Enchanted Night | Suggested Reading

Enchanted Night Related Titles

Perhaps the closest analogues to Enchanted Night may be found in two tales by Millhauser from his collection The Knife Thrower and Other Stones. In "Clair de Lune," a fifteenyear-old insomniac feels compelled to escape the oppressive atmosphere of his bedroom. Like Laura, he intuitively follows a course set by a seemingly sentient moon.

Although he imagines himself on a rope swing in the backyard of a schoolmate he barely knows (much like Janet with her unnamed lover in the novella), the speaker of "Clair de Lune" eventually finds himself engaged in a game of Wiffle ball that seems subversive as a secret ritual, primitive as a fertility rite. He recognizes his playmates as girls he has glimpsed at school but, somehow, they are transfigured; even their gender seems uncertain under the strangely radiant moon. Cast as "a night of revelations," this effervescent evening is imbued with a...
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