Edwin Mullhouse : The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943-1954 by Jeffrey Cartwright (Vintage Contemporaries)

Rating:
Summary: An amazing first novel
Review: Much of the "stuff" of the novel has been skillfully described in previous reviews here, so, briefly, let me add that since reading this hauntingly mysterious book, I have been gorging myself on other works of the author. "Martin Dressler", and now, "The Knife Thrower and other Stories". And, I don't plan to stop there. It took me some time to catch on to the darkness beneath "Edwin", and I recommend patience on the part of the new reader of Millhauser's work for the pay-off is glorious, enigmatic, enchanted, and eye-opening.

Rating:
Summary: Childhood Memories Without the Sentimentality
Review: This book manages to capture the sense of discovery and fascination with the tiniest details that a child experiences. But it does so in a very smart, wry and playful way, appreciating the experiences of childhood without sentimentalizing them. It is indeed very Nabakovian in its obsession with memory and the minute details that one remembers from the past. But I found it more ironic and less wistful than Nabokov's Speak Memory. I recommend reading them both and appreciating the similiarities and differences.

Rating:
Summary: This book rearranged my brain.
Review: This book works on more self-reflexive fiction/non-fiction levels than any book I have ever read with the possible exception of Maus - with which it shares a magical ability to make cartoons more real than reality. There are a million great things I can say about this book, (the descriptions, the subtle parody of adult life, the weird set pieces) but I'll just confine myself to the fact that in this novel - like the last book I totally fell in love with, Infinite Jest two years back - all of the really important parts are not written on the page, but in your head. It's not an easy book, like much of Millhauser's work. I almost wish that he didn't win the Pulitzer, after wading through the comments of the legions of knuckleheads who picked up "Martin Dressler" because of its cred and got ticked because it wasn't The Alienist. Parts are confusing and discursive, though never without an inevitable point, and some of the long descriptive passages become interesting only the second time through. Which, for me, began the second I finished the last page. Really, this is an amazing, criminally neglected masterpiece. Reading it is like getting a slow-motion punch to the face. There''s plenty of time to get out of the way, but something compels you to wait and find out if it's actually going to hurt that much when it hits. And, of course, it does - and when the inevitable shot rings out, it's the reader that's pulling the trigger. END

Rating:
Summary: relive childhood
Review: This is like being plugged into a memory machine and reliving your youth. Fantastic. Don't understand why this isn't a much more broadly recognized book.