From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author hailed by The New Yorker as “a virtuoso of waking dreams” comes a dazzling new collection of darkly comic stories united by their obsession with obsession. In Dangerous Laughter , Steven Millhauser transports us to unknown universes that uncannily resemble our own.
The collection is divided into three parts that fit seamlessly together as a whole. It opens with a bang, as “Cat ’n’ Mouse” reimagines the deadly ritual between cartoon rivals in a comedy of dynamite and anvils—a masterly prologue that sets the stage for the alluring, very grown-up twists that follow.
Part one, “Vanishing Acts,” features stories of risk and escape: a lonely woman disappears without a trace; a high school boy becomes entangled with his best friend’s troubled sister; and a group of teenagers play a treacherous game that pushes them deep into “the kingdom of forbidden things.”
Excess reigns in the vivid, haunting places of Part two’s “Impossible Architectures,” where domes enclose whole cities, and a king’s master miniaturist creates objects so tiny that soon his entire world is invisible.
Finally, “Heretical Histories” presents startling alternatives to the remembered past. “A Precursor of the Cinema” proposes a new, enigmatic form of illusion. And in the astonishing “The Wizard of West Orange” a famous inventor sets out to simulate the sense of touch—but success brings disturbing consequences.
Sensual, mysterious, Dangerous Laughter is a mesmerizing journey through brilliantly realized labyrinths of mortal pleasures that stretch the boundaries of the ordinary world to their limits—and occasionally beyond.
斯蒂文•米尔豪瑟(Steven Millhauser,1943-),美国重量级作家,曾获美第契外国文学奖(1975年)、世界奇幻文学奖(1990年)、普利策奖(1997年)等多项大奖。米尔豪瑟的小说极具创新精神,涵盖侦探、哥特、爱情、奇幻等各种题材,故事可读性强,且寓意深刻;他的叙事技巧多变,语言凝练,受到厄普代克尊崇。其短篇小说《魔术师艾森海姆》(Eisenheim the Illusionist)曾被拍成电影《魔术师》(The Illusionist),获得巨大成功。其代表作有:《艾德文•穆尔豪斯》、《马丁•德塞勒:一位美国梦幻家的传说》、《飞刀表演者》、《危险的大笑》等。
一种全新的角度切入
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