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Mysterious Stranger by David Blaine

David Blaine?s new book is outstanding. This review is short and to point. You need to buy the book and enjoy it.

I purchased the book four days ago and had a chance to read it during a trip to the west coast. It is a book to savor. You?ll want it to go on and on but like all good things, it must end. The book allows us inside David?s world-view and particularly his character. You learn what he is and what he is not.

He is, for one, a very good writer. He is not, the ?mysterious stranger? he portrays in his specials. He is a great lover of magic and magic history. He is not some one who takes himself too seriously.

David traces his love for magic back to his childhood and fittingly, to his enjoyment in watching his audiences react to the effects. It is that relationship between the person providing the magic and the audience responding to the show that seems to intrigue David the most. He learned magic the way we all did: Seeing a trick, reading books, practicing, and showing.

He performed whenever and wherever he had a chance but ironically he was not a street magician. In fact, he credits his work hopping tables at a restaurant as the start of his professional career. From that job, he learned to perform quickly, with very tight material and move on. He learned that his repertoire had to include new effects almost constantly but each trick had to be visual.

From his work in the restaurant, he received an…

Mysterious Stranger by David Blaine

David Blaine?s new book is outstanding. This review is short and to point. You need to buy the book and enjoy it.

From his work in the restaurant, he received an offer to work parties thrown by the patrons; including his show at a bar mitzvah that lead to his work for the billionaire Jeffrey Steiner in Saint-Tropez.

When he returned from this taste of the life of the rich, he decided he could not go back to hopping tables or performing trade shows. His mother, perhaps the greatest influence on his life, was fighting a return of cancer that had been forced into remission apparently by her dedication and will. It would eventually take her life and the last moments with his mother are beautifully described.

Blaine about to buried

While the book does chronicle his life and the path chosen to get to where he is now, it also provides a wonderful history of magic. When I was young, I read and re-read Walter B. Gibson?s wonderful work, The Master Magicians. It forever changed me. I acquired an insatiable desire to learn about the magicians that formed what we now know as our art. Gibson?s depiction of Houdini is close to hagiography but while it does not expose the great magician?s weaknesses or personality faults, it does describe why Houdini was so important.

David?s book is the first I have read since Gibson?s, that has rekindled that sense of awe and pride that I felt when I realized I was in some way related to the long history of magic and great magicians. David provides excellent biographies of Hermann, Max Malini, Robert-Houdin, and of course Houdini. He credits Houdini for his love of magic and performing.

He does dismiss many of the popular psycho-biographies of the legend and perhaps, most importantly, he correctly describes Houdini as someone who refused to be copied or imitated. He was unique for the same reason that David is unique: he cared enough about what he was doing to give it all of his attention and make it his passion.

Bess and Harry Houdini

Houdini, like David Blaine, realized he had to have an image or persona for his audience. Houdini was the man who could, through cunning and strength, escape from any bond. He was rightfully proud of what he could accomplish and the ego he displayed on stage and in the press was the ego you would expect from someone who possessed the apparently super human powers.

David Blaine realized he needed to have a persona or character that could be appreciated by his audience. While he is clearly not the ?mysterious stranger? he has chosen for public display, he is faithful to the role. All of his performance, his specials, his stunts and his press depict him as a man with unknown abilities who encounters people and performs the impossible. Even as a magician, I know what can and can?t be done but in watching David, I often have a moment of doubt. Perhaps he really will perform a miracle. That?s a testament to the effectiveness of his persona.

When you read the book, you?ll see the other side of the David Blaine. A very self-conscious, concerned and often worried man. He is successful in spite of his anxiety and self-consciousness. He performs his stunts, despite the physical and emotional pain he experiences. When he was buried alive for one week, he felt panic he felt within the first hour of the burial. When he was encased in ice for three days, he felt he was literally losing his mind and that he had destroyed his career. When he perched on an 80 foot tower, he felt pain and very real fear.

Blaine about to be sealed in ice

He is human and has human emotions. It is nice to read a book so honest. He could have used the book as a public relations piece to convince the reader that he did have the ability to go into a trance that would allow him to resist the cold, be buried alive or stand on a one foot square platform 80 feet above cement for 30 hours.

For me, reading what he was thinking during the preparation for and execution of these stunts makes him more exciting to watch. He is someone literally pushing his own limits in the hope that it will bring him greater notice. Perhaps the ?Mysterious Stranger? persona was so effective that I was taken in and believed he could tap into some source of power to accomplish his effects.

I think this is a significant book in the history of magic publishing. It is clearly written for a non-magician audience but has so much appeal for those on the inside as well. The honesty and purity of his writing makes it an addictive read.

RATING: FOUR OUT FOUR