Rating: 
Summary: A Mesmerizing Tone-Poem to America
Review: Millhauser has given shape to the dangerous and delicious longings of the American night, lit them with the transformative light of a full moon, and cast their elusive shadows across the glittering pavement, down the back-alleys, and over the well-tended lawns of an elusive and familiar American town. This is a book that will enter your consciousness like a vivid dream.
Rating: 
Summary: Great writing, no substance
Review: More like a prose-poem than a novel. Lots of atmosphere, beautiful language, but no point to it. I kept expecting something to happen, some little epiphany. Disappointing. Might be satisfying if you know ahead of time that it's light on plot.
Rating: 
Summary: A charming and imaginative tale
Review: One enchanted night, under a full moon, the loners come out to walk in
the moonlight. The mournful music of a flute calls to children, who
leave their homes and walk into the woods. Dolls long forgotten come
alive and begin to dance, and a mannequin walks out of a store window
and joins a male admirer for a stroll beside the railroad tracks. This
is a short, fanciful tale about magical things than happen under the
full moon when lonely people go out to seek companionship. It was a
very enjoyable, quick read. Very charming.
Rating:
Summary: Gossamer Delicacy and Heady Sensuality
Review: Pulitzer Prize winner Steven Millhauser successfully marries the marvelous to the mundane in his shimmering novella, Enchanted Night. Enchanted Night is the thought chronicle of dozens of insomniacs in a Connecticut seaside suburb: three teenage boys who are attempting to break into a library; a music-mesmerized army of children; a pair of teenaged lovers on the brink of intimacy; an ominous "man with shiny black hair," and a strange band of girls who break into houses only to steal meaningless knick knacks and who leave behind notes proclaiming, WE ARE YOUR DAUGHTERS. These are the human insomniacs. This is Millhauser, so, of course, there are others.There are the dolls, "not dolls in the freshness of their youth...but old, abandoned, dolls, no longer believed in," and there is a chic department store mannequin who "dreams of release, of the dropping of her guard, of the voluptuous fall into motion." These "moon-mad, summer-looney" characters have intentions that range from friendly to sinister to bizarre. Among the bizarre are Haverstraw, a thirty-nine year old man still living with his mother who spends his time working on "an immense project, an experiment in memory," and Mrs. Kasco, the sixty-one year old woman who regrets not having seduced Haverstraw when he (and she) were younger. Perhaps it is not too late; these two strange-but-wonderful characters meet each night for conversation and wrangling over matters as far-out as how "memory keeps turning into conversation." Overall, Millhauser is himself in this book: masterful, erudite, inventive, original, poetic, restrained. There are, however, a few moments when we have to stop, shake our heads and wonder, "What happened?" The most glaring instance encompasses the seven words that make up "Song of the One-Eyed Cuddly Bear." Millhauser's prose is...Millhauser: poetic, lyrical, sensual, heady and delicate all at the same time. The entire novella is shot through with the enchantment of a full moon on a warm August night, perfectly alternating gossamer delicacy, heady sensuality and beguiling magic. For the most part, Enchanted Night works its charm, and, like its characters, we, too, come to dread the sun and instead long for "some unknown place--deeper than dreams, more dangerous than desire."
Rating:
Summary: We are such stuff as dreams are made on....
Review: Summoning the surreal white light of the past winter solstice moon, and having experienced the page turn of the century in Paris, Moscow, London New York - each like fast forwards and flashbacks to the viewing eye as the day rolled toward the Pacific ending - I found I had saved Steven Millhauser's ENCHANTED NIGHT for an eerily timed moment to savour. If ever there were a collection of images to share at such a promising time this little novella is it. Millhauser has deposited tiny thoughts like interrupted dreams that are so special that momentary awakening only pleads for us to return to the dreams. With an uncanny ecomony of words, a plethora of evocative observations, and a page-turning style of staccato images, he provides just enough literary seduction to allow the reader to fold close the book after a scant 100 odd pages, darken the lamp, and luxuriate in our own moonlight the myriad trails toward conclusions that our own dreams complete. And in Milhauser's far better words....O you who wait: this is the night of the opening of the heart. This is an extended poem, a brief novella, a parcel of dreamdust to repeatedly read, at night, alone. Or better - to share with another child of the evening.
Rating:
Summary: Mediocre Moon Mischief
Review: The Moon is often credited for a variety of events on this orb well beyond just moving the oceans about. During, "The Enchanted Night", of Steven Millhauser we learn what happens to one small town in Connecticut. The novella is extremely brief, and many of the pages are only lightly touched with the chosen font. The 109 pages that are used could have been reduced by a third without the white space. If you look with a bit of care at the cover you will correctly anticipate much of what will be presented inside, and unfortunately it is not a great deal. The players and their tales are by necessity brief in the extreme, and as they are spread throughout the book the bits are so brief they only work, as the whole is so brief as well. Most of the story is harmless fun both real and imagined. There is one deviant thrown in for balance that seemed to act as more of an unwanted distraction as anything else. It's hard to pin down what the underlying theme here was supposed to be. However even as the dolls that awaken in some cases pursue another they admire, relationships and their variety are about the most prevalent idea. This is the first work I have read by this Author, and while I will not rush to the next, I will not allow this volume to be the first and final.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Introductory Novella to Milhauser's Bizarre World
Review: This novella tells the story of one peculiar night in a small town that is having difficulty sleeping. Of course there have been other sleepless nights in this small town, but none until this one have been enchanted. When the people of the town cannot sleep, they wander the streets, thinking that they are alone. Little do they know that the rest of the town is experiencing the same insomnia and are also wandering through the night. A girl longs for her beau to come to her lonely window; he does. A man lusts after a manequin in a window; she comes to life. The Pied Piper leads the children through the woods with his magic flute. A girl who decides to moonbathe in the nude is followed by a lusty man and rescued in the nick of time by a guy who lives in his mother's attic. A band of young female thieves enjoy lemonade in the most unlikely of homes. The night is so fantastical that perhaps it was just a dream. Whatever it was, it makes for an enjoyable, short read.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Introductory Novella to Milhauser's Bizarre World
Review: This novella tells the story of one peculiar night in a small town that is having difficulty sleeping. Of course there have been other sleepless nights in this small town, but none until this one have been enchanted. When the people of the town cannot sleep, they wander the streets, thinking that they are alone. Little do they know that the rest of the town is experiencing the same insomnia and are also wandering through the night. A girl longs for her beau to come to her lonely window; he does. A man lusts after a manequin in a window; she comes to life. The Pied Piper leads the children through the woods with his magic flute. A girl who decides to moonbathe in the nude is followed by a lusty man and rescued in the nick of time by a guy who lives in his mother's attic. A band of young female thieves enjoy lemonade in the most unlikely of homes. The night is so fantastical that perhaps it was just a dream. Whatever it was, it makes for an enjoyable, short read.
Rating:
Summary: Dreamy and delightful
Review: This quick read wonderfully describes the goings-on one summer night in a Connecticut suburb. There is great attention to detail here, from the reflection of the red and green of the stoplight in a storefront window, to the steaming coffee in thick white cups as heavy as rocks. An extended metaphor of the moon entices throughout, and Millhauser's prose flows so smooth that I'm sure the amount of work that has gone into these 128 pages rival that of much longer works elsewhere. Different in style from his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "Martin Dressler," this book is a lesson of beautiful writing.
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