enchanted night random thoughts and vivid visuals

I can say without question that I've never read a book quite like this before. Seriously, what a unique little book it is. I'm not even going to try to review it...Chris and Carl have both done so recently, and have done so far better than I ever could. Instead I just want to share a few short little bits gathered from throughout. Steven Millhauser paints quite a visual. So many times I found myself somewhat taken aback by the pictures that would spring to life in my mind. Taken aback because they were so real and clear and vivid. It's not that I found his writing exquisitely beautiful in the way I do Ray Bradbury's (yeah, I know, I know--I *always* use him as my example of writing that takes my breath away). But there was something about Millhauser's words that brought things so vividly to life. I'm not sure if they'll have the same power plucked from their little vignettes, but I'm going to share them anyway.

*So green, the grass, so strangely moonly green, that it looks greener than green: silk-blouse green, eyelid green, the green of transparent childhood marbles rolling in sun and shade.

*Moonlight lies on her cheeks, on her long fingers and half-parted lips. She feels the moonlight penetrating her fiberglass skin, soothing her, lulling her will; she feels a swooning languor combined with a secret excitement, a loosing of the rigorous bonds of her nature.
(The "she" in this passage is a mannequin.)

*Janet runs barefoot across the lawn turned gem-green by the moon, a fairytale green, the green of lost cities at the bottoms of lakes in the depths of dark forests...

*She ripples into moonlight, her nightgown fluttering, her tanned legs shining under the moon--she swings with flung-back face, looking at him upside down, laughing suddenly into the moon-mad sky.

*In the small secret place, tree-walled, a little room among the trees, Laura steps into the patch of brightness and lifts her face to the moon. The moon is so bright she has to close her eyes. She stands with her face turned up, the way she's seen people in Indian summer, leaves yellowing on the trees, stand with their eyes closed and their bright faces turned to the sun. Her sun in the moon, feverish-cool. Ice-flames ride down her arms.

*The music takes her by surprise: it sounds like the kind of music you might hear on a merry-go-round, a sad and jaunty music, a wooden-horse tune shot through with the smell of cotton candy and the distant clatter of rides. In the moonlit dark living room she watches the loony lady begin to turn slowly, her arms outspread, her eyes half close, her mouth smiling as she turns and turns on her bare feet on the dark rug with its pattern of peacocks.