Michael Chabon is one of the most exciting authors working today. His quirky imagination, rich vocabulary, and ability to convey a sense of loss even in the midst of funny situations make me wish I’d picked him up years ago. Many people are probably most familiar with his work through the film Wonder Boys, which starred Michael Douglas and Toby McGuire, but Chabon’s writing has only improved since Wonder Boys was first published in 1995. With books like The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (which won the Pulitzer Prize), The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, and Gentlemen of the Road, Chabon has explored the growth of the comics industry, a completely imagined Jewish homeland in Alaska, and the trials of a pair of mercenaries in tenth century Kazakhstan.
Maps and Legends is his first book of nonfiction. Turning his novelist’s eye to analyze the things he loves best and the stories he has created, he opens the reader up to his unique vision of the world, sometimes even venturing into lies (as he calls them) to do it. Several of the essays do demand a certain familiarity with either his books or with the graphic novels/comic books that he writes about, but many look beyond to critique or reminisce or express a sense of wonder at the power of writing.
If I have to single out one essay that I think everyone – but especially librarians – should read, it is the first, “Trickster in a Suit of Lights.” Chabon takes on the notion that writing must be broken down into two camps – that which is entertaining, and therefore shameful, and that which is literary, and therefore uplifting. Setting aside his argument, the language he uses is playful but powerful, like adding “a spritz of Jung” to an explanation of how his books are more than just entertainment, or defining “entertainment” as a word which “suggests a kind of midair transfer of strength, contact across a void, like the tangling of cable and steel between two lonely bridgeheads.” How could a defense like that not increase your respect for entertainment?
In other essays, he assesses Cormac McCarthy’s apocalyptic book The Road, looks closely at the graphic arts of Will Eisner and Howard Chaykin, writes about the inadvertent controversy he stirred up writing about Yiddish, and tells about the actual golems he has found in his life. (You have to read the afterword to that essay, which is actually the text of a talk subtitled “A Trickster’s Memoir.”) The varying length of the chapters offers insight into the economy and the expansiveness of his writing – short and punchy when needed, thoughtful and exploratory when possible.
Check the WRL Catalog for Maps and Legends
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