The Review of Contemporary Fiction
The Knife Thrower and Other Stories by Steven MillhauserChristopher Paddock
Steven Millhauser. The Knife Thrower and Other Stories. Crown, 1998. 256 pp. $22.00.
After winning the Pulitzer for Martin Dressler, Millhauser returns to the short-story genre with a most impressive collection. The stories in The Knife Thrower are reminiscent of his short work of the past (I think of The Barnum Museum) as well as his latest prize-winning novel. Yet even in the most familiar stories in The Knife Thrower, Millhauser breaks new ground.
Seamlessly stitched but intriguingly complex, the stories explore the fantastic and the subterranean, while relying on description and detail rather than plot development. Although some stories could be considered variations of other Millhauser themes, they expand upon the complexities of his past stories (from this collection and other works by Millhauser), informing—and thus adding to—the complexities of each new story. The ever-expanding, ever-developing department store in “The Dream of the Consortium” recalls the hotels built by Martin Dressler, as does the theme park in “Paradise Park.” They are the products of obsessive-compulsive capitalists who exhaust the possibilities of consumerism by creating absurd, elite versions of “superstores” which seek to create an environment that will fulfill—even surpass—our consumer needs. Paradise Park, for example, becomes an abyss for its mysterious proprietor, Charles Sarabee, as well as its visitors. The park’s popularity increases as new “rides, new spectacles, new thrills” are added, at least five every year. Sarabee continues to create increasingly elaborate rides and spectacles until he extends the park to an enormous underground level, featuring “thrills” and pleasures that seemingly transcend reality—merry-go-rounds with bucking broncos, rollercoasters with gaps in the tracks. He digs deeper, literally, and adds yet another level where visitors discover lakes and woodland areas, waterfalls, but also Turkish palaces, concubines, Spanish galleons, the experience of being buried alive in a coffin. Paradise Park is development turned decadence.
Other stories in this collection succeed on their simplicity. “Clair de Lune” and “Balloon Flight, 1870” are dreamlike, playing on more intimate desires and anxieties. Still other stories, such as “A Visit” and the title story, are masterfully surreal and bewildering. The Knife Thrower is, indeed, a brilliant collection. It is vintage Millhauser: chimerical, disturbing, immaculate, sublime. [Christopher Paddock]