراد هنگام فروریختن ارزش ها و یا جایگزین شدن آن ها با ارزش های جدید..
دوست داشتنی و قشنگ
این کتاب تجربه یک دنیای جدید بود
گذر از یک نسل به نسل دیگه، برخورد افراد با تغییرات با تفاوت
حالت تدافعی یا تهاجمی افراد هنگام فروریختن ارزش ها و یا جایگزین شدن آن ها با ارزش های جدید..
دوست داشتنی و قشنگ
این کتاب تجربه یک دنیای جدید بود
June 3, 2009
I learned that when it comes to a collection of short stories by the same author, I should stop after the third if I'm not enjoying them.
April 12, 2020
The weirdest book I have ever read
August 31, 2023
Gorgeous book of short stories, impossibly visual. Possibly one of my favourite books ever from now on.
looks-interesting-maybe-read
November 21, 2007Contains the story "Eisenheim the Illusionist" on which the move "The Illusionist" was based.
December 19, 2021
Not Millhauser's best work. While credit should be given to him for practically inventing literary Steampunk, his stories often metastasize into sprawling, overwritten inventories of minutiae in service to god-knows-what. The first story in the book is 60 PAGES when it should have been 20, tops. While I'm not a fan of characters just sitting around talking about their feelings, and Millhauser certainly knows how to create atmosphere, he tends to revisit the same territory to the point of predictability: Endless rhetorical questions are asked of the reader, there's bound to be a "warren of hidden rooms," architecture is described ad nauseum, weird sexual repressions rooted in childhood ...
And not to sound like a MFA creative writing workshop millennial malcontent working undercover for the PC Police, but I don't think I've ever seen a single person of color in any of this stories. I could be wrong about this--I guess Sinbad counts--but even that story has all kinds of painfully clunky allusions to apes and primitive cultures. Millhauser rarely employs dialogue and when he does, characters pontificate pretentiously as their onstage. One of the stories, "Klassik Komix #1," is sectioned into panels--but the the story itself really offers nothing at all other than the (literal) framing device. Not to snark, but Robert Coover, Jesse Ball and Brian Evenson do this sort of thing much better and more concisely. Millhauser doesn't get out of the house much, I would guess. His writing often feels closed-off and 2-dimensional when a short story needs to have 3 or 4 dimensions--something beyond clever conceptualization racking up a high word count.
I still love Millhauser. Stories like "The Dome," "In the Reign of Harad IV," "A Visit" and "Eisenheim the Illusionist" are masterpieces. And this is a very early collection of his (1990)--so one must bear that in mind. His more recent stories are, IMHO, better.
And not to sound like a MFA creative writing workshop millennial malcontent working undercover for the PC Police, but I don't think I've ever seen a single person of color in any of this stories. I could be wrong about this--I guess Sinbad counts--but even that story has all kinds of painfully clunky allusions to apes and primitive cultures. Millhauser rarely employs dialogue and when he does, characters pontificate pretentiously as their onstage. One of the stories, "Klassik Komix #1," is sectioned into panels--but the the story itself really offers nothing at all other than the (literal) framing device. Not to snark, but Robert Coover, Jesse Ball and Brian Evenson do this sort of thing much better and more concisely. Millhauser doesn't get out of the house much, I would guess. His writing often feels closed-off and 2-dimensional when a short story needs to have 3 or 4 dimensions--something beyond clever conceptualization racking up a high word count.
I still love Millhauser. Stories like "The Dome," "In the Reign of Harad IV," "A Visit" and "Eisenheim the Illusionist" are masterpieces. And this is a very early collection of his (1990)--so one must bear that in mind. His more recent stories are, IMHO, better.
August 22, 2021
Una colección de cuentos preciosos en verdad. Me gusta el coqueteo con Borges que desarrolla Millhauser, especialmente en El octavo viaje de Sinbad, en el que de algún modo propone una disección de la historia y el relato en diferentes vivencias (la del viaje en sí, la del recuerdo, la de la narración y la cristalización en la boca de Sherezade, la de los filólogos que rastrean los códices originales, etc). También juega un rato a ser Borges en el cuento que da nombre al libro, y recorre la infinitud del Museo Barnum, lugar de límites imprecisos y jamás explorado del todo encierra una de las colecciones más interesantes de la bizarría, el arte, y los objetos encontrados.
Ese coqueteo no le resta imaginación a la mente de Millhauser, tal como queda de manifiesto en el último relato, Eisenheim, el ilusionista. Este cuento es una belleza, pequeña obra maestra en la que Millhauser vuelve a la época que había descrito en su nouvelle August Eschenburg y se desplaza a Mitteleuropa, al Viena de Franz Joseph, en decadencia irremediable y adicta a los valses, el teatro y los juegos ominosos del ser y el parecer (un espíritu que verdaderamente existió, casi como prólogo del Apocalipsis del Imperio Austrohúngaro tras el estallido de la Gran Guerra). En ese escenario la imaginería de Eisenheim / Millhauser se despliega en actos de magia cada vez más extraños y fascinantes hasta un final que presdigita el de toda esa sociedad vienesa.
El resto de la colección es bueno, aunque cuando se aleja del mundo ominoso para meterse con cierto realismo sucio a lo Raymond Carver, pierde algo de su fuerza vital. El entramado de lo real solo es una excusa para que lo ominoso se haga presente, no al revés. Cuanto mayor conciencia del plano ficcional, más alto vuela la escritura del norteamericano.
Ese coqueteo no le resta imaginación a la mente de Millhauser, tal como queda de manifiesto en el último relato, Eisenheim, el ilusionista. Este cuento es una belleza, pequeña obra maestra en la que Millhauser vuelve a la época que había descrito en su nouvelle August Eschenburg y se desplaza a Mitteleuropa, al Viena de Franz Joseph, en decadencia irremediable y adicta a los valses, el teatro y los juegos ominosos del ser y el parecer (un espíritu que verdaderamente existió, casi como prólogo del Apocalipsis del Imperio Austrohúngaro tras el estallido de la Gran Guerra). En ese escenario la imaginería de Eisenheim / Millhauser se despliega en actos de magia cada vez más extraños y fascinantes hasta un final que presdigita el de toda esa sociedad vienesa.
El resto de la colección es bueno, aunque cuando se aleja del mundo ominoso para meterse con cierto realismo sucio a lo Raymond Carver, pierde algo de su fuerza vital. El entramado de lo real solo es una excusa para que lo ominoso se haga presente, no al revés. Cuanto mayor conciencia del plano ficcional, más alto vuela la escritura del norteamericano.
June 4, 2025
I'll be honest - I picked this one up solely for Eisenheim The Illusionist, the story on which The Illusionist was loosely based. The story is in many ways better: it focuses on the magician and his illusions, not the romance that is a key part of the film.
Most of the stories feel like they're trying to channel Borges and Calvino, portraying slightly magical worlds, usually with one or more layers of metatextuality. There's one about a game of Clue, which veers between describing the players, describing the literal construction of the physical board, and telling a story about the characters in the game as if they were real people. The one about Sinbad relates the story in both first and third person, interspersed with segments about the various translations. There's one about Alice that tells her story from her own perspective and her sister's perspective, intertwined with commentary about Dodgson and how the story originated. And so on.
The writing style is frequently bizarre and awkward. He loves dividing his stories into short sections, which makes them feel disjointed. He frequently capitalizes words or phrases, especially proper nouns, as if it's a screenplay. Klassic Komix No 1 is written in the form of a comic script: it's a panel by panel description of what's on the page.
Overall I found it tedious and pretentious. Eisenheim is probably the best of the stories, but only as a comparison to the movie.
Most of the stories feel like they're trying to channel Borges and Calvino, portraying slightly magical worlds, usually with one or more layers of metatextuality. There's one about a game of Clue, which veers between describing the players, describing the literal construction of the physical board, and telling a story about the characters in the game as if they were real people. The one about Sinbad relates the story in both first and third person, interspersed with segments about the various translations. There's one about Alice that tells her story from her own perspective and her sister's perspective, intertwined with commentary about Dodgson and how the story originated. And so on.
The writing style is frequently bizarre and awkward. He loves dividing his stories into short sections, which makes them feel disjointed. He frequently capitalizes words or phrases, especially proper nouns, as if it's a screenplay. Klassic Komix No 1 is written in the form of a comic script: it's a panel by panel description of what's on the page.
Overall I found it tedious and pretentious. Eisenheim is probably the best of the stories, but only as a comparison to the movie.
March 18, 2019
Rating: 3/5 stars
I have to admit I have not read anything like this before and it was very hard to read despite it being short.
The book is written in the form of short stories and most of the stories are written so descriptively. They're all vivid, everything is detailed they even describe the box of Cluedo in full detail! If you want to read a surrealism piece, then this is for you. You don't necessarily read it for the narrative, but for the style of writing.
In case you are wondering, the actual story of "Barnum Museum" is only 30-page long. The rest are random short stories. There's one particular story ("Rain") that tells a story of a gentleman's drive from the cinema to his house in the rain................. yeap.
I particularly enjoy two chapters: "The eighth journey of Sinbad" and "The Invention of Robert Herendeen"
I don't mind this book. Just not my cup of tea?
p.s. I would recommend some of the short stories to O'Level and A'Level students. It would help them in writing a descriptive piece for the creative writing paper.
I have to admit I have not read anything like this before and it was very hard to read despite it being short.
The book is written in the form of short stories and most of the stories are written so descriptively. They're all vivid, everything is detailed they even describe the box of Cluedo in full detail! If you want to read a surrealism piece, then this is for you. You don't necessarily read it for the narrative, but for the style of writing.
In case you are wondering, the actual story of "Barnum Museum" is only 30-page long. The rest are random short stories. There's one particular story ("Rain") that tells a story of a gentleman's drive from the cinema to his house in the rain................. yeap.
I particularly enjoy two chapters: "The eighth journey of Sinbad" and "The Invention of Robert Herendeen"
I don't mind this book. Just not my cup of tea?
p.s. I would recommend some of the short stories to O'Level and A'Level students. It would help them in writing a descriptive piece for the creative writing paper.
April 29, 2025
I tried but I just could not finish this one.
The first story revolving around a game of Cluedo was so excruciating to read that I stopped halfway.
I decided that, being a collection of short stories, I’ll move on to next story “Behind the Blue Curtain”. Well, I finished it but it was dry and uneventful. 2/10
The title story “The Barnum Museum” was mystical and a kind of celebration of creativity and not much else. 3/10
“The Sepia Postcard” was the strongest of the 3 stories I finished - it wasn’t great but it was readable and engaging. 6/10
I went to my local park, sat on a bench with a coffee and opened….. and swiftly closed “The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad”….I lasted 3 pages. Awful writing. 0/10
“Klassik Komix #1” was the death knell for me. A comic book story about superheroes - without pictures but listing the dialogue of the speech bubbles and describing the scene. Yes, it sounds kinda quirky and maybe worth a try - but it isn’t.
Apparently it won a Pulitzer - the judges must of been having an off day.
I quit - one of the worst books I’ve almost finished.
The first story revolving around a game of Cluedo was so excruciating to read that I stopped halfway.
I decided that, being a collection of short stories, I’ll move on to next story “Behind the Blue Curtain”. Well, I finished it but it was dry and uneventful. 2/10
The title story “The Barnum Museum” was mystical and a kind of celebration of creativity and not much else. 3/10
“The Sepia Postcard” was the strongest of the 3 stories I finished - it wasn’t great but it was readable and engaging. 6/10
I went to my local park, sat on a bench with a coffee and opened….. and swiftly closed “The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad”….I lasted 3 pages. Awful writing. 0/10
“Klassik Komix #1” was the death knell for me. A comic book story about superheroes - without pictures but listing the dialogue of the speech bubbles and describing the scene. Yes, it sounds kinda quirky and maybe worth a try - but it isn’t.
Apparently it won a Pulitzer - the judges must of been having an off day.
I quit - one of the worst books I’ve almost finished.
July 31, 2019
Fikren sevdiğim ve kurgusuna şapka çıkardığım İpucu Oyunu, The Illusionist'in uyarlandığı Sihirbaz Eisenheim, bir sinemaseverin gündüz düşleri Mavi Perdenin Ardında, Binbir Gece Masalları'na saygı duruşu sayılabilecek Sinbad'ın Sekizinci Yolculuğu, Alice'i bilinç akışıyla yorumlayan Alice'in Düşüşü kitapta sevdiğim öyküler. Tenessee Williams'ın J.Alfred Prufrock şiirinin çizgi roman betimlemesi şeklinde yorumlanış hikayesi Klassik Komix #1 de kendine özgü. Barnum Müzesi, Sepya Kartpostal gibi öykülerde betimlemelerden fazlasını görmeyi ve daha uzun hikaye edilmelerini isterdim. Millhauser'ın fantazyayı yorumlayışı ve üsluba verdiği önem dikkat çekici.
June 12, 2020
Probably 3 3/4 stars. Some wonderful writing, some good ideas; and like many short story collections, a range of styles, tones and methods to convey a vaguely unified combination. I particularly enjoyed 'The Invention of Robert Herendeen' and 'A Game of Clue'. On the negative, there are just a few too many instances of lists, which I always find interrupt the pleasure in the read. But it's a small criticism for writing which otherwise merits close attention.
April 15, 2021
Playful pomo fabulism, interested in tales and their telling, their retelling, their passage into memory, all that jazz. Nothing I haven’t seen done before, and struggles a bit with some friction between compelling ideas and technical execution, but nothing if not deeply imaginative, and it must be noted that I’ve not read anything in a single sitting in ages. Interested in seeing what else Millhauser has up his sleeves.
November 3, 2025
I don't think this book aged well... or I don't know... it was fine.
Short stories... weird.. overly descriptive.
As soon as I read the first few pages, I said to myself... this dude... is either ripping of Poe or really liked his style. To my research... he was influenced by Poe... and you can totally tell... which is why I couldn't get through more than a few things of Poe's.
I also don't think the author liked women... or at least pretty blond women...
A little Norman Bates-y.
Short stories... weird.. overly descriptive.
As soon as I read the first few pages, I said to myself... this dude... is either ripping of Poe or really liked his style. To my research... he was influenced by Poe... and you can totally tell... which is why I couldn't get through more than a few things of Poe's.
I also don't think the author liked women... or at least pretty blond women...
A little Norman Bates-y.
February 20, 2020
Yes, good short stories by an author I enjoy. A bit of the bizarre, approachable. Different than his other stories; more descriptive than spell binding or twisted reality. He goes into detail on shapes, and colors, motion. Some of the stories seemed to go along almost too long because of the descriptions and little plot movement.
January 7, 2022
Nice collection of short stories including Eisenheim the Illusionist, from which the move The Illusionist is based on. The stories were very entertaining and seemed to be a bit more literary than most sci fi/fantasy short stories.
Steven Millhauser seems very talented I should check out some of his other books.
Steven Millhauser seems very talented I should check out some of his other books.
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