Portrait of Romant

I read this book for the first time when I was in my early twenties. In those days, Millhauser's claustrofobic evocation of adolescent boredom, yearning and desire for transgression made a powerful impression on me. Now, twenty years hence, I reread "Portrait" and am happy to say the book held itself up well to my scrutiny as a more mature reader. Millhauser's prose is as experimental as I remembered it. It's a stream-of-consciousness kind of writing which modulates between a most dazzlingly virtuosic rendering of an adolescent's sensorial world and their feverish internal monologues and incantations. Here and there, but seldom, this threatens to spill over in long-windedness. His characters are lifelike, his evocation of time and space is masterly. There's one thing which strikes me now as unnatural and it is a feature that struck when reading this author's Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer as well: judging from these two books, Millhauser has the habit of artificially staging his narrative in distinct sections. In "Portrait", Arthur Grumm, the protagonist, builds a close relationship with several of his school friends but this happens strictly sequentially. Once a relationship unwinds, the character (Philip Schoolcraft, Eleanor Schuman) disappears completely from the narrative. In "Martin Dressler", the main character builds a series of hotels, each of them a grander version of the former. Once a new hotel is finished he never revisits any of his other properties. These relationships seem to operate like shells which the protagonist throws off and never revisits again. As a narrative strategy it only partially works with Millhauser. On the one hand he is a master in evoking the (phenomenological) richness (and messiness) of the real world, but that impression is oddly countered by these artificial narrative compartments which one never comes across in real life. Anyway, "Martin Dressler" suffers more from this than "Portrait" which remains a very compelling survey of the darker sides of a bored, middle-class adolescent psyche.

I'm flabbergasted that this book is out of print. This is truly a sad and great and wonderful book with hauntingly beautiful images. I wonder if parents and librarians were put off by its tragic tone. I'm 31 now. I read it when I was 13 or 14 and I remember it like a fever dream--the juggling doll, the boys' twin-like relationship, their games of cards, the gun. It made me feel as if the wind was blowing through my chest. I hope someone realizes how great this book is and puts it back in print.