We Disagree with NYT Review of Soo BookInside MagicMagic News Updated Daily for the Professional Magician

Tim Quinlan – Editor / Publisher of Inside Magic

Jim Steinmeyer’s last book, Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians
Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear, received favorable
reviews from the New York Times. Teller of Penn & Teller wrote the
insightful review and praised it for its detail and style. We agreed.

Teller did not review Mr. Steinmeyer’s latest book, The Glorious
Deception: The Double Life of William Robinson, aka Chung Ling Soo, the
“Marvelous Chinese Conjurer.” The paper assigned former food critic
William Grimes to handle the task.

He did a lousy job.

The review is twelve paragraphs long. (One paragraph is really just
a sentence). The first ten and a half paragraphs recite in elementary
school-like book review format the basic mystery of Chung Ling Soo. The
last paragraph and a half offer the criticism.

Notwithstanding the
prior paragraphs laying out a pretty interesting story, Mr. Grimes
suggests the book is too long.

He might have heeded Robinson’s own advice, given in the
magic journal Mahatma: “Make your patter short and to the point. The
public, you will find, are better pleased than if you went too long
story telling.

We’ve looked for this quote in Mahatma but haven’t found it
yet. We’re not saying it’s not there, we just haven’t found it.
Regardless, Mr. Grimes gripes the book suffers because Mr. Steinmeyer
knows too much about magic.

Mr. Steinmeyer, the author of “Hiding the Elephant: How
Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear,” makes his
living developing illusions for the likes of Ricky Jay and David
Copperfield.

This is both a strength and a weakness. In conjuring up,
if one may so phrase it, the early vaudeville era, he displays an
expert’s grasp of the mechanics behind the magic tricks of the day and
a keen appreciation of the technologies that allowed stage artists to
play new variations on classic illusions.

Too often, however, he
becomes immersed in technical descriptions or the careers of minor
figures and leaves his main subject waiting in the wings.

Okey Dokey.

Sure, that’s a valid reason to hate a book. In fact, we were just reading the third volume of Shelby Foote’s
outstanding text on the Civil War and we have the same complaint. Why
can’t the recently departed historian just get to the point: the South
lost and the North won?

Oh, no, we have to read about the individual battles, the soldiers
involved in the battles, the shortages, the logistical problems
associated with fighting a war without access to previously available
materials, the families affected by the fighting, the death toll, the
spread of disease, the way the guns were made, how they jammed, what
the…

Tim Quinlan – Editor / Publisher of Inside Magic

He did a lousy job.

Notwithstanding the
prior paragraphs laying out a pretty interesting story, Mr. Grimes
suggests the book is too long.

He might have heeded Robinson’s own advice, given in the
magic journal Mahatma: “Make your patter short and to the point. The
public, you will find, are better pleased than if you went too long
story telling.

We’ve looked for this quote in Mahatma but haven’t found it
yet. We’re not saying it’s not there, we just haven’t found it.
Regardless, Mr. Grimes gripes the book suffers because Mr. Steinmeyer
knows too much about magic.

Mr. Steinmeyer, the author of “Hiding the Elephant: How
Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear,” makes his
living developing illusions for the likes of Ricky Jay and David
Copperfield.

This is both a strength and a weakness. In conjuring up,
if one may so phrase it, the early vaudeville era, he displays an
expert’s grasp of the mechanics behind the magic tricks of the day and
a keen appreciation of the technologies that allowed stage artists to
play new variations on classic illusions.

Too often, however, he
becomes immersed in technical descriptions or the careers of minor
figures and leaves his main subject waiting in the wings.

Okey Dokey.

Whatever.

The problem with Chung Ling Soo’s story is not Mr. Steinmeyer’s
problem. We read the book and realize we think Mr. Robinson (in or out
of make-up) was kind of a despicable guy. He was a deceitful, sociopath
who apparently had no problem lying, stealing, and lying about his
stealing.

But Mr. Steinmeyer, to his literary credit, does not just focus on
Mr. Robinson. No one wants to read 300 pages about a scumbag, two-life
living, bigamist, insecure, manic freakazoid. We know, we couldn’t sell
our autobiography to any of the major publishers.

Mr. Steinmeyer’s book looks at the careers of the minor figures in
and about Mr. Robinson’s life. He looks at the type of magic practiced
then, the pacing of the shows, the expectations of audiences and
bookers, the competition amongst magicians and between magicians and
other types of performers.

One of the most poignant portions of Mr. Steinmeyer’s book has
nothing to do with Chung Ling Soo. He writes of the magician Lafayette
and his deep love for his dog. We don’t want to give any more away. You
need to read the book to learn about Lafayette, and the other magicians
and individuals who lived in Mr. Robinson’s generation.

We should point out Mr. Grimes’ review is in keeping with his prior
food reviews. After retiring from the world of food criticism, Mr.
Grimes wrote an essay for the New York Times titled “I’m Cooking as Fast as I Can.”
His goal? To review 30-Minute Dinners for Dummies and similar books in
search of a “solid one-star” meal easily and quickly prepared at home.
We’re not making this up.

We’d say Mr. Grimes’ review can be tossed from the final judge’s
scorecard on Mr. Steinmeyer’s new book. He’s like the proverbial East
German Judge in the Olympics — different mission, different
perspective.