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    Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer
    Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer
    Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer
    Audiobook8 hours

    Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer

    Written by Steven Millhauser

    Narrated by George Guidall

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The American Dream is a theme so compelling it resonates throughout our culture. In Martin Dressler, Steven Millhauser creates a young man who, in dedicating his life to it, becomes a symbol of that dream. Powerful, lyrical, finely crafted, this best-selling book won the Pulitzer Prize, was a National Book Award finalist, and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Martin Dressler, son of an immigrant cigar maker, believes he can achieve anything if he works hard enough. At the turn of the century, he rises from the shadows of his father's shop in New York City to become a powerful entrepreneur and builder of hotels. But, as he contemplates this land of almost limitless opportunity, his plans grow impossibly grand. Through the curve of Martin's spectacular rise and eventual downfall in the business world, his tale remains a uniquely American one. Martin may not always control an empire, but he will always be able to dream. Narrator George Guidall voices Martin's industry and optimism while his performance captures the literary power of Millhauser's style.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateMar 4, 2011
    ISBN9781456124595
    Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer

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    Reviews for Martin Dressler

    3.5/5

    358 ratings27 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Enjoyed the beginning journey of Martin on his life quest of betterment.....his bold, fearless willingness to plunge, and deeply i might add, into entrepreneurial endeavors, most of which were rather successful, allowing him to continue his 'upward' journey. Just lots of hard work, dedication, grit, courage, & of course, funds he was able to have at his disposal. But as he matured, his judge of character seemed to waver....especially where women were concerned. His obsession with Caroline seemed ridiculous to me from the start, and it became almost as absurd a she herself. That absurdity began to eat away at the believability quotient. It was also at this point that the story began to wonder into 'disbelief' territory. So, the longer the book went, the less i cared for anything that happened. The striking detail crammed into delightfully short chapters was great, and Martin's rise was initially interesting and i was totally on his side.....but then........well.......3 stars is somewhat generous for me for this. Pulitzer Prize? That is a surprise....but some years, the choices are not as good as others. I'll be interested to now read what everyone else thinks.
    • 4/5
      Crafted with great skill and attention to detail, often to dizzying effect. I didn't enjoy the main character's journey much, though.
    • 3/5
      Martin Dressler, the ambitious son of a cigar maker, has big dreams even as a young child. He starts by delivering cigars for his father and finds an ingenious  way to make profits soar. As a teenager, he starts his career employed as a young hotel bellhop. He catches the eye of the hotel owner and soon becomes his secretary and mentor. As a young man he falls under the spell of a mother and her two grown daughters while building hotels of his own. One daughter becomes his business partner when he delves into opening a chain of diners while the other daughter, Caroline, mystifies him with her silent, elusive personality. She reminds him of a girl he used to know...Strangely enough, he ends up marrying this shadowy, ghostly woman.This is not a coming of age story. Readers watch as Martin goes through childhood and teenage years to adulthood without exposing friendships; it's as if he doesn't have any, puberty, or any other angst-y growing up tribulation. His personality is firmly grounded in business. There is a moment when Martin decides it is time for him to lose his virginity and almost without ceremony or fanfare, he visits a brothel. This becomes a matter of fact, once a week habit he continues into adulthood. Not much is made of sex either way. However, his wedding night is particularly uncomfortable.What is especially fun to watch is late nineteenth century New York City growing up along side Martin. The street names change over the years. Buildings grow taller. Oil lamps are crowded out by electricity one by one. The Manhattan we know today competes with Martin's metropolis of his dreams until they are both so large there isn't room enough for the both of them. But, which New York lives on?
    • 4/5
      Story of a hotel entrepreneur at the turn of the 20th century. Like most Millhauser, it's dreamy, beautifully written, and lives on the shores of the fantasy genre.
    • 2/5
      ***SPOILERS***

      Continuing with my plan to read Pulitzer winners for fiction, Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer won the coveted prize in 1997. While easy to read, I found the abundance of description a bit sluggish. Detail upon detail of shops, buildings, furnishings, clothing, weather, etc., to the exclusion of descriptions of the people themselves. Martin's building plans were clearer to the reader than his feelings.

      An odd man, for sure, Dressler was clearly driven to create bigger and better. He constantly desired more, and became bored once his current exercise was successful. As a matter of fact, the more the story progressed, the more maniacal he became. At the end of the book, his temperament is very bipolar: And indeed he was tired, so tired that he could barely lift his head, though at the same time he felt intensely alert (p 288).

      I am not at all sure what Millhauser intended to convey with Martin's relationships. The relationship in the beginning between Martin and his father seems very strong, only to all but disappear, being referred to less and less as Martin having dinner with them over the cigar shop. Once Martin begins to see success, he looks only forward, forgetting those who helped him get to his position, as well as various female relationships.

      However, in that vein, The three Vernon women introduced about 1/2 through the book seemed to monopolize and overtake the story. Caroline was odd, manipulative, selfish, and I detected a potential leaning toward lesbianism; Emmeline was intriguing and strong in the beginning, but completely collapses and acquiesces to her sister at the end in a shockingly fast and complete manner; and, Margaret, the mother of these two, was oddly passive-aggressive. The relationships they each formed with Martin were all a bit unusual, but the behavior of Caroline was particularly confusing, bordering on unrealistic. She elicited no sympathy from me, and by the time her antics reached a climax, Martin had rubbed away all of my sympathy, as well. It was almost as if they deserved one another.

      The writing toward the end of the book became a bit rushed, and hasty. Once Martin saw success in his cafeteria endeavors, he quickly progressed to hotel magnate, and seemed to burned out quickly from there. The build-up in the beginning, Martin's success, then his quick descent reminded me very much like a rollercoaster. Where I would have liked more of a bell curve, the wrap up of the story was a bit forced and left me wanting.

      Overall, this is yet another Pulitzer Fiction winner which has left me disappointed.

      Not recommended.
    • 4/5
      Martin Dressler is a young man in Victorian era New York who comes from a cigar store background, but has the ambition and talent to rise in the world. He is truly a dreamer, and his visions cause him to build larger and more elaborate apartments/hotels. But his creations rise to the level of fantasy. His imagination overpowers his practical side, which leads to problems. The prose follows Martin's trajectory: it begins as straightforward storytelling, but as the tale proceeds it grows complex and mystical, building description upon description. This is a beautifully constructed story and truly a pleasure to read.
    • 1/5
      This book started out promising, but was a waste. I kept waiting for a plot, but over two hundred pages and no plot and then it just stopped. Don't waste your time.
    • 4/5
      How does a book about an entrepreneur in the 1890's win a pulitzer in 1997?

      The 1890s,it was a time when ``on any streetcorner in America you might see some ordinary-looking citizen who was destined to invent a new kind of bottlecap or tin can, start a chain of five-cent stores, sell a faster and better elevator, or open a fabulous new department store....''

      But Martin Dressler's dreams directly reflect the modern commercialism of the 1990s, with it's overabundance of chain stores, malls, fast-food chains, theme parks, resorts, etc. etc.

    • 1/5
      This book started out promising, but was a waste. I kept waiting for a plot, but over two hundred pages and no plot and then it just stopped. Don't waste your time.
    • 3/5
      I don't know what to think of this book--it wasn't bad, or even flawed...but it wasn't great either. I loved the turn of the century period details. The amount of historic research that must have gone into this book is amazing. l also like the idea of a novel about a "dreamer" who pushes his success and efficiency to such fantastical limits (Dressler seeks to create cities within cities, combining museums, amusement parks, theaters, etc. within collossal, hotel-like structures that take up blocks of New York streets.) But there was something missing in this story that I can't quite put my finger on...I can't tell if it's a problem with the narrative or if it was done intentionally. The character of Martin Dressler is very unlikable and almost completely without emotion. He has no heart or soul--only his desire to succeed, to create the ultimate, transcendent building. His relationships with women play a big role in the novel, but they were totally baffling and rather unbelievable. I don't know. I didn't dislike it---it's a very entertaining, easy read, despite some rather long winded descriptions. But there's just something I'm not getting....did anyone else read this? Thoughts?
    • 2/5
      okay, I didn't like this. maybe because it was forced on me in high school, i didn't like martin dressler himself, but i just have a bad taste in my mouth STILL from this book.
    • 4/5
      I'm glad that I didn't know much about this book before I read it. If I had known how much mythology and how many famous parables were included, I likely wouldn't have enjoyed it nearly as much. I have this thought that I don't like fantasy or magical realism, but I'm finding that there are more exceptions to this rule than I'd thought. This book was certainly an example of one of those exceptions.The book takes place in the '30s and begins with young Martin Dressler working in his father's cigar store. As time (and the book) carries on, he takes a job at a local hotel, opens a cigar shop in its lobby, is promoted within the motel, opens his own chain of diners and achieves many other layers of success. With each added success, Martin is increasingly surprised at just how far he's gotten and continues to shoot even higher. So high, in fact, that he eventually falls.This book is written like a biography. While there is dialouge dispersed throughout, it's told in a very linear way and I was left feeling that the author was mostly guessing at his characters emotions.There are many themes throughout this book, but the one that stuck with me the most is of Martin as a dreamer. He begins modestly but takes on such feats as opening a city within a hotel. This hotel has many levels underground, complete with full city blocks, zoos, theater districts, parks with ponds and on and on. He also befriends two ladies. One of them he marries, one of them he respects. We're left watching his failed marriage and wishing that he'd married the one he clearly cared about. However, he is not interested in the practical. His hunger is only for the oft silent beautiful sister.In summation, I enjoyed this book very much. I'm interested to read more from this author and if I didn't already have many books in queue, I would probably re-read this one to get more of a feel for some of the myths I missed the first time.
    • 4/5
      Martin Dressler is an enjoyable, thoughtful, and occasionally provocative novel. Millhauser's tale of the American Dream adeptly captures the seemingly contradictory mix of nostalgia and technophilia at the heart of our culture. While I had a good time with this novel (and admire Millhauser's storytelling) I was a bit unsatisfied at the end. My sense is that although the energy of the late 19th century is well depicted and the cultural commentary and observations are often well directed, the narrative as a whole just isn't that deep. It put me in a reflective mood, sure, but I don't think I came away from Martin Dressler with any especially new ideas or even new ways of framing old ideas. Millhauser's novel is ultimately a just a pleasing rendition of the familiar.
    • 5/5
      This Pulitzer Prize winning novel is deceptively simplistic. The tale of a dreamer and the American Dream, the story builds consistently to what may be considered a predictable ending. However, the final trajectory of the story was reminiscent of "Atlas Shrugged" in its stunning and thought provoking conclusion.The themes in the novel include: dream v. reality and the ability to become lost in either of them, creativity, ambition, the American Dream v. the American dreamer, the trajectory of New York City in the late 1800s. Excellent read!
    • 5/5
      In which a humble hotel functionary dreams of architectural grandeur as he goes about his quotidian duties. This is an outstanding book; the author is able to ground a story in period detail from the Edwardian period whilst using a narrative which is anything but conventional to produce vast prose poems which draw you into the protagonist's alternate world without you the reader realizing it until it's too late.
    • 3/5
      The perfect book for fantasy-loving architects. A lot of detailed description of incredible, surreal architecture. The characters didn't seem to go anywhere, though. Idiosyncracies were observed but not explored, life choices were made with no care whatsoever. I found that the protagonist's lack of effort spilled over onto me as the reader, and I soon found it too much of an effort to care about his decisions. This was fortunate, as he seemed to stop making decisions about halfway through the book and the storyline seemed to peter out to an anti-climactic end.
    • 4/5
      Filled with wonderful, image-oriented writing.
    • 5/5
      Although it's been a couple of years since I read Martin Dressler it has stuck with me, and I catch myself making references to it when talking about that mall expansion project (the mall to no where it seems)...or any nutty contractor nightmare that gloms everything from hotel, shopping mall, restaurant, zoo, botanical gardens, circus and casino into one massive concrete and steel city within a city...these places are ridiculous. It's a mysterious book, I simply love it for what it is, and Steven Millhauser has a keen grasp of language that is magical.
    • 3/5
      I was blown away by Millhauser’s short story collection Dangerous Laughter. Throw in the fact that this novel won the Pulitzer Prize, and I was really looking forward to this one.Meh. What we have is the story of a man (Martin Dressler) who wants to build bigger and bigger buildings. The world doesn’t understand those buildings, but accepts them until he just goes too far. The world then rejects his buildings. When Dressler is not involved in building those dreams, his life just kind of happens to him. Number one example - a disastrous marriage that he initiates (kind of) and then just happens. Similarly, this book just kind of happens. It breezes through some things and dwells far too long on other excruciating details. And I was left not feeling sorry for Dressler, not feeling he got what he deserved, in fact, not feeling anything. So, the final result is, well, I guess I already said it…Meh
    • 2/5
      I must have missed something, because I just did not get this book. I continued reading it mainly because I'm researching the period for a novel, and his descriptions of New York in 1890-1905 were well done. The narrative portions about the city and Dressler's rise were good. The part about his sleeping-through-life wife were totally skippable. They added nothing to this book, in my opinion, though I'm sure the author had something in mind here. I just have no idea what it was. Another criticism was that, as realistic as the details were, the easy rise to success was not believable. It seemed too easy...like a dream. Which may be a clue. Hard to see what purpose this book was supposed to serve.
    • 3/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      One of the few Pulitzer Prize-winning novels that I thought was truly worthy of a Pulitzer.
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 2/5
      This book wasn't unpleasant, and Dressler's dreams (which he makes come true) are cutting edge for the time. But, nothing happens. This book is primarily about his drives (both mental and physical) and his inability to be satisfied no matter what he achieves. I am not sure why this won a Pulitzer either. This is on my shelf waiting to be traded, as I am sure I won't want to re-read it, EVER
    • 3/5
      Martin Dressler is a young man at the turn of the twentieth century with big ideas. After working in his father’s shop, he gradually works his way up the economic ladder, eventually building and owning several major hotels in New York City. His relationships with his sickly, introverted wife and her lively but less-attractive sister underscore his ultimate failure, his too-large dreams unrealized through his unrealistic attempts to make the “outside world” unnecessary.
    • 4/5
      Curious, as in strange, but addictingly so.
    • 4/5
      This book reminds me a lot of Kafka's Amerika. I suppose it's the fantastic hotel element that does it.