Talk:Steven Millhauser

Copyvio discussion
I believe User:Birdmessenger was in error in tagging the Steven Millhauser page as in possible violation of copyright. The notice at the bottom of the page cited reads: "Certain biographical material and photos licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, from Wikipedia, which is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc." In other words, that page took the material from Wikipedia, not the other way around. I can tell you for sure that the list of works on the Mystic Games page is, except for being in a single paragraph rather than on separate lines, exactly as I ordered and formatted it, all on my own, on the Wikipedia page back in May.ShelfSkewed 17:10, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah. Seems I missed that notice.  My mistake.  My alarms were triggered, however, by the intro paragraph:
 * Steven Millhauser (born 3 August 1943 in New York City) is perhaps one of modern American fiction's most elusive characters. When his novel, Martin Dressler, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1997, Millhauser told an interviewer that it would not change his life one bit — "I dare it to," he was quoted as saying. The prize brought many of his older books back into print. As the patina of the prize faded however, they slowly retreated from the shelves and back into the hands of the small but devoted following he has always enjoyed.
 * That text and the rest of the article is not encyclopedic in tone at all, in my opinion, which is why I was quick to assume it was copied from elsewhere.--Birdmessenger 17:17, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I had a feeling that was the case. After noticing the CV tag, my reaction to the tone of the prose was identical to yours, until I saw the fine print.  Now how do we get the tag removed?  I know it's as easy as editing the page, but I don't want to get zapped by an admin for editing a CV-tagged page.ShelfSkewed 17:32, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I was kind of wondering that, too. Eh, I guess I'll take it off since I put it on. I can take a zapping if I have to.--Birdmessenger 17:39, 17 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, I think your instincts were correct. The page cited may have copied it from Wikipedia, but that doesn't mean the Wikipedia author didn't copy it from somewhere else.  Have a look at these:
 * Powell's Books - The Barnum Museum (see About the Author)
 * Dalkey Archive Press - The Barnum Museum (see Author)
 * I'm going to reinstate the copyvio. DoctorElmo 17:52, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I seem to be blocked now. Wonderful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.195.135.240 (talk) 06:34, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Article NOT plagiarized
I am DEEPLY disturbed at this false labelling of the Steven Millhuaser article as plagiarized.

I am a college professor, longtime scholar of Millhauser's novels, and I wrote the entire original version of the article myself; every word is my own. The only quote in the article, where Millhauser replied, in response to being asked whether the Pulitzer Prize would change his life, "I dare it to." This was a quote widely reported in the press at the time (TIME magazine, the New York Times, and others will verify this) and it is attributed as a quote, and it is brief and well within fair use.

The sites listed as sources for the article are in fact sites which have quoted, without acknowledgement, from the wikipedia article. The article was started by me in 2005 (the quoted material is from the first paragraph, there from the start) and has been around long enough that evidently both Powell's Books and the Dalkey Archive Press found it, and found it worth quoting.

Whoever marked this as a copyright violation should have looked further into the case. Can anyone mark an article as such? Is this person an administrator? Shouldn't the protocol be to contact the main author(s) of the article? I wish there were a much clearer process to speedily adjuducate such claims.

I have been an admirer of Millhauser's works for 20 years and spent many hours crafting a good article, which was then edited and added to by a small number of devoted wikipedians. Nothing in the article in any way violates any copyright; all of the text is original, and even the most cursory examination of the sources would show that the wikipedia text is the common ancestor of both the phrases on Powell's and those at the Dalkey Archive Press.

I have spent, by my own estimate, some 200 hours contributing to wikipedia, and have until now enjoyed the process. I have not only contributed articles but have released several of my own photographs into the creative commons license just so they could be used freely on wikipedia.

This kind of too-quick labelling of an article of mine as plagiarized is tremendously disheartening, and makes me want to never contribute again. The services of thoughtful hardworking people who are central to keeping the wikipedia accurate will be hard to obtain, I should think, if the wikepedia's adminsitrators so carelessly label their work as copyright infringement with no substantive basis.

I did read what you left in and I can easily object to the paragraph which I did not write in the critical section, it is all wrong. First, the influence which is utterly central of Borges must be mentioned, Millhauser is mostly writing a footnote to the Libarary of Babel and is LEAST interesting here. Secondly, the permutations grow and grow but and then explode into numerical chaos (a bigger mall, a museum with more rooms, etc.), certainly, but the whole bit about how Millhauser then returns to "minimalism" is just dead wrong. Often the piece ends with just chaos, for instance, and if there is some suggestion that the artist, the true artist, will start all again, this isn't postmodern but really biographical. What is going on is the artist is REJECTED, maybe some for hubris and a distain for the commercial, but more likely because the audience is insufferably common and fickle, and all the artists great plans (read Morpheus again and again) go to nothing ... and he HAS TO go to the minor leagues, short-stories. Again, the critic here is trying for something very postmodern in feel, but this is really just biography. Millhauser is not interested in any Big Bang theory of life, either, though he needs some narrative line. The artist starts, the artist achieves success, the artist fails -- that's the narrative and space and time have nothing really much to do with anything except some stuff stolen from Borges. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.195.135.240 (talk) 17:11, 12 November 2007 (UTC) Sincerely, Russell A. Potter, Ph.D., Professor of English, Rhode Island College Profrap 23:46, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Text in question
Having looked at the Powell's Books site, I believe that the text in question is that which reads:

"Steven Millhauser is perhaps one of modern American fiction's most elusive characters ..."

That line is a QUOTE from my article. Has no one considered the possibility that the Powell's web author quoted from the wikipedia?

Many people quote the wikipedia without attribution, which, in the sense of the wiki's goals, should be totally kosher, I believe (though the source should have been noted). However, what is to prevent anyone who is checking the wikipedia for originality to, having seen a quote elsewhere, suddenly ban the wikipedia article as plagiarized?? This, it seems to me, is very likely to become an increasingly serious issue over time,

Professor Russell A. Potter Profrap 23:57, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Permission to use my article withdrawn
Having given the matter a good deal of thought, I have decided that I cannot comfortably contribute to an online "community" where I have no control over my own contributions. I understand the wikpedia's goals, and admire them -- however, the kind of investment I make in my own writing is too singular for me to be comfortable having my text edited, flagged, etc. by random people.

I have moved the original version of my brief essay on Mr. Millhauser to my own website, where it will reside at

http://www.ric.edu/rpotter/authors/Millhauser.htm

I hereby withdraw permission for the wikipedia and the Wiki Media foundation to use this work, which is copyrighted by me. I request that the entire article on Steven Millhauser be withdrawn immediately.

As a follow-up to this action, I am abandoning my own account. I have applied for a new password and have deleted the e-mail containing it, so I will be unable to make any further postings.

For all my other contributions other than the article "Steven Millhauser," all the permissions and releases to the GNU license, public domain, etc., remain in effect.

regretfully,

Dr. Russell A. Potter

Profrap 20:39, 8 October 2006 (UTC)


 * You have once agreed to license your contribution under the GFDL; this permission cannot be revoked. That said, it is unfortunate how this situation has turned out. Fredrik Johansson 14:41, 11 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Russell Potter has taken the issue to the Citizendium forum here. This looks like a silly mixup, so I'll restore the version of the article immediately previous to the copyvio notice. I'll also revise the entry to make the article more encyclopedic in tone, and less like a bookstore blurb. That should help eliminate any further confusion on the copyvio issue. Casey Abell 15:49, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Before I do anything, I've left notices on the Wikipedia copyright problems page and on DoctorElmo's talk page. I'll allow some time for any objections, then restore the page and do the revisions. Fair enough? Casey Abell 16:10, 11 October 2006 (UTC)


 * From Profrap (still lurking about) I appreciate your repairing the immediate damage, but still feel the process was not very effective here.  Having already been informed that the 'suspect text' was soon to be deleted, I am also surprised to find the GDFL still enforceable -- chalk that up to the department of unforseen consequences.

I moved the new version to a temp location, deleted the existing article to get rid of the copyvio versions, and then moved the new version back into place. -- Aguerriero  ( talk ) 14:36, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I rewrote some of the article since the original writer wants it withdrawn anyway. I found the article much too short to have much clarity, and by adding some language it still seems ridiculously short. I have no idea about any of the controversy above or how it gets resolved, but it does sound like a Millhauser short story. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.195.135.240 (talk) 01:04, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The version of the article being referred to above is long gone. The article was completely rewritten shortly after the comment was posted more than a year ago. -- Shelf Skewed  Talk  01:58, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Further comments: I don't find your changes to be an improvement. You have removed much basic information and referenced material. The text you have added is often too informal and unencylopedic in tone and is full of unreferenced assertions and what reads like original research. My temptation is to revert your edits outright, but I'd like to give you the chance to edit yourself and to restore some of the good material you removed. -- Shelf Skewed  Talk  02:09, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I have never done any of this, okay? But I know Millhauser a ton better than you guys so if you want to tell me how I'm supposed to reference stuff, fine. If I mention a man turning to ink, say, this occurs in the story "Rain" or a boy going up in the sky on a moonbeam is in "Clair de Lune." Am I to reference them? If I mention Hawthorne, you might look at the story "Sepia," where Millhauser even plays with a house with seven gables. I tried to include most of the stuff from before -- feel free to put all of it back in if you want -- but what I added was utterly essential. Not to mention Nabakov with Millhauser, for example, is kindergarten even in "Edwin." Not to mention Hoffmann (specifically "The Sandman" if you want a reference) given all of Millhauser's conjured ghosts and automatons is also silly. Do what you want. I never intended my article to be the last word, but it certainly is a ton better than what came before and if you don't understand this, you know nothing about Millhauser. Again, I am not sure how to reference this stuff here. Footnotes??? I'm actually not interested, and if you think an encyclopedia "tone" that is part of a nothing much article is what you want, have fun. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.195.135.240 (talk) 13:40, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I just did find an error and corrected the spelling I put on Robert Gottlieb's last name (one "t"). Maybe you want me to "ascribe," say, that Millhauser knew Gottlieb? that the man was influential in bringing him to The New Yorker? Well, Gottlieb was editor at Knoph which published Millhauser's first two novels. Later he was before Tina Brown editor at The New Yorker. What do you want me to say exactly? I could say more also. But this is important info, Millhauser's entire career as a short story writer was launched here, which also determined the type of stories written. Whatever. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.195.135.240 (talk) 13:56, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I am not mentioning all sorts of other writers who are constantly popping up in Millhauser. Thus, the story "Alice Falling" obviously references Lewis Carroll or Millhauser rewrote Aesop or parodied Eliot in other stories. I'm trying to mention by far the most important influences. If you understand, say, that "Catalogue of the Exhibition" isn't about a real painter (Irving Howe oddly thought this) but a mask -- and parody -- of Hawthorne and Melville's relationship that biographers are wont to give (with a little Wordsworth and Coleridge thrown in), then the story makes more sense. Again, Millhauser's writings are a constant reference to other writers and cannot be understood otherwise. Dressler is as much about Dreiser and later Henry James, a comment on a certain naturalism moving towards the more surreal, as anything else -- a comment about American writing as much as about America at the turn of the last century. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.195.135.240 (talk) 14:14, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I put back mentioning "The Illusionist" (the movie) which has some importance as to reknown, but is only loosely based on the story and in fact incorporates elements of romance that the story is explicitly mocking (the whole affair with the Archduke is no where in the story and Jennifer Beal would not have a part). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.195.135.240 (talk) 15:06, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
 * You certainly had a lot to say, and I don't blame you: My critique was unnecessarily terse and harsh. Allow me to explain myself more fully so perhaps we can work together to improve the article.


 * The first thing to keep in mind is that this is supposed to be an encyclopedia article, so the first priority is to present clearly written verifiable factual information. When you added your text, you threw out some material like that (and the references that went with it) and replaced it all with, essentially, an exercise in literary criticism. There's a reason WP contributors are called editors rather than writers. We're not supposed to present our own interpretations or critiques--although if somebody else with expertise in the subject area said or wrote it, we can present it, properly sourced, through paraphrase and quotation. If, as you say, your assertions about Millhauser's work are factually accurate and necessary for understanding the fiction, then those sources should be available.


 * Further, whatever information you present needs to be plainly written and given sufficient context. Take this statement: "Edwin follows Pale Fire and Lolita extremely." Now, I have an idea about what you're trying to say, because I've read all those books. But to a general reader that statement is likely to mean nothing, and even I have only a vague idea of what you're trying to get at, because it's only a vague idea to begin with, and poorly written. "Follows" in what way? And why "extremely"? Similarly, your reference to "Knoph and Gottlieb": I know that Millhauser's first publisher was Alfred A. Knopf, and I know who Robert Gottlieb is (and Tina Brown, and William Shawn, and, for that matter, Harold Ross), but, between the misspelling and the lack of context, I still had no idea at first what you were talking about. How do you expect a general reader to derive anything useful from this?


 * In short, stick to factual information and sourced material (yes, footnotes), and try to write it so that a reader who is unfamiliar with the material can follow along. Believe me, I'm not trying to say that the earlier version of the article was perfect; it had some problems of its own, and I think you're correct in saying that it needed to be expanded. I'd just like to see it done the right way. -- Shelf Skewed  Talk  04:59, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I've tried to compromise the issue by including both the original sourced material and the new unsourced litcrit material. I agree that the new material needs linking, sourcing and some rewriting for clarity, but I didn't want to just toss it out. Casey Abell 13:25, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I'll read what you've done to edit later, but right now I'm feeling good about what you are writing here (why spoil that?). I did say that sourcing stuff is not my interest. To my knowledge there isn't much on Millhauser worth reading or much at all beyond mainly reviews. If I got a review that said Millhauser and Edwin are very much from the "school of Nabakov" (there were many like this actually, the NYTimes certainly), then I suppose you'd accept my words -- given too that I wrote in your style. But how is this different than Poe is a major influence which seems acceptable unsourced? Not at all. Anyway, I said I'm not really interested in this kind of stuff and mainly do assume an educated audience -- you are right, I am not writing for your audience and assume a certain background. And there is the question of length. Thus the Nabakov influence, if I wanted to spell it out even some: I could mention an obsession with doubles (later even triples); an unreliable and insane and murderous narrator (as in Cartwright=Humbert); an even better Lolita twin (Rose Dorn, who is very nubile six year-old whore); a total fantasy life (that Edwin can write at all, he can't, with all the overtones of "Pale Fire" as well as Lolita, this stupid idiot and American slob, being so desirable); a huge critique, later mined forever, of suburban America in the Fifties ... and so on, I am just getting started as Millhauser might write in one of his humorous and endless lists. Anyways, I kind of assume people know who Nabakov is, what he sort of does, and ditto with Hoffmann or whomever -- how many articles can I be writing??? But you are right, I should assume nothing. And really then say nothing. More, some of the stuff I am including is biographical and unsourced for sure. I tried writing it in a way that is not libelous -- I actually don't know the rules about this stuff, though it's obviously a hot topic paraded about once monthly in most literary rags (writers are really Page Six if they want to sell). I will say that you kept my insertion earlier -- it was mine a year ago -- and left it there, maybe not seen, that Millhauser's life in an attic in Fairfield, Conn. resembled Herendeen's (to say he was born in NYC and leave it at that is dumb unless you are interested in his perceptions from a crib, it is absolutely important to place Millhauser very much in SUBURBIA -- even Dressler is less about the NYC of Bartleby than what was then suburban NYC, the upper West Side). So I went further along these lines about including biography, citing stories and relating them to his life, but since you know nothing of his life, you can't fact check me. But this is also exactly what I thought Wikipedia was about -- that I could be corrected and that person corrected and NEW information comes out. Well, you say things are not like this at all. Okay. I'm wrong, my mistake. Again, I can't cite biographical stuff since it is not in print beyond the blurb that he went to Columbia, Brown, was born, teaches, etc. If I wrote to you that -- I mentioned the story before in reference to Hawthorne --that the story "Sepia" is also a critique of Brown ... well, I can't. Sorry. Hence as of this moment I am happy enough to write here in the discussion, which seems far more interesting than the text above. Like a Beerbohn novel where the footnotes start writing another novel. A subtext. Which is very Millhauser and Cartwright and Nabakov, however insane and fun. Be well and I liked your reponse but we really are in different places. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.195.135.240 (talk) 15:55, 12 November 2007 (UTC)


 * To give specific examples of what I was talking about, I've attached a couple references to your paragraphs on influences and themes in Millhauser's work. These references are a critical biography and an interview with Millhauser himself. While the references don't support every bit of the paragraphs, they do give the reader some additional guidance. Casey Abell 16:26, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I did read what you left in and I can easily object to the paragraph which I did not write in the critical section, it is all wrong. First, the influence which is utterly central of Borges must be mentioned, Millhauser is mostly writing a footnote to the Libarary of Babel and is LEAST interesting here. Secondly, the permutations grow and grow but and then explode into numerical chaos (a bigger mall, a museum with more rooms, etc.), certainly, but the whole bit about how Millhauser then returns to "minimalism" is just dead wrong. Often the piece ends with just chaos, for instance, and if there is some suggestion that the artist, the true artist, will start all again, this isn't postmodern but really biographical. What is going on is the artist is REJECTED, maybe some for hubris and a distain for the commercial, but more likely because the audience is insufferably common and fickle, and all the artists great plans (read Morpheus again and again) go to nothing ... and he HAS TO go to the minor leagues, short-stories. Again, the critic here is trying for something very postmodern in feel, but this is really just biography. Millhauser is not interested in any Big Bang theory of life, either, though he needs some narrative line. The artist starts, the artist achieves success, the artist fails -- that's the narrative and space and time have nothing really much to do with anything except some stuff stolen from Borges. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.195.135.240 (talk) 17:14, 12 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The paragraph you disagree with is certainly defensible, I think. In fact, some of your own comments – for instance, the note on "the collective of things -- which are likely to grow bigger and gigantic and more absurd" – seem to support the paragraph's assertions about "systems or discourses that grow more and more elaborate." At any rate, the paragraph offers specific examples from Millhauser's work and is at least somewhat supported by various references given in the footnotes and external links. It's good practice at Wikipedia not to simply remove critical opinion that is sourced and specific. A better idea is to add material that may modify or even contradict the previous content, again with sources and specific examples. Casey Abell 17:44, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

The paragraph is not defensible. The assertion that Eisenstein begins his work all over again on a smaller scale is absolutely wrong. Eisenstein vanishes, the theater is in chaos. The author is confusing this story with another (August Aschenburg, which begins Penny Arcade and is exactly my point, the first short story). But in story after story things end in chaos and not in a return to minimalism, which is my main point (I am not familiar with the uncollected story, The Dome, but in so many stories things just blow up, fall apart, period). Anyways, the author is citing ONE critic, not many, and he might have read him wrong (who knows?). I am one critic too. Whatever, you have rules however absurd. Check out the end of Eisenstein if you are interested. Check out the end of August. The problem here is that you are informed, no doubt smart, but you can't really edit this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.195.135.240 (talk) 18:17, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Let me restate a point. The artist fails and must begin again, his canvas is smaller, he is poorer, his commercial VENUE is different, but this is not minimalism. And mainly the artist goes nuts and things end in insanity, the center cannot hold, imagination cannot control chaotic images, hence Morash, or Payne, or Dressler, or Herendeen, or The Knife Thrower (who is already corrupt and fascist and whose incited chaos reflects the source, Mann's Mario the Magician). I can cite many more examples. Coney Island goes nuts in expansion and burns down. Crazy malls and department stores MIGHT keep growing but this is crass materialism and chaos from git go, they must not be confused with art. This stuff is far more complicated than that paragraph, which, again, is wrong. I imagine the domes are also more crass materialism spreading virulently so true artists (read Millhauser) cannot write saleable novels for the likes of Robert Ludlum or whomever. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.195.135.240 (talk) 18:47, 12 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The problem here is that you are informed, no doubt smart, but you can't really edit this article. Thanks for the compliments, but you should probably avoid telling other editors on Wikipedia that "you can't really edit this article." I'm afraid such comments will get you into constant conflict with editors who may disagree with your viewpoints. Frankly, the examples you cite on specific stories sound more like differences of interpretation (what is "minimalism"?) rather than black/white, right/wrong issues. As I said in my previous comment, the solution is to present differing critical views with sources to support them, and let the reader decide. That's why I've been hunting down sources for this article and adding specific cites for readers who may be interested in a range of views on Millhauser's work. Casey Abell 19:09, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, you are certainly right about relations with editors here, but I have no desire for a future in this kind of editing and can be perfectly frank here. "Minimalism" is pretty clear, I suppose it comes from art in the 50's first. Extreme formalism. A very small or bare work. A very fine intricate dummy created by August, I'm not arguing with the author about minimalism in Millhauser's work, I am arguing about whether it returns after maximalism and chaos. August creating a tiny puppet with simple workings is minimalism. August creating a tiny puppet with 5,000 separate movements is not. He is then aspiring to the godhead and the creation of another being (a favorite term of Millhauser's), that in fact this being is more complicated than the whole world. Anyway, none of this is so very important either (which is the point I have made several times -- this abstract stuff --, psychology (or biography too) is far more important and Millhauser is dealing with, simply, obsession and the madness that sometimes (rarely) results in great art. His artists are condemned to create art.  If you leave the artist out of any equation and discuss Millhauser as following some rational "system," you kind of miss the point.   Enough.  What I am saying is not what that paragraph is saying.  Take care.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.195.135.240 (talk) 21:20, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Shit, let me try to be right at least. Millhauser changes as he gets older (not noted in the article at all, of course). He actually comes to terms with the shorter story, and isn't even so formally literary at times, is more conversational -- though very much writing prose poems. Some novella (and its presentation alone, certainly) like Enchanted Night can be thought of as minimalistic. But, again, Millhauser is nothing if not literary, so we are following Melville and Billy Budd or Tolstoy and the final stories, the last words are simple after immense struggles. Again, there is a confusion going on in that paragraph that doesn't begin to address the real writing. It is also insane to try to cram a lifetime of work and some ten books into a few paragraphs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.195.135.240 (talk) 21:53, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Jesus, you changed my number on The Illusionist's gross earnings. You're wrong. You have to include video maybe, 150 is the right number. I think you just don't like that I know what I'm talking about. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.195.135.240 (talk) 22:44, 12 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I did change the number, but not because of any personal animosity. I simply couldn't source "more than $150 million." But I did find and cite a reliable source (Box Office Mojo) for "more than $85 million." If you have a reliable source for "more than $150 million", please provide it. Casey Abell 04:01, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

You might look in your own article in wiki for the number. It's given as 87 million with another 35 million in video, but this as of Aug. 2007, a total of 132. Your number is only through Aug. of the previous year and only for the box office for film. I saw 150 somewhere and can't locate it now, it might have been a rounded number but more up to date. I included the number anyway in a totally ironic way. Millhauser constantly is about the poor poor artist with the best best imagination, that commercialism actually kills as compromise. Dressler is different and maybe why it got the Pullizer, and this is the way things are now. If I looked long enough I'd dig the 150 number out but this is precisely what I don't enjoy doing. There are probably still international and national video rentals and sales coming in, like Blockbluster has it still as a new release, etc. But I am also looking at a site that I can't yet figure out, The Numbers, which might have more data.

unsigned comment added by 72.195.135.240 (talk) 05:07, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.195.135.240 (talk) 06:47, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

It's hard tracking down real numbers here and I would still go with my original 150 and add "about." (By the way, it is hard posting this stuff and a few entries were rejected last night for whatever reason, so I might stop trying). Anyway, I gave a wrong total above which should read 122 and not 132 million, but this number is obviously old. The intenationational box office TOTAL number is given by Numbers (45 million-- look for the last entry under Illusionist) but this is only through the middle of April, when the movie at least in international release was still pulling in 1.32 million a week, and was third in Italy -- another words the DVD hadn't even been released, so all DVD sales reported in wiki were probably dated back to that same point. At some point the movies aren't tracked regularly if the numbers aren't high enough, but I think if the movie has "legs" there is still a steady stream of return. Anyway, my best bet is that 122 is the number thorough the middle of April with some box office yet worldwide and DVD sales too, so the 150 number for now is just about right. If you want a solid number, say 122 through April 15 -- and maybe this reportage, it occurs to me now, is because of TAXES and until 2009 comes out, the total remains at that date ... that's IS the answer finally. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.195.135.240 (talk) 14:11, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

No, the taxes idea is wrong, since mojo reports DVD earnings into May 5, 2007 -- and that's from the footnote (actually, I finally read this) in wiki's illusionist article. But as far as I can tell this doesn't include any reports on foreign DVD's at all, and the box office for the film internationally gets reported into Sept. 7 at mojo, with a slightly higher number than before, a few million dollars. Meaning it died finally. But the dvd seemingly never yet has hit the international market in reports, and that could easily be another 30 million or more. Wherever I read that 150 number, it must have been in passing in some recent article, that is the number I believe is true. You could say about 125 (add the extra movie box internationally over last summer)with foreign dvd sales not yet known. That is the correct way to put it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.195.135.240 (talk) 14:29, 13 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Done, with two footnotes to Box Office Mojo. Casey Abell 15:04, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Hunting this number was fun in a way, but not the kind of thing I really like and ultimately a waste of time. The number will be obsolete soon enough anyway. The number has almost nothing to do with Millhauser -- what might have something to do with him is the money HE got for his story option, which actually might have been very little -- except at my playing a loaded irony game. But it is interesting that the number, something verifiable, is what you want to get into, that everything else -- "criticism" or "biography" that can't somehow be sourced (however rotten these might be, but published) is meaningless, which is to say about anything interesting about the writer. Your approach works fine for science, maybe even fine for historical figures with a researched past, but is nothing at all for living or near living people. Thus, recently, I was reading all this punk and early blues stuff in wiki, and the English are hugely represented (I assume they had articles about them that could be verified), but black artists from the 50's don't exist beyond a name or a record. This absolutely sucks since there are out there no doubt tons of people who know all sorts of stuff that should be recorded, and this would make wiki a living place, not some footnote of merely regurgitated stuff. Of course then too you would need really authoritative editors, not merely fact checkers. So, you have your number of 125, that is correct, and meaningless really. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.195.135.240 (talk) 15:00, 13 November 2007 (UTC)


 * As all this shows, the entire section here started out as Original Research from one author. Footnotes were then added by others (the author complained they are irrelevant to "his" points, and I agree -- but that is beside the point; what is at issue here is No_original_research.  So what we ended up with was someone else's OR views, with artificially infused footnotes echoing the content, but no evidence whatsoever that any existing claims of this kind have been made in any reliable sources (which, in this section, should be articles by literary critics or scholars, or (conceiveably) in-depth reviews).  What's needed here is an account of what critics and literary scholars have said about Millhuaser's work since its appearance. I hope the dust has settled enough on this article that this section can be started anew and within WP guidelines  Clevelander96 (talk) 13:00, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

From the Realm of Morpheus query
Does anyone know why From the Realm of Morpheus is the only one of Millhauser's books never to be reissued? Other than the original 1986 Morrow hardcover, my searches haven't turned up a reprint of any kind, even a non-U.S. edition. -- ShelfSkewed [Talk] 21:38, 11 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, From the Realm of Mopheus was issued in hardcover by William Morrow; it did not sell well and was quickly remaindered (I was working at a bookstore at the time, and the large quantity and low price of the remainders surprised me). I think also that the episodic quality of the story, the strange mix of baseball with Elizabethan English, was offputting for some readers, and is likely a factor in its not being reissued.  I also have heard that Millhauser was obliged to cut the mansucript fairly severly, and perhaps that makes it read less coherently than his other novels


 * -- the ghost of Profrap


 * Thanks. Perhaps Dalkey Archive Press, a publisher that doesn't shy away from Quixotic publication projects, and which has already reprinted a couple of his books, will allow him the opportunity (if he wants it) to issue a "restored" version. -- ShelfSkewed  [Talk] 22:06, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to see a restored version of Morpheus, which was cut more than in half (my guess but educated) and in its present form is so mutilated as to have little continuity. I think the novel wasn't at all supported, got cut, got dumped, and this before Millhauser had a name for himself. You must remember after Edwin won prizes (but didn't sell), Romantic bombed, and Morpheus wasn't published until after short stories appeared and were collected in Penny Arcade, though it was certainly written before. The publication of a few stories in The New Yorker changed Millhauser's career. No one mentions Romantic really anymore either, as well as Morpheus, though between the two of them I would say they constitute half of Millhauser's output. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.195.135.240 (talk) 23:59, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

By the way no one can understand Millhauser's work after "Morpheus" without understanding the disaster associated with this huge novel. He worked on it for years, it was mutilated when published, he got almost no money for it, etc., and then the issue of "selling out" became important (writing short stories, really), something which tempts many of his artists in subsequent stories. Romantic characters like Eisenstein or Morash or Dressler or Payne and a host of other artists defying gravity and boundaries cannot be understood without reference to "Morpheus." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.195.135.240 (talk) 17:37, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

What I said above cannot be overstressed and there is a constant biographical reference in Millhauser's stories, an explanation and defense of his art, his sufferings, his decisions. In reference to his first three novels and his abandonment of the novel form for about fifteen years, one can look even at a story like "The Visit" and explain much that makes little sense. There is, for instance, a careful chronology at the beginning that mirrors the narrator's and Millhauser's life (and look to "Herendeen" for overlap about the "Father" who has abandoned the son -- while all of this intro is very much also in the vein and a parody of Flannery O'Conner). The friend we meet in the story is biographical, very much (and even the frog wife is rather real given she is also out of Lewis Carrol), and the three separate and simultaneous headaches that the narrator has, are, in fact, Edwin, Romance, and Morpheus, the Great American Novel as failure. The married friend in the dream bites the writer's hand so he is hampered in writing, which reflects biographical matter about a fight over selling out in short story writing, which chronologically commenced at this point (about Millhauser's and the narrator's 40th year). "The Visit" is finally a refutation, a mocking short story as revenge, that the artist is intact, that the real impotence is in the friend's unnatural and lustful marriage. And so on. As much, I am saying, as Millhauser seems about deconstructed and postmodern reality and the complete relativity of time, space, and language, he is in fact writing a very explicit literary and biographical narrative, compulsively in fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.195.135.240 (talk) 22:11, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

"His most recent publication"
I just removed the sentence 'His most recent publication, "History of a Disturbance," is in the March 5, 2007 issue of The New Yorker.' Because it's no longer true. The item was added 10 days ago, and his most recent publication is now "The Wizard of West Orange" in the April Harper's Magazine. Until next week, or next month, or whenever his next story appears in Granta or Tin House or The Kenyon Review or wherever. And maybe someone won't notice the next time that the "most recent publication" has become outdated. It seems to me that trying to keep an encyclopedic article updated like a breaking news story just increases the chances that the article will include inaccurate information. -- ShelfSkewed [Talk] 15:09, 16 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Agreed! I just got the latest Harper's, and was going to do the same thing.  Doubtless, as has happened in the past, Mr. Millhauser's stories will shortly be collected in book form, and *that* would be the time to update the list of works in this entry. Rapotter 17:57, 16 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Just to play the devil's advocate against myself...We could, as a compromise or alternative, add a section under the "Published works" head, and call it "Recent uncollected stories", without any assertion that the latest story listed is necessarily the absolute latest story in print. When Millhauser's next story collection is published, the section could be cleared out and restarted. This would serve the purpose of providing reasonably up-to-date information—which is one thing Wikipedia can do that a paper reference can't—without introducing time-contingent errors of fact. -- ShelfSkewed [Talk] 17:59, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Footnote 8
I think it absurd for you to add footnotes to "substantiate" my critical points, seeing how the notes bear no relationship to what I'm writing. The interview you are quoting in footnote 8, which I didn't know existed even, is particularly not what I would support, authors notoriously bad critics of their own writing. But this interview finds Millhauser really being dishonest also, more troubling. So, he speaks of the added power of a "we" narrator over a mere "I" in relation to "The Knife Thrower" (he uses this person in other stories as well, like "Sisterhood"), but the opposite is true, the "we" narrator has no power at all, he is a low-mimetic ironically undercut idiot for the purpose of elevating the other "we," the audience of readers. Earlier stories have an authorative and omniscient narrator who has a special relationship to an artist, a real artist (like August or Eisenstein). These narrators mock the non-creative inferior audience, really the same audience that the "we" represents. But this narrator by implication is also linking the reader with this audience, since the reader is not priviledged to the artist, the narrator is superior by this alone. Anyway, Millhauser is essentially changing as he gets older, ingratiating the reader (The New Yorker kind of reader, who is anti-porn and anti-violence, and who would easily reject the audience in The Knife Thrower and the undercut narrator), rather than holding the artist (and himself) above the mere reader and audience. The "we" narrator has no authority, it is unreliable and the opposite of what Millhauser is saying. There are many other distortions in the interview, but I am pointing this one out because I did not put the footnote in and hadn't even read the interview when I wrote the paragraph, and completely disown it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.195.135.240 (talk) 15:03, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Attributed passage
I've restored some deleted text which had been used with a (mis)attribution to another encyclopedia site. It turned out to be a quote from a much earlier version of the WP's own article. Since that earlier version is now online with attribution at a stable URL from an academic site, I marked the text as direct quotation and cited the author's site. Clevelander96 (talk) 00:13, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Sources for new section on Critical reception
Here are a couple of places where we could start an account of Millhauser criticism:

Chénetier, Marc, Steven Millhauser : la précision de l'impossible. Paris : Belin, 2003.

Sheridan, David, "The End of the World: Closure in the Fantasies of Borges, Calvino, and Millhauser" In: Iftekharrudin, Boyden, Longo, and Rohrberger(eds.) Postmodern Approaches to the Short Story. Westport, CT: Praeger; 2003

Kinzie, Mary, "Succeeding Borges, Escaping Kafka: On the Fiction of Steven Millhauser." Salmagundi, 1991 Fall; 92: 115-44.

May I suggest: most of the Spring 2006 issue of The Review of Contemporary Fiction. The introductory essay surveys the critical reception (among other things) of Millhauser's publications up to 2005, and contains a Works Cited list of more than 80 entries (including many reviews of Millhauser's work, both popular and scholarly). The issue also includes three extended critical essays on, respectively, Millhauser's novella "Revenge," theatrical audience in Millhauser, and the novel Martin Dressler. A bit surprising no one has mentioned this source. Publication info is readily available via MLA bibliography. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Latterinabarn (talk • contribs) 22:27, 10 January 2012 (UTC)