In Millhauser's Portrait Of A Romantic, 29-year-old Arthur Grumm sits down to reminisce about his youth. The story thus has a limitation placed upon it that is as provocative as it is claustrophobic. We can only suppose what has become of the mature Arthur by imagining the potential of his vision of himself as a pubescent in suburban New York.

This is not as irksome as it might seem, however, if it is recalled that Millhauser's well-received first novel, Edwin Mullhouse (1972), pretended to be the biography of a precocious 11-year-old suicide who is remembered, years later, by a childhood chum. Millhauser seems to be writing the seven ages of man, or, perhaps more scientifically, the breastlike curve our lives follow. His first novel broke off with the melodramatic suicide of the pre-pubescent Edwin, who, for many reasons too lengthy for this discussion, acted out his fantasy life.

Now...