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We Others: New And Selected Stories (2011)

by Steven Millhauser(Favorite Author)

3.9 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0307595900 (ISBN13: 9780307595904)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

Knopf

review 1: Wittgenstein says, in the Investigations: "What *we* do is return words from their metaphysical to their everyday use." You think through a lot of the words in that sentence before you think about the "we"; it is possible that, if limning of special genius must be provided, the special genius of Steven Millhauser is to think "we" first, and more powerfully, than any other writer that I've ever seen. In the new stories, there is the "we" of the communities witnessing "The Slap" or "The Invasion from Outer Space," which pick up on the kind of groupfeeling that we recognize from older stories like "The Knife Thrower," and then in the title novella, a masterpiece of thinking through the "we" in these old stories in relation to an "I". As one would either know or expect, the ol... mored stories are great too, and "Cat 'n' Mouse" remains in strong contention for my favorite story of all time.
review 2: Odd and disturbing and thrilling and always exquisitely wrought short stories. This (re)collection contains "The Next Thing." There is no more perfect artistic response to Walmart specifically, and to the stealing of the light that is the corporation generally, than Steven Millhauser's "The Next Thing." It is not correct to describe Millhauser's arcane tales as "Kafkaesque." But it is true that Kafka and to some extent Borges and Nabokov are made resonant by Millhauser. "The Next Thing" was published in HARPER'S in May 2008. If you have a current magazine subscription a PDF of the story is at harpers.org. less

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