The Review of Contemporary Fiction

The Enchantment of Lily Dahl by Siri Hustvedt
Irving Malin

Siri Hustvedt. The Enchantment of Lily Dahl. Holt, 1996. 275pp. $23.00.

Although I did not review Siri Hustvedt’s first novel, The Blindfold, I admired it. It is, like this one, a ghostly philosophical attempt to understand the intricate foldings of dream and reality. This second novel confirms her “spooky” talent. She deliberately sets her characters in a small town—a kind of Winesburg—which seems to be an ordered world in which common routines or rituals take place. But the town, Webster, is an “alternate threshold”—to use her phrase—a place of enchantment.

Lily Dahl, a waitress at the Ideal Cafe—notice the name—soon discovers that there are secrets. She is unsettled by the the oddity of Martin, a young man whose stuttering suggests private knowledge. She keeps listening to old Mabel, who is writing a work about her experiences. She is fascinated by A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a play in which she has a part. Lily is, in effect, confronted by the foldings of private and public performance.

Although Lily is, at first, an “observer,” she seems to become another “grotesque,” a secret sharer. And she makes one wonder about her own perceptions, her “invisible world.” Does she know her reasons for spying on these people? can her epistemology be trusted? has she created her own dream? Thus the novel becomes an ambiguous web—a hide-and-seek performance. Although Hustvedt’s language is apparently clear, it seems to embody a duplicitous quality. Dahl is like doll; enchantment becomes dangerous. At one point Martin says about his doll—yes he has made a likeness of Lily—“the word becoming flesh, Lily—the in-between moment.” And as I slowly begin to reread the text, the statements take on new meaning. If “Dahl” and “doll” are mirrored puns, perhaps the entire novel is about the relation between word and world, the (re)incarnation of word as flesh—reality.

This novel, then, becomes a reflection of its themes; it is an “en-chantment” about the “angers of enchantment,” a “performance aboutperformance.” It folds into itself and it becomes the “medium”—the “in-between,” the “alternate threshold.” [Irving Malin]


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The Review of Contemporary Fiction The Enchantment of Lily Dahl by Siri Hustvedt Irving Malin Siri Hustvedt. The Enchantment of Lily Dahl. Holt, 1996. 275pp. $23.00. Although I did not review Siri Hustvedt’s first novel, The Blindfold, I admired it. It is, like this one, a ghostly philosophical attempt to understand the intricate foldings of dream and reality. This second novel confirms her “spooky” talent. She deliberately sets her characters in a small town—a kind of Winesburg—which seems to be an ordered world in which common routines or rituals take place. But the town, Webster, is an “alternate threshold”—to use her phrase—a place of enchantment. Lily Dahl, a waitress at the Ideal Cafe—notice the name—soon discovers that there are secrets. She is unsettled by the the oddity of Martin, a young man whose stuttering suggests private knowledge. She keeps listening to old Mabel, who is writing a work about her experiences. She is fascinated by A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a play in which she has a part. Lily is, in effect, confronted by the foldings of private and public performance. Although Lily is, at first, an “observer,” she seems to become another “grotesque,” a secret sharer. And she makes one wonder about her own perceptions, her “invisible world.” Does she know her reasons for spying on these people? can her epistemology be trusted? has she created her own dream? Thus the novel becomes an ambiguous web—a hide-and-seek performance. Although Hustvedt’s language is apparently clear, it seems to embody a duplicitous quality. Dahl is like doll; enchantment becomes dangerous. At one point Martin says about his doll—yes he has made a likeness of Lily—“the word becoming flesh, Lily—the in-between moment.” And as I slowly begin to reread the text, the statements take on new meaning. If “Dahl” and “doll” are mirrored puns, perhaps the entire novel is about the relation between word and world, the (re)incarnation of word as flesh—reality. This novel, then, becomes a reflection of its themes; it is an “en-chantment” about the “angers of enchantment,” a “performance aboutperformance.” It folds into itself and it becomes the “medium”—the “in-between,” the “alternate threshold.” [Irving Malin]

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