Millhauser the Illusionist
Coming home from work tonight, I heard a review on NPR for the new movie, the Illusionist. The interview with
writer/director Neil Burger and the review definitely piqued my attention, but I
caught my breath when I heard the movie is based on a short story, "Eisenheim
the Illusionist," by Steven
Millhauser.
Steven Millhauser is one of those authors that one encounters when one is in college, haunting your dreams of fitting into acceptable American society, raising a family, working an office job. Instead, you see an image of yourself as the outcast you are, seeking solace in writing beautiful prose that goes out of print within a few short years, discovered only by a certain type of recluse on the verge of hopelessness.
In my sophomore year of college, I took a second part-time job as a janitor at the Student Union at the University of Iowa. Three times a week, I would arise before 6 and go down to the Union, starting my day with a furtive Benson & Hedges and a round of vacuuming through the bookstore. It was on these very early morning pre-coffee routines that I started to discover some of my favorite authors... John Barth. Tom Robbins. Susanna Kaysen. Milan Kundera. And Steven Millhauser. Specifically, Portrait of a Romantic. Sure, From the Realm of Morpheus and Edwin Mullhouse were beautiful works of art. But it was the opening passages of Romantic that captured my heart and made me willing to give up whatever potential I had for being a fine upstanding man in order to chase Millhauser's muse...
"Mother of myself, myself I sing: lord of loners, duke of dreams, king of the clowns. Youth and death I sing, sunbeams and moonbeams, laws and breakers of laws. I, Arthur Grumm, lover and killer.
"And you, dark angels of my adolescence: you too I sing. O restless ones. Setting forth this day in my twenty-ninth year, on the voyage of my dreaming youth. I, Arthur Grumm..."
Steven Millhauser is one of those authors that one encounters when one is in college, haunting your dreams of fitting into acceptable American society, raising a family, working an office job. Instead, you see an image of yourself as the outcast you are, seeking solace in writing beautiful prose that goes out of print within a few short years, discovered only by a certain type of recluse on the verge of hopelessness.
In my sophomore year of college, I took a second part-time job as a janitor at the Student Union at the University of Iowa. Three times a week, I would arise before 6 and go down to the Union, starting my day with a furtive Benson & Hedges and a round of vacuuming through the bookstore. It was on these very early morning pre-coffee routines that I started to discover some of my favorite authors... John Barth. Tom Robbins. Susanna Kaysen. Milan Kundera. And Steven Millhauser. Specifically, Portrait of a Romantic. Sure, From the Realm of Morpheus and Edwin Mullhouse were beautiful works of art. But it was the opening passages of Romantic that captured my heart and made me willing to give up whatever potential I had for being a fine upstanding man in order to chase Millhauser's muse...
"Mother of myself, myself I sing: lord of loners, duke of dreams, king of the clowns. Youth and death I sing, sunbeams and moonbeams, laws and breakers of laws. I, Arthur Grumm, lover and killer.
"And you, dark angels of my adolescence: you too I sing. O restless ones. Setting forth this day in my twenty-ninth year, on the voyage of my dreaming youth. I, Arthur Grumm..."
I am so sad that The Illusionist is not opening
in Austin this weekend. I am so excited to see the first cinematic adaptation of
a Millhauser story, but it's not to be this week.
Posted: Fri - August 18, 2006 at 07:18 PM
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Published On: Aug 18, 2006 07:18 PM
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Published On: Aug 18, 2006 07:18 PM