He moves between the fantastical and the concrete in the disorienting fashion of dreams.

Steven Millhauser sure has a flair for detail. I don't think I'll ever approach the game of Clue again without imagining the personalities of each of the characters in rich detail.

Also, I really want one of those little pink rubber balls. You know the ones that have the little line of flashing all the way around? About 3 inches in diameter?

But I don't think I would even call these stories. Some are. I don't even know how to characterize the other ones.

The reason I read this was for the story Klassik Komix #1, which is a panel-by-panel description of a comic book (based on a T.S. Eliot poem). But even the story contained in the comic book doesn't follow normal convention.

In some ways I want to rate this a 5 for creativity and thinking outside the box. In some ways I want to rate it a 2 for being befuddling and nonsensical. I'll leave it at a 3. The writing just didn't grab me, I guess. Probably worth reading if you like more experimental writing - but at the time, I just wasn't in the mindset.

Rating: 3/5 stars

I have to admit I have not read anything like this before and it was very hard to read despite it being short.

The book is written in the form of short stories and most of the stories are written so descriptively. They're all vivid, everything is detailed they even describe the box of Cluedo in full detail! If you want to read a surrealism piece, then this is for you. You don't necessarily read it for the narrative, but for the style of writing.

In case you are wondering, the actual story of "Barnum Museum" is only 30-page long. The rest are random short stories. There's one particular story ("Rain") that tells a story of a gentleman's drive from the cinema to his house in the rain................. yeap.

I particularly enjoy two chapters: "The eighth journey of Sinbad" and "The Invention of Robert Herendeen"

I don't mind this book. Just not my cup of tea?

p.s. I would recommend some of the short stories to O'Level and A'Level students. It would help them in writing a descriptive piece for the creative writing paper.

Rating: 3/5 stars

I have to admit I have not read anything like this before and it was very hard to read despite it being short.

The book is written in the form of short stories and most of the stories are written so descriptively. They're all vivid, everything is detailed they even describe the box of Cluedo in full detail! If you want to read a surrealism piece, then this is for you. You don't necessarily read it for the narrative, but for the style of writing.

In case you are wondering, the actual story of "Barnum Museum" is only 30-page long. The rest are random short stories. There's one particular story ("Rain") that tells a story of a gentleman's drive from the cinema to his house in the rain................. yeap.

I particularly enjoy two chapters: "The eighth journey of Sinbad" and "The Invention of Robert Herendeen"

I don't mind this book. Just not my cup of tea?

p.s. I would recommend some of the short stories to O'Level and A'Level students. It would help them in writing a descriptive piece for the creative writing paper.

[Review from 2004.] My relationship with Steven Millhauser runs wildly hot and cold; I'm constantly switching from thinking he's brilliant to deciding he's a one-trick pony. I loved Martin Dressler, and you get a lot of the same obsession with buildings and lists in this short story collection. Sometimes it verges on the tedious, but he often uses it to good effect, especially in "The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad," which was absolutely superb.

[Another one I can't remember at all...

For best effect, proceed directly to the eponymous short story, then to Eisenheim the Illusionist, and round things out with The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad. (The first shares a kinship with Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus; the second with Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus, and the third has nothing to do with circuses although its attachment to A Thousand and One Arabian Nights fulfills the nocturnal requirement.)

The rest of the short stories may be read if you are perhaps waiting in a doctors office or through jury duty selection and are bored out of your skull. Otherwise they may safely be ignored.