Milroy the Magician

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic!
Review: Paul Theroux is one of the finest writers alive and the only one of his books I prefer to Milroy the Magician is My Secret History. Milroy the Magician is brilliantly written and deeply imaginative. If you are thinking of reading this book, treat yourself to a wonderful experience, get a copy now.

Rating:
Summary: Literal magic, as practised by The Great Theroux
Review: Perusing the clunkily-jointed, cliche-addled sentences of "Milroy..."'s reviews, one is far from surprised that Theroux's real achievment in this novel escapes mention: his genius for invention. Who but Paul Theroux could give us a sentence so gorgeous as this (as Milroy removes his tongue magically): "He held it out to me, panting from the effort and then he whimpered, his mouth a great gaping hole, his eyes blazing with ecstasy, and the thing vanished from his hand, leaving a slight ripeness of breath in the air." A gorgeous, plainly-worded, smellable sentence. That's Theroux's magic. And that's the vast, unappreciated pun of this book, which retails the regimen of a Biblically-styled health cult as a sideline, but is really another installment in Theroux's ongoing plea for appreciation. He is a woefully under-appreciated artist. Re-animating Allie Fox (from "The Mosquito Coast") and blessing him with a grander name and supernatural powers, Theroux reminds us that everything written, from ornithological surveys, to grocery lists, are thinly-veiled autobiography. Theroux is that yankee inventor (i.e. Fox); Theroux is that magician (i.e. Millroy). What was Thomas Mann's nickname, after all, but "The Magician"? Theroux, so crafty with his toolbox of earthy, hearty onomatopoets (e.g., "stomp", "clomp", "flap", or the limericky "fossick") builds a complicated object out of words, a breathing, farting, world...is that so common a miracle, considering the current surfeit of crappy prose afoot? That the ending of "Milroy the Magician" is a trifle cinematic, and pat (he's had luck with Hollywood in the past...can we blame him?)is barely a bother. If I read books for their endings, I'd simply skim all those words that come first. Like the reviewers listed. This is my review of their reviews.

Rating:
Summary: Literal magic, as practised by The Great Theroux
Review: Perusing the clunkily-jointed, cliche-addled sentences of "Milroy..."'s reviews, one is far from surprised that Theroux's real achievment in this novel escapes mention: his genius for invention. Who but Paul Theroux could give us a sentence so gorgeous as this (as Milroy removes his tongue magically): "He held it out to me, panting from the effort and then he whimpered, his mouth a great gaping hole, his eyes blazing with ecstasy, and the thing vanished from his hand, leaving a slight ripeness of breath in the air." A gorgeous, plainly-worded, smellable sentence. That's Theroux's magic. And that's the vast, unappreciated pun of this book, which retails the regimen of a Biblically-styled health cult as a sideline, but is really another installment in Theroux's ongoing plea for appreciation. He is a woefully under-appreciated artist. Re-animating Allie Fox (from "The Mosquito Coast") and blessing him with a grander name and supernatural powers, Theroux reminds us that everything written, from ornithological surveys, to grocery lists, are thinly-veiled autobiography. Theroux is that yankee inventor (i.e. Fox); Theroux is that magician (i.e. Millroy). What was Thomas Mann's nickname, after all, but "The Magician"? Theroux, so crafty with his toolbox of earthy, hearty onomatopoets (e.g., "stomp", "clomp", "flap", or the limericky "fossick") builds a complicated object out of words, a breathing, farting, world...is that so common a miracle, considering the current surfeit of crappy prose afoot? That the ending of "Milroy the Magician" is a trifle cinematic, and pat (he's had luck with Hollywood in the past...can we blame him?)is barely a bother. If I read books for their endings, I'd simply skim all those words that come first. Like the reviewers listed. This is my review of their reviews.

Rating:
Summary: macrobiotics in disguise
Review: the story takes place in boston about a man eating brown rice and vegetables and trying to change the world

Rating:
Summary: A fun book with great vegetarian reference and humor
Review: This book captures Massachusetts and both exemplifies and parodies new age dieting. It is a wonderful story with amazing twists and turns.

Rating:
Summary: A fun book with great vegetarian reference and humor
Review: This book captures Massachusetts and both exemplifies and parodies new age dieting. It is a wonderful story with amazing twists and turns.

Rating:
Summary: A riviting mid-life crisis fantasy
Review: What a book! What a man! Who wouldn't want to be Milroy, the magician who can perform miracles and feats of wonder? What young girl wouldn't be fascinated by a caring, devoted health fanatic who can rescue her from the mundane to the wonderful world of "Alice in Wonderland"? And what man in his middle age, beset by paying bills, a boring life and wife, would't want the ending Mr. Theroux gives his protagonist, Milroy. However, Mr. Theroux manages to give this complex and humorous book a satirical twist which is also a political and religious commentary. "Milroy the Magician" could only have been written by a lonely writer lost in his own mid life crisis.This book is Mr. Theroux's fantasy salvation and the reader's riviting entry into one writer's wonderland.

Rating:
Summary: A riviting mid-life crisis fantasy
Review: What a book! What a man! Who wouldn't want to be Milroy, the magician who can perform miracles and feats of wonder? What young girl wouldn't be fascinated by a caring, devoted health fanatic who can rescue her from the mundane to the wonderful world of "Alice in Wonderland"? And what man in his middle age, beset by paying bills, a boring life and wife, would't want the ending Mr. Theroux gives his protagonist, Milroy. However, Mr. Theroux manages to give this complex and humorous book a satirical twist which is also a political and religious commentary. "Milroy the Magician" could only have been written by a lonely writer lost in his own mid life crisis.This book is Mr. Theroux's fantasy salvation and the reader's riviting entry into one writer's wonderland.