Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 4 pages of analysis & critique of Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer.
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Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 4 pages of analysis & critique of Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer.
This section contains 1,086 words
(approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer

SOURCE: "When Fairy Tales Come True," in The Washington Post, April 28, 1996, p. 3.

[In the following review, the critic provides a plot summary and positive review of Martin Dressler.]

Steven Millhauser is a wonderfully gifted and original writer who had the rather considerable misfortune to write an absolutely brilliant first novel. Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer, 1943–54 was published in 1972—it has just been reissued in paperback by Vintage—and was reviewed with near-universal enthusiasm. It is at once a satire of literary biography, an evocation of childhood and an exploration of the creative mind; it is clever without being showy, its intelligence is daunting, and it has a surprisingly powerful effect upon the reader's emotions.

The problem with writing so thoroughly accomplished a first novel is that it arouses undue expectations about those to follow. In a literary culture such as ours, one that...

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This section contains 1,086 words
(approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer
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