Behind The Blue Curtain by Steven Millhauser, 1990
The magic trick:
Turning a would-be escape into a coming-of-age brush with adult life
S is for Steven.
The narrator in this one goes to the movies. It feels like an escape. But here’s the twist. The movie turns out to be the opposite of escape. Yes, it’s an escape from his parents. But this turn toward independence puts him closer to real life than ever before. He learns a whole lot about adult life on this particular afternoon, and, frankly, it’s a little disturbing.
And that’s quite a trick on Millhauser’s part.
The selection:
Though shy of their glances, I soon realized I had nothing to fear from them. At first I thought they failed to notice me, or, noticing me, shrugged their shoulders and returned to their superior lives. But gradually I recognized that my presence, far from being ignored, inspired them to be more grandly themselves. For weren’t they secretly in need of being watched, these lofty creatures, did they not become themselves through the act of being witnessed?
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