- Hardcover: 370 pages
- Publisher: William Morrow & Co; 1st Edition edition (September 1986)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0688065015
- ISBN-13: 978-0688065010
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.5 x 3.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 567 g
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
The dream-world suggested in the title begins with an image of a remembered life in an unspecified time and place. During a baseball game on a sun-stunned day, Carl Hausman, the narrator-observer, enters a magical landscape in search of a lost baseball and descends into the fabulous kingdom of Morpheus. The bibulous, Falstaffian Morph, self-portrayed as a "rolypoly dimpled dumpling of a sweethearted cherub," conducts his visitor on a guided tour of this very curious wonderland. Here, Emma Bovary chats amiably with Leopold Bloom, and figures from history, literature, legend, myth and fable disport themselves in settings that are transfigured versions of Olympus, Camelot, Dante's Inferno, Atlantis, Lewis Carroll's and T. H. White's fantastic universes. A carnival atmosphere prevails: special effects done by mirrors and sleight of hand, and staged in a mock-Elizabethan lingo that is generally amusing but sometimes misfires; at times, too, the elaborate enterprise is excessive to a fault. But the festival air is disarming, and the ebullient author/impresario, whose previous works were the well-received Edwin Mullhouse and In the Penny Arcade, is equal to the formidable task he has set himself.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Narrator Carl Hausman stumbles through an opening to the underworld, where he meets its master, Morpheus. With these two life-loving picaros, we tour a strange realm, experiencing much of the action through the further remove of various interpolated tales. A portrait-figure steps out of his painting to live a Wertherean life. Mirrors and shadows discourse on the nature of love. Morpheus recounts his own longing for a mermaid, while the narrator has a Brobdignagian romantic adventure and descends to Atlantis, a monument to artifice surpassing even Byzantium. In a work whose language, structure, and vein of fancy recall the 18th century, love and aesthetics are recurring themes. Admirers of Borges, Hoffman, or Wilde will enjoy the tour de force writing, witty wordplay, and clever invention found here.Patricia Dooley, formerly with Drexel Univ., Philadelphia
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Customer Reviews
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining fantasy about books and being, Oct 22 1999
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: From the Realm of Morpheus (Hardcover)
Wow, bad news - this book is out of print and I'm the first reviewer in years! The story is a wonderful literary fantasy inspired by the works of Jorge Luis Borges. On a hot summer afternoon the narrator turns away from the lazy day and stumbles into the realm of Morpheus, a pseudo-Elizabethan gallant with many a tale to tell and a strange realm of dreams to explore. The marvellous library is my favorite conceit! A great book for the bookish.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
I'm glad I found a copy, April 27 2009
By Irene Fuerst - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: From the Realm of Morpheus (Hardcover)
I don't remember where, exactly, I found this book, but I'm delighted I did. It was used, and I was intrigued by the title and the Elizabethan dandy on the cover, so I bought it. The editorial review above pretty much nails it--a picaresque and philosophical musing on love, art, and identity, full of wordplay and allusions, with intermissions courtesy of faux Elizabethan and minor deity Morpheus, god of dreams. Morpheus is rather obnoxious at times, and the narrator himself is a blank. It deserves a rating of 4 1/2 instead of a 4, because its major failing is only that it is not a novel. It's a series of tales loosely strung together. I have no idea whether that is what the author intended, or whether it was his first attempt at a novel and born from short stories.
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