Book Review| Escape!

 

This is an unexpected book choice for me. I am not much interested in learning about the life of Harry Houdini per se. 

 I have enjoyed Sid Fleischman's books for children. I have read or listened to Humbug Mountain, By the Great Horned Spoon, The Whipping Boy, and Bandit's Moon. Sid Fleischman's story telling is always clever with an element of surprise.

  I expected this book to be historical fiction like so many of his other books, but, no, this is a real biography.

 Harry Houdini was a master illusionist, escape artist and first rate showman. His own stories about himself are highly embellished. For example; he claimed is place of birth was Appleton, Wisconsin. But according to records he was actually born in Budapest, Hungary to a poor Jewish family. His real name was Erich Weisz. The Weisz family immigrated to Wisconsin, USA when Erich/Harry was very young.

 At the age of 16 young Erich left home to make his way in the world. He joined side shows and learned tricks of the trade. 

  Sid Fleischman does not buy into the explanation that Harry Houdini used real witch craft to pull off his seemingly impossible stunts. While some of his tricks are still a mystery and the solutions are debated among magicians to this day, most of his fame had to do with his stage presence and showmanship. As with common magic, it was all slight of hand and illusion. Not to mention the exaggeration and embellishment that went into the retelling of these feats. Was he using witchcraft? Not according to this author. Did he have interest in witchcraft? Yes, there came a time in his life that he wanted necromancy to be real.

  When Harry Houdini's mother died he sought out all the successful mediums to try and contact his dead mother. Being a master illusionist Harry saw through all their tricks. None of the mediums he found could actually communicate with the dead. This made him disappointed, but he never totally ruled it out as a possibility. (According to the Bible this is a wicked thing to even seek out. I believe that some people at some times have been in contact with evil spirits to accomplish this type of work, but most are shams.) After his investigation of seances he added a whole act to his show exposing how the so called mediums pulled off their seemingly supernatural stunts. This act made him a lot of enemies among the so-called occultists.

  As an aspiring magician himself the young Sid Fleischman was acquainted with Harry Houdini's widow, Madame Houdini, as she was called. She married Harry in 1874 when she was 20 years old, before he was famous and helped in his acts until his death in 1926. She lived the life of a traveling performer. She didn't have much time in a house with her own kitchen doing things that most married women do. It was nice to hear how they stuck together through the years. All too often I hear about a person becoming famous and/or wealthy and trading in their old spouse for a pretty young new spouse. 

  At over 50 years of age Harry Houdini claimed his impressive physical fitness was due to never using tobacco products or drinking alcohol. He made this claim during a lecture he gave to some college students. A few days later Harry Houdini died in a hospital on October 31, 1926 from complications of appendicitis. 

 He had symptoms of appendicitis and his doctor urged him to go in for surgery. Harry refused to go to the hospital until he had performed his show for that evening. He did his last show while suffering a raging fever of 104°F. By the time he finally made it to the hospital operating room his appendicitis had turned gangrenous. In a world before antibiotics there was little hope of survival. He died with his wife, Bess and his brother, Dash, by his side.