Dream of Venus (Or Living Pictures)

Two things about this book: 1. Despite an extensive bibliography, Miles refuses to acknowledge the wonderful book by David Gelernter called "1939: The Lost World of the Fair," which captures both the romanticism and the cynicism of the fair. 2. If writhing deformed animals, cursing and vomiting amuse you, this is your book for sure...

Set against the background of the 1939 New York World's Fair, Miles Beller's Dream Of Venus follows the adventures of Zeke Lichtenquist (an artist recently moved into the fair's "Town of Tomorrow"). This is a small and interwoven world of science and strippers, tourist dollars and visions of a better future, even as the world was sliding inexorably into a world of war. Dream Of Venus is an enthusiastically recommended, highly original novel that grips the reader's imagination and attention from the very first page and won't let go until the last line of the last paragraph of the last chapter.

Thought this novel is set in 1939 at the New York World's Fair, it really is talking about our sense of tomorrow, what we believe the future will bring. Reminds me of the saying, "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans." By turns this fiction is funny and then profound. Gets a bit dislocated at points but if you stick with it you will be more than rewarded.

In the manner of Nabokov's "Pale Fire," this novel is a clockwork story within a story, a witty, engaging adventure into a future that never was... Operating on several levels, "Dream of Venus" presents the artist as a young meanderer, like Bloom in Joyce's Nightown wandering back on his own personal history and larger events overtaking the world. A dream as reality, a sleeper in full command of his consciousness, here the membrane between fact and fiction is stretched enticingly thin.

Sometimes history isn't exactly what it seems. And that is something that comes through with great force in "Dream of Venus." Though the book sometimes seems to veer into some wacky and weird places, it does present a fascinating portrait of an artist living in a future house at the New York World's Fair of 1939. If you are at all captivated by technology and what the future holds, "Dream of Venus" is for you. Also, the writing is as clever as the dreamed-up inventions created in this novel.