this was a strange little book all around. charged with an understated but tangible fervor for capitalism, architecture, and sex it hinted ineffectually at the themes and thrust of Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead."

it seems young Martin Dressler can do no wrong. everything at which he sets his hand is wildly successful. as such, he seems to have no character or depth. he has standards to which he adheres, but they seem to have no real origin or function.

as he sails through his strange life, Martin mounts new heights of success and attempts increasingly ambitious undertakings along the way. yet all of this seems to happen without any real motive force driving his actions. it is almost as if things vaguely occur to him, he does them, and then they are wildly successful for no apparent reason. it is a singularly uninteresting way to watch events unfold.

near the end of this novel it takes on a strangely esoteric tone which is totally out of step with all that came before it in the book. we foray from a fairly believable 19th century landscape into an improbable past where nothing we have been led to expect seems true any longer.

even the eventual ruin of the main character leaves one feeling ambivalent at best. since triumph came so easily, it is hard to muster much sympathy for his fall. his unswerving devotion to his last venture seems strange and without real purpose, except to see to the end of his unbridled success.

i read this book in the course of one evening and found it almost utterly without merit. had i had something else at hand, i doubt i would have bothered to finish it.

I tackled this this Pulitzer-winning book with as little expectations as possible, and enjoyed the first part, describing Martin's continuous rise as a precocious entrepreneur. The descriptions of New York city and some of the groundbreaking innovations at the turn of the century were wonderful, as was the cast of characters who seemed colourful enough to me.

By the time we read about Martin erecting one hotel after another and filling each one with more and more novelties, I was intrigued at first but this ongoing list of features quickly grew tedious. I started empathizing with Martin's wife Caroline then, wishing only to go to sleep. The next morning I woke up with the book resting on me, and started reading where I'd left off, only to realize I had in fact finished the book it in the night. The ending had so failed to make an impression on me that I'd simply forgotten all about it.

Lesson learned (yet again): an award-winning book is not a guarantee of a great read. ( )

One of the few Pulitzer Prize-winning novels that I thought was truly worthy of a Pulitzer. ( )

Reviews of this book run the gamut from fantastic to awful. I think the reason why is because this is a story that operates on multiple levels.

First, and most obvious, it's a rags to riches story about a nondescript young man whose hard work, despite lack of education, vision and willingness to take a risk results in magnificent architectural feats - the American Dream, so to speak. The operative word, however, is Dream. Those readers caught up in the economics story will find the ending unsatisfying because Martin is a dreamer, not necessarily a Rockefeller, Carnegie or Gates.

The story as a dream is also effective - there is symbolism, interpretation, wild ideas that don't always make sense (including the sleepy wife Caroline).

In a minor way, it's also a walk through historic, pre-subway New York, and the descriptions of the city as it would have been at that time are fun to imagine.

It's an unusual, unique story that doesn't necessarily fit the classic novel style. Read it with no preconceived notions. ( )

3024 Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer, by Steven Millhauser (read 18 Oct 1997) (Pulitzer Fiction prize in 1997) This is clearly and elegantly written, but tells a story of little interest. Martin is an ambitious person and builds a series of eating places, which are successful. He marries Caroline--proposing to her thru her sister Emmeline--and that night copulates with a maid! He build three elaborate hotels and his wife acts goofier and goofier. The story on the whole is not repulsive, merely uninteresting. It kind of reminded me of Part II of Goethe's Faust--than which I have seldom read anything which interested me less. I will never read anything else by Millhauser. ( )