Steven Millhauser

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Review of The Barnum Museum

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SOURCE: Malin, Irving. Review of The Barnum Museum, by Steven Millhauser. Review of Contemporary Fiction 10 (summer 1990): 261-62.

[In the following review, Malin offers a positive assessment of The Barnum Museum.]

Although Millhauser has written four remarkable books, he has not received sustained, profound criticism. His latest collection [The Barnum Museum] of fictions compels me to look once again at his work.

Millhauser is a romantic writer; he refuses to accept the routine structures of daily life. He believes that his fiction offers a way “out of the world.” He offers fictions that are sly, sympathetic, rebellious—these suggest that art can help us reexamine our perceptions and teach us to search for “sublime,” shifting realms. He asserts the importance of illusion, play, ritual; his assertions, however, are never violent. They are, indeed, warm, comfortable and comforting explorations.

Every story in this wonderful collection celebrates the “illusion.” “A Game of Clue” gives us a chance to see the changing perspectives of mystery—the game itself is another world; at the same time, the “human” players recognize that they are deeply involved in the mystery, that they are, in fact, part of the “board,” assuming roles of detective, trying to find the right answer, the final solution. Thus Millhauser emphasizes mirrors, eyeglasses, secret passages: “Passages scrupulously resembling other passages have been introduced, so that the illusion of having returned to familiar ground is continually created, only to be disrupted by a deliberate change in the pattern; passages containing shelves, furniture, and paintings lead suddenly to primitive passages where large rocks lie on the earthen paths and water trickles along the stony walls.” This passage suggests, among other things, that our “familiar” ground is beautiful if we can learn to look at it in new ways. Therefore, the “clue” assumes importance—it is, if you will, an omen of understanding, rebirth, hope.

The Barnum Museum, like “A Game of Clue,” is “located in the heart of our city.” But it is the house of dreams, rituals, entertainments. We visit it to get out of our commercial lives. It is, indeed, a sacred temple, offering us a second chance, another “life,” a passage to wonder.

Millhauser seems to stop time; he lingers over the various exhibits of the museum—they are enchantments, marvels—so that we can look closely at our lives and transform them. Despite the emphasis upon the exhibits, the story informs us that “we may doubt the museum, but we do not doubt our need to return. For we are restless, already we are impatient to move through the beckoning doorways, which lead to rooms with other doorways that give dark glimpses of distant rooms, distant doorways, unimaginable discoveries.” The passage again tells us to create sacred places that are sources for our rebirth. But Millhauser knows that, unfortunately, we can never be satisfied, that we long for impossible, complete salvation.

We should not be misled by these stories. Although they are strange, occult, and “bookish,” they insist that we readers must create (or re-create) ourselves so that we can find beauty wherever we look. The “common” must become the “uncommon.” If we find the right passages, we can triumph over our average frustrations, despairing moments. We can find “radiance.”

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