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A waxing moon illuminates the inhabitants of a Connecticut town on a steamy summer night.
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Review:
In novels such as Edwin Mullhouse and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Martin Dressler, Steven Millhauser conjured fictions as intricate and delicately formed as soap bubbles. True to form, his Enchanted Night seems to want to float right up out of the reader's hand. In its pages are many of Millhauser's trademark fascinations: dolls; mannequins; an obsessed artist; teenage girls meeting secretly at night; and above all, the strangeness lurking just under the surface of everyday life. Set entirely over the course of one night, Enchanted Night follows the denizens of a Connecticut town as they rise from their beds under the light of a brilliant, almost-full moon. Fourteen-year-old Laura Engstrom wakes to a restlessness so fierce that "if she doesn't do something right away, this second, she'll scream." Middle-aged Haverstraw (who still lives with his mother) writes for hours in the attic, then leaves to wander the streets. Janet Manning trysts with a lover in her yard, and a band of teenage girls breaks into houses only to leave behind the cryptic message "WE ARE YOUR DAUGHTERS." Meanwhile, more magical events are afoot. "This is the night of revelation. This is the night the dolls wake. This is the night of the dreamer in the attic. This is the night of the piper in the woods," a chorus of night voices tells us--and a mannequin begins to stir behind a store window, while all over town, abandoned dolls and stuffed animals come slowly to life.
From the Back Cover:
So far, so good. But somewhere along the way, the fairy dust gets a little thick. Is it the chapter in which the moon goddess ravishes virginal Danny? ("Now she strokes the skin of the sleeping one, now she kisses his eyelids closed in dream, now she stiffens his love-lance with her hand.") Or perhaps the appearance of Pan, "a moon-dancer, a flute-dreamer" making music for the town's children? How about the "Song of the One-Eyed Cuddly Bear" chapter, which reads, in its entirety, "I wuv woo. Does woo wuv me?" The only real danger posed in this wispy novella--"the man with shiny black hair" who stalks Laura in order to add her to his "gallery"--is not actually a threat, we're assured. Millhauser even reduces his bold girl outlaws, with their "pleasure in violation," to sipping midnight lemonade with their victim. And what, really, is magic without danger? Decoration, mostly, though there's nothing particularly wrong with that--just nothing particularly urgent either. None of which is to say that there aren't moments of startling beauty in Enchanted Night. There is no stylist more graceful than Millhauser at his best, and here he writes movingly about the formless yearnings of adolescence and the mortal sweetness of sex. Yet even the prose can't quite animate his novella. In the end, Enchanted Night is a rarefied aesthetic experience that asks for very little back. --Mary Park
"This is the night of revelation. This is the night the dolls wake. This is the night of the dreamer in the attic. This is the night of the piper in the woods".
In his dazzling new work, Pulitzer Prize-winner Steven Millhauser presents a stunningly original tale set in a Connecticut town over one incredible summer night. The improbable cast of characters includes a man who flees the attic where he's been writing his magnum opus every night for the past nine years, a band of teenage girls who break into homes and simply leave notes reading "We Are Your Daughters", and a young woman who meets a dream-like lover on the tree swing in her backyard. A beautiful mannequin steps down from her department store window, and all the dolls left abandoned in the attic and "no longer believed in" magically come to life. Enchanted Night is a remarkable piece of fiction, a compact tale of loneliness and desire that is as hypnotic and rich as the language Millhauser uses to weave it.
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- PublisherDove Booksellers
- Publication date1999
- ISBN 10 0787122742
- ISBN 13 9780787122744
- BindingAudio Cassette
- Rating
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Enchanted Night (Unabridged)
Published by
Dove Audio: New Star Media, West Hollywood, CA
(1992)
ISBN 10: 0787122742
ISBN 13: 9780787122744
Used
Audio Cassette
Quantity: 1
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Rating
Book Description Audio Cassette. Condition: Near Fine. Two Audio Cassette Tapes in Like New condition. Housed in a colorful heavy cardstock box, in Very Good+ to Near Fine condition, showing the publisher's seal cut at the outside edge, but remains bright and clean. The tapes have no doubt been 'experienced' but show no sign of it; overall, remains Very Close to "As New". Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. Running Time: 2.5 Hours. Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.5 x 0.6 inches. Language: English. Weight: 2.8 ounces. Audio Cassette. Steven Millhauser's 'Enchanted Night' is as luminous & rich as a handful of pearls scattered in the moonlight . And that description suits the tone of the novella & its prose, which is more like poetry, evoking the world of the Unconscious & its mysteries. The brief chapters create mood that wraps itself around the listener, who drifts with passage of this single night through that part of life we seldom know in our waking hours, even if we remember fading wisps of it. It has the quality of a vivid dream, capturing both longing & melancholy, reminding us that there's far more to human existence than the mundane duties & obligations that so often weigh us down in daylight. This story is more about atmosphere, memories, and the hushed whisperings of myth than plot. It's filled with shadows, but none of them are too ominous. The reader is invited to float upon the lyrical prose, simply taking in whatever comes, following the various characters through the silent streets and the woods of a small town -- and, if possible, rekindling that intangible but powerful sense of wonder once felt in childhood & adolescence. Millhauser won the Pulitzer Prize in 1997 for his novel "Martin Dressler'. 'Enchanted Night' was published in 1999. 'Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories' made the New York Times Book Review list of 10 Best Books of 2008. Millhauser's narratives often treat fantasy themes in a manner reminiscent of Poe or Borges, with a distinctively American voice. In his fictions mechanical cowboys at penny arcades come to life; curious amusement parks, museums, or catacombs beckon with secret passageways and walking automata; dreamers dream and children fly out their windows at night on magic carpets. Possibly the best-known of his short stories is "Eisenheim the Illusionist" (published in his collection "The Barnum Museum") . It is based on a pseudo-mythical tale of a magician who stunned audiences in Vienna in the latter part of the 19th century. It was made into the film The Illusionist in 2006. Seller Inventory # 57791
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