Early Impressions of Edwin Mullhouse

A few weeks ago, award-winning author Lily Hoang was a guest in our apartment, and of course she and I talked a lot about books. Before she left to return home, she was kind enough to leave for me a copy of Steven Millhauser's first novel, Edwin Mullhouse- even though she hadn't read it, she digs some of Millhauser's other work, and thought I might like his style as well.

And I am enjoying Edwin Mullhouse very, very much so far. I'm enjoying it so much that I'm reading it very slowly, savoring it, the way you might savor a happy childhood if you could go back and live it again. It did take me a while to appreciate it, though. The book practically dared me not to like it at first. In its introduction, a character calls the book- which is written as a biography of a child prodigy- "one of the most remarkable documents ever recorded in the annals of biography." While I admired Millhauser's balls for making a statement like that- even by a fictional character that's not technically himself- I also decided that this book would have a lot more to prove because of said balls.

I was also put off at first by the voice of Jeffrey Cartwright- the fictional author of the fictional biography of Edwin Mullhouse- who also happens to be a child prodigy. It's one thing for a ten year-old kid to be precocious, even genius, but no matter how smart they are, kids are always kids at heart. Characters like Lisa Simpson and Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes strike just the right notes in that way, even if they occasionally come across as mouthpieces for the adult writers behind them. For the first few chapters of Edwin Mullhouse, I felt like the boy wonder narrator sounded much too adult. About 2/3 of my way through the book, I still kind of feel that way, but I'm over it. There's far too much about the book to like to let one flaw spoil it all. (I also have the suspicion that there's something else to the story that might explain why Jeffrey writes like a smart adult instead of a smart kid, but of course I'll have to wait and see.)

What I love most about Edwin Mullhouse so far, aside from its beautifully written prose and the vivid characters, is the way it captures the details of childhood. Like the way some kids gradually enter a cold ocean on a hot summer day: "...he rose on his toes or jumped with the advancing waves in order to preserve his waterline." The various catch-phrases and mispronunciations of young tongues: "o-weez," "scaredy pants," "goody goody gumdrops." The way kids will incite jealousy by pretending to tell secrets with "the sounds of feigned whispering: pssh-pssh-pssh-pssh-pssh." The story might take place in the 1940s and 50s, but most of the experiences it describes are timeless. If the rest of Edwin Mullhouse is as great as what I've read so far, then Mr. Millhauser might even deserve the back-patting he indirectly gave himself in the introduction.