Hiding the Elephant
Posted on November 1, 2009 at 5:18 pm by kyliu
Tags: bookreviews, jim steinmeyer, magic
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I’m going to keep this short in line with my theory that bad books provide a lot of ground for snarky commentary while good books speak for themselves.
Hiding the Elephant is a history of stage magic during the golden age (the last half of the 19th century and the beginning decades of the 20th). The personalities of the great performers and their most famous illusions are woven together into a tapestry of science, art, technology, and social change.
Steinmeyer is an amazing storyteller. Some of the best passages of the book involve him describing a historical illustion to you and then switching to the development of certain technical principles at that time to give you the tools for you to work out how the trick was done. He then provides a diagram and a detailed explanation so that you can compare your solution with the real secret.
Sometimes the detailed explanation isn’t given until much later in the book. He knows just how to hold your interest and maintain suspense. It is like watching a magic show, and the reader gets a bit of the sense of wonder that must have delighted the audience for these masters of the art.
No matter what the subject, people who love what they do and who try to advance the state of the art in their profession make good stories. 行行出状元, so goes the saying. All of us are artists when we bring passion to our work, and it is no longer a job.
Before reading this book, I had little interest or knowledge of the history of the art. Had I known what I know now, I’m sure I would have enjoyed the various magic-themed movies like The Prestige and The Illusionist, as well as the plot of some of the Phoenix Wright games.
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