Weschler’s lengthy introduction and grasping narrative
sucked me into believing the exhibits that appear in the museum. In fact, I
think it is this structure that made me want to believe in the seemingly
outrageous stories presented; I was actually upset when it was ultimately
revealed that Mr. Wilson simply houses an incredible imagination, something the
reader knows in the back of his or her mind, but instead would rather play
along with the imaginary.
It’s clear from the next section that Mr. Wilson himself is
as much of a curiosity as the unique items he displays. From his own dialogue
to his scattered life story, all one can come up with to label Wilson is
“eccentric”. His sense of storytelling is quirky and often vague, and when the
author takes it upon himself to research what he has been told, the accounts
are either amazingly falsified or completely true.
In this case, I
would’ve done the same, as I enjoy checking facts that I have been told. Weschler’s primary and secondary research
involved going straight to the sources that Wilson claimed to have used. The
books used as Wilson’s initial research on Sonnabend were never found by the
author, and in fact never heard of by others, while a phone call to the
California Institute of Technology proved and confirmed new inventions in
nanotechnology displayed in another section of the museum. The research shown brings to the book a sense
of reality, so the reader is not left hanging.
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