January 12, 2011
The Barnum Museum
Growing up hurts.
You remember that first teenage crush, maybe on an older student, maybe even a teacher, and how you thought this person was sooooooo amazingly perfect? How no evidence of mere clay-footed humanness on the part of your object of affection would penetrate the sparkly bubble of adoration you saw hovering about them?
Some years later, did you run into that person again? Something’s very wrong about that later meeting. She’s small-minded and gossipy, or his eyes rove after some barely pubescent girl, or she’s left teaching to engage in some ethically dubious money making, or he’s chapter president of some violently racist organization. Thanks to the addition of years and perspective, they’re just not quite the person you thought they were. The qualities you loved as a foolish kid are still present, but your adoration is rather tempered by the sobering effect of these new discoveries. There’s a tarnish on that shining mental image now, one that you can’t quite scrub away. “How nice to see you again, I really must be going,” and you rush away, more from the evidence of your own teenage stupidity than from the old crush itself, back to your grownup life.
Apparently it takes (me) longer to outgrow the tendency to literary crushes. In my defense, it’s abstract adoration, the love of a mind and a pen, and not so idiotically all-consuming as high school romantic fantasies had been. Still, I’m feeling the awkwardness of the realization that object of my adoration, while still great, is by no means perfect.
I discussed Steven Millhauser’s work some time ago, and I’ve finally taken time to track down some older stories through inter-library loan. And they’re… different. The sense of wonderment was harder to find. There were still moments of perfect prose, and scenes you could practically touch, not just see and hear; but there were long roads between those moments. Long roads full of gratuitous breasts, intrusive fantasies about pubic hair, descriptions of asses in tight white shorts that didn’t contribute anything to the story. Please be aware that I’m not against the appearance of sexuality in literature. Far from it. Sometimes the sex is vital to the story, develops the characters and relationships, or moves the plot along. However, this was not that kind of sexuality. The way these things were brought into the story, both in timing and phrasing, made something cold slither through my stomach. There didn’t seem to be any sort of driving reason behind some of the stories; just streams of words, however pretty those words may be, but without purpose.
I didn’t even read Eisenheim the Illusionist (which was my whole reason for picking up the book) the whole way through. I was so worried that I’d lose my love of the film, that I’d lose my love of Millhauser’s other works, that the tarnish would spread until all the shine was covered up. It turns out I needn’t have worried so much; the film’s romance was a considerable embellishment compared to the brief mention of a thwarted romance in the original story.I did skip Alice, Falling entirely though. If the narrator had felt the need to intrude there with another pointless sexualized description, the tarnish could have spread not only through all my reading of Millhauser, but all the other Alice-inspired works I’ve previously loved. Too great a risk for me.
I still stand by my assessment of Dangerous Laughter – every story in the collection is great. However, I realize now that producing great work does not preclude sometimes producing the mediocre.
