BOOK - Steven Millhauser's "Martin Dressler"

Steven Millhauser's Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer isn't filled so much with dreaming, or at least not the dreamy, poetic writing of a fantasist, so much as the down-to-earth essence of observation and a sense of the minute. Millhauser's work is meticulous and detailed, and sharpened by an expert's aesthetic taste. However, pages occasionally plod along with little more pacing than a plausible, realistic depiction of turn-of-the(-twentieth)-century New York, Els and all. Portions resemble the economic platitudes of Horatio Alger, others lean towards the infinitely lavish imaginings of Borges, and while the middle ground Millhauser takes is unbalanced, it is captivating.

Just as Mark Helprin’s Winter’s Tale captured perfectly the Americana of a rising city, so too does Martin Dressler, the main difference being the strict classical realism that Millhauser has fettered around his neck. To compensate for his historicism, he elevates the language to a rhythmic conglomerate of description (the best kind of textbook): “Martin liked the sound of the reins slapping the cab-horse, the thump of baggage on the roof over his head, the shaking bouncing seat and the shaking bouncing window from which he looked out at buildings that bounced and shook in the rattle of high wheels and the bang of horsefeet."

Character, too, is handled in the same fashion - all at once, to set the scene, followed by the natural unfolding of such a personality: "...Mrs. Louise Hamilton, a buxom bustling handsome dark-haired lady whose large black eyes were skilled in the expression of disdain, outrage, dissatisfaction, and astonished disbelief that the simplest request had been handled with such ineptitude." The unfortunate truth is that these skillful passages are merely setting the stage, and that it takes two-thirds of the book to start making conclusions. The romance is doomed, not because the two characters, Martin and Caroline, are dreamers, but because they never clash. It’s clear that Caroline is a mirror to the beautiful, physical city—a ghost, shallow by comparison—but their situation lingers too long in the periphery, all for the sake of an ever-deepening foundation. The payoff isn’t a bad one, but isn’t the most efficient use of that meticulous labor. (In fact, Millhauser’s recent short stories reveal that he’s able to describe the same concept within four to five pages).
Rather than skipping to the heart of things, we get a procedural courtship, Martin’s slow rise from bellboy to clerk to cigar shop manager to restaurateur to hotel owner, and a lot of baroque flourishes on the burgeoning city. The story finally boils over with the construction of Martin’s new hotel, The Dressler, with its underground shops and architectural cunning.

"Long articles . . . praised the building's boldness of vision, its structural ingenuity, its ability to overcome sheer massiveness by means of an elegant design that led the eye upward through three major groupings to the two-story mansard roof with its tower, and if one journalist chose to complain that the building was 'wasteful,' that the facade was so heavily ornamented that it put him in mind of a gigantic wedding cake, even he felt compelled to acknowledge the exuberance of the Dressler, its sheer delight in itself."

Millhauser is an architect in writer's clothing: sentences like those almost merit a nomination for the Pritzker.

After savoring in the publicity and advertising of the hotel, both of which allow Millhauser to churn out more of this fanciful "construction," he decides to create an even bigger one: the New Dressler, replete with seven underground levels, which include:

"a campground with tents in a brilliantly reproduced pine forest with swift-flowing streams; the deck of a transatlantic steamer, with canvas deck chairs, shuffleboard courts, and hand-tinted films of ocean scenery displayed on the walls; a wooded island with log cabins in a large lake with a ferry; a replication of the Atlantic City boardwalk, complete with roller-chair rides, as well as half a dozen streets crowded with theaters and movie houses; a health spa with mineral baths; and a national park containing a geyser, a waterfall, a glacier, a small canyon, and winding nature trails."

Oh, and a labyrinth beneath that, in case you weren't sold already.

It's a shame that it takes Millhauser so long to get to this point: he's quite inventive, and all the reality up until this point seems rather thudding in comparison. Sure, the textures and descriptions are articulate, accurate, and important, but at the same time, they seem to lack the life that Millhauser begins to capture in these late pages. By the story's close, even the city has come to life: "For what struck him was the terrible restlessness of the city, its desire to overthrow itself, to smash itself to bits and burst into new forms. The city was a fever-patient in a hospital, thrashing in its sleep, erupting in modern dreams."

In the biggest parallel of all, the book resembles the city: the old remains, but changed so much that it hardly seems the same after all. The change, in this case, happens to be for the better, but the hasty conclusion (or end of Millhauser’s rope) ends the fever dream too soon. That said, the novel can’t help being a disappointment, albeit a spellbinding one.