Obsessed with Obsession - Millhauser's Dangerous Laughter

I generally have a stack of books beside my bed, in the backseat of my car, in the kitchen, next to the sofa, you name it. There’s usually something in my life waiting to be read. After my recent move I reshuffled the little stacks and decided it was well past time that I read one of my favorite author’s new offerings. I nearly fell over myself to purchase Steven Millhauser’s new collection of short stories. So, it was about time I read it.

I LOVE Millhauser. I love his delicious descriptions and his story lines. I always feel a little dreamy, almost transported, when reading his work. Sort of the way you feel after a really good first date. This collection is no exception. Divided into three parts, it examines the obsession of obsession.

“Vanishing Acts” looks at risk and escape-be it from a “kingdom of forbidden things” or from a relationship with a troubled girl. Lots of people have hailed the “Cat ‘n’ Mouse” story, and it’s not my favorite, but well worth quoting:

“The mouse, dressed in a bathrobe and slippers, is sitting in his plump armchair, reading a book. He is tall and slim. His feet rest on a hassock, and a pair of spectacles rest on the end of his long, whiskered nose. Yellow light from a table lamp pours onto the book and dimly illuminates the cozy brown room. On the wall hang a tilted sampler bearing the words HOME SWEET HOME, an oval photograph of the mouse's mother with her gray hair in a bun, and a reproduction of Seurat's Sunday Afternoon in which all the figures are mice. Near the armchair is a bookcase filled with books, with several titles visible: Martin Cheddarwit, Gouda's Faust, The Memoirs of Anthony Edam, A History of the Medicheese, the sonnets of Shakespaw. As the mouse reads his book, he reaches without looking toward a dish on the table. The dish is empty: his fingers tap about inside it. The mouse rises and goes over to the cupboard, which is empty except for a tin box with the word CHEESE on it. He opens the box and turns it upside down. Into his palm drops a single toothpick. He gives it a melancholy look. Shaking his head, he returns to his chair and takes up his book. In a bubble above his head a picture appears: he is seated at a long table covered with a white tablecloth. He is holding a fork upright in one fist and a knife upright in the other. A mouse butler dressed in tails sets before him a piece of cheese the size of a wedding cake.

From the mousehole emerges a red telescope. The lens looks to the left, then to the right. A hand issues from the end of the telescope and beckons the mouse forward. The mouse steps from the mousehole, collapses the telescope, and thrusts it into his bathrobe pocket.”

There, that should whet your appetite.

One of my favorites is the story of Harlan Crane. The owner of the “Phantoptic Theater” displays paintings so real that spectators insist that their contents move. Millhauser teases us with the tenuous connection between reality and imagination and as usual leaves us with the true reality of mankind.

A nation covered by increasingly larger and larger domes, a city (which closely resembles modern America) which has become not a mall, but an immense hall of entertainment, museums that enumerate the “New Past” with monopoly pieces and badminton rackets, a “microscope of touch” created by Thomas Edison…there is just so, so much to rave about in this book.

As with a fine wine, this book is best savored in little sips and cherished swallows. Reading it all at once may turn out to be a mistake. You may find the bouquet of the stories diminished if you take them all at one sitting. (I believe I’ve worked this particular metaphor to its fruition)

Trust me, it’s certainly worth a read, and I’m glad it moved to the top of my stack of things to read.