shadow-seekers and orphans of the sun

When Martin Dressler: A Tale of an American Dreamer came out in 1996, I was working at a science, technical, and medical book publisher (aka STM). And yes, it was just as exciting as it sounds. Go ahead, ask me about aneurysms. The office was pretty standard, with all of us holed up back-to-back in cubicles with groundhog-hole height walls and no doors. Crummy situation for trying to get any kind of editing done, but a fabulous set-up for commiserating with your neighbor. And I happened to get lucky on that front, as my cube buddy was a book and music aficionado, with taste very close to my own. And that was why I was surprised when he recommended Steven Millhauser's novel to me.

You see, the story of Martin Dressler is a mythical tale, and an American one, no less. And while the story takes place in the very real New York City, I was skeptical at best. I am not a fan of the fantastical in my books. Best to leave it to the special effects wizards of the screen; I prefer my prose and my protagonists to be pragmatic. Anyway. My friend, who had been taught by Millhauser when he attended Skidmore College, suggested I start instead with Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943-1954 by Jeffrey Cartwright. So I did.

And what is it about childhood and expectation in the hands of one who has not yet given it all away? Edwin Mullhouse is a true self-indulgence for those of us no longer in possession of such a view. It is youth in all its wide-eyed majesty, innocent proclamations and generous spirit. It is also terrifying, for perhaps those same reasons as, slowly throughout the novel, Millhauser takes that and brings shadow down upon it. The novel is full of tricks of emotion and of what is known, though it never loses its viewpoint--which is that of "biographer," Edwin's best friend, 12-year-old Jeffrey Cartwright. Jeffrey provides the immediate perspective (and perception) of childhood as witness to everything in his genius friend's life; from Edwin's unique language experiments to the anguish of his creative doubt and a certain second-grade girl. Adult obsession and foolishness alternating between the real and imagined world with the ease of children.

Needless to say, I was intrigued--my sense of pleasure had been challenged. And as I do when I'm in that zone of my brain, I took in all that was available, finishing off In the Penny Arcade, Portrait of a Romantic (a book that apparently had an influence on Jonathan Lethem and Fortress of Solitude), and Little Kingdoms. And, properly prepped, I picked up Martin Dressler. By then it had won a Pulitzer Prize, and like Edwin, it also felt like a book written in its own time; with a world and story so unique that it could come from almost nowhere but Millhauser's brilliant mind.

If I were to outline the plot of Martin Dressler it would sound like pretty standard stuff: 1890s NYC, boy from a working class family makes it huge as a hotel mogul. However, what sets it all apart, and in many ways defies description, is how Millhauser manipulates the reader's notion of dreams; the American Dream; and the subconscious--what is "real" fantastic and what is not--or I might say--is maybe not. You see, as each new hotel is realized so too is a dream--of the conscious and unconscious--and as the dream grows, so too the obsession of realizing it. Essentially this: consider the difficulty of describing a dream you had the night before to someone else--or have one described to you--then build it. Though even that is too literal by half. By the time we arrive at Martin's final creation, The Grand Cosmo, he has made tangible a building with all of the subterranean levels and hidden rooms of an actively sleeping mind--encompassing impossibilities within structure--rooms with trout streams and hallways with bazaars--and the dream has destroyed the dreamer. All accomplished without a wink.

"For he had done as he liked, he had gone his own way, built his castle in the air. And if in the end he had dreamed the wrong dream, the dream that others didn't wish to enter, then that was the way of dreams, it was only to be expected, he had no desire to have dreamt otherwise."

Fantastic stuff indeed. But I'm still not going to read Harry Potter.