Michael Chabon

I've just started reading K&C. My friend's gonna lend me "Yiddish etc" as soon as she finishes it. I also picked up "The Road," "Fortress of Solitude" and "The Corrections" today. Chalk it up to panic at realizing that I'm the only guy in the creative writing program that's read one novel from this decade.

Hasn't written another novel as good as The Mysteries of Pittsburgh

Yiddish Policemen's Union was OK. Not sure that something so plot-driven is Chabon's forte - the best parts of his other novels are when he's fleshing out his characters. When it comes to the action/climax/etc. he has a tendency to screw it up.

With this one the last third isn't terrible (unlike Mysteries of Pittsburgh & K&C), but it's never close to being as good as the first 2/3 of those.

God yeah, Mysteries of Pittsburgh does really go off on one at the end, doesn't it? I liked K&C though.

i adored his short story collections, especially 'werewolves in our youth'

Good choice on Fortress of Solitude, such a great novel.

This is the plot summary of the movie adaptation of Mysteries of Pittsburgh, from the movie website:

Set in Pittsburgh in the early eighties, the story chronicles the last true summer of Art Bechstein's (JON FOSTER) youth. Stuck in a dead-end job working for his eccentric sometime girlfriend Phlox (MENA SUVARI), and forced into an endless series of airless dinners with his mobster father (NICK NOLTE), Art begins to believe that perhaps he doesn't even exist at all.

What begins as a mundane summer is quickly interrupted when he encounters a beautiful debutante (SIENNA MILLER) and her lusty, no good hoodlum of a boyfriend Cleveland (PETER SARSGAARD). Together they reveal a side of Art and Pittsburgh that he has never known.

As the summer boils on and their adventures darken, Art decides to risk everything to preserve his new-found paradise, and thrusts himself headlong into the blurring boundaries of family, friendship, and love.

What the fuck?

WHERE IS ARTHUR?

I can totally see it, some producer dipshit reading the first fifteen or twenty pages of the book and saying, "I get it, I get it! Let's make it. But this other Arthur,? Two main characters named Arthur? Too confusing. And I don't like how gay he is. Let's just get rid of him, it won't change the story all that much."

Sienna Miller, Beautiful Debutante? Not seeing it.

I suppose we won't get the scene of Arthur lubing Art with corn oil.

Kavalier and Clay reminded me of John Irving (and that's a bad thing)

UGH! Thank you for ridding me of the burden of feeling like I should read this comics-related novel. It couldn't have been as disappointing as my realization as a young girl that "Caroline in the City" wasn't actually going to teach me how to become a professional syndicated cartoonist.

Well, according to the plot synopsis, Art has Arthur's job (in the book) at the library, which suggests he is both Art and Arthur. Which means we may be treated to Art lubing himself with corn oil.

Abbott you totally need to read K&C. Not because it's comics-related, because it's really fucking good.

Funny, I hadn't seen Carter Beats the Devil upthread when I revived this. I've been planning on reading it since I was a 16-year-old magician.

Anybody read Yiddish Policeman's Union?

But, but...Irving! He makes me want to do eyes-brooched=out deal.

Yiddish Policeman's Union was OK. Not as quirky as "Jews resettled to Alaska" might appear.

i cannot understand the point in filming Mysteries Of Pittsburgh and deleting all the gay stuff. that's insane.

i still think wonder boys was a fine adaptation, tho.

UGH! Thank you for ridding me of the burden of feeling like I should read this comics-related novel.

I would say do NOT read this book if you know anything about comics history or appreciate actual comics

(I hated it)

But I can never learn to be a world, as Phlox was a world, with her own flora and physics, atmosphere and birds. I am left, as Coleridge was his useless dream poem, wih a glittering sock and a memory, a garbled account of my visit to her planet, uncertain of what transpired there and of why precisely I couldn't stay.

Read K&C, don't really care about it, don't really love Mysteries as a whole...but I love that passage with a pure, pure love.

I would say do NOT read this book if you know anything about comics history or appreciate actual comics

-- Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, November 6, 2007 9:56 PM

I know jack-shit about actual comics history. What were your qualms with it?

So I'm more sympathetic to Chabon now than I was upthread, at least -- not to the point where I'd say I was a full-on fan, but reading Gentlemen of the Road (v. good stuff) prompted me to go on a bit of a tear on my blog.

You make it sound like Chabon's mostly afraid of the expectations measured against him. Even if the "serious reader" isn't a strawman, they're probably just glad harry potter's putting a spotlight on the form for once.

I picked up GotR at a bookstore the other day and flipped through it, before deciding to put Yiddish Policeman's Union on hold instead. But I never buy new and forgot to ask $$. Now the store's calling me and i'm all "fuck 28 dollas I'll wait for paperback". At least I got the book in stock for them.

just finished Summerland, which i thought was overlong but pretty much a joy throughout. am now borrowing gf's copy of Yiddish Policeman's Union, with high hopes.

The Yiddish Policeman's Union is one of the most well-written novels I've read for years.

you know what he's really bad at?, though? ACTION SCENES. whenever anything important happens, it always stumbles; like he can't handle the synchronicity of action at the same time of character. but yeah, yiddish policeman's union is great and totally made me call everyone sweetness for like six months after.

Not sure I agree with you entirely; the sequence where he's being chased by the fundamentalist nutters while chained to a bed frame was really well done.

i wish i could remember that. i think i read through it pretty quickly. i sort of meant in a broader sense, and as something weirder than it is prominent. off the top of my head i can cite the shooting?, i think?, if anyone even got shot, in yiddish policeman's union, and the pages blowing in wonder boys. maybe it's just the change of pace from largely cerebral, cool observant stuff, to terse action, but he always seemed to be slightly muddled. i liked those few novels a lot, though. less so the ones getting abuse in this thread (sherlock/sci-fi etc)

OK, never read the Mysteries of Pittsburgh, but the film adaptation looks AWFUL:

or maybe that's a gut reaction to indie-looking shit with sienna miller?

I love the comics and know lots about them and their history and loved K+C.

― dan selzer, Thursday, March 26, 2009 11:02 AM (Yesterday)

^^^^^^

I can't argue that the Krigstein piece is brilliant and way ahead of its time. "Master Race" is like "Top 10 Greatest/Most Important Comics Stories of the 20th Century" material.

x-post

I just can't believe I didn't think of it right away! Too much stuff in the old cranium.

and what can I say, this is one of those cases where my real-life demographic sampling doesn't match up with the internet. Entirely content to accept my own prejudices re: K&C as being personal.

also fwiw I had never heard of Ward or his woodcuts before that's all v. interesting news to me

Definitely check them out; great American expressionist work. My wife was a print maker in college so I got my exposure there.

God's Man was pretty much the biggest go-to name for "list graphic novels earlier than Contract With God" arguments in the 80s and 90s

coen bros yiddish policeman's union?

Producer Scott Rudin purchased the film rights to The Yiddish Policemen's Union in 2002, based on a one-and-a-half page proposal.[17] In February 2008, Rudin told The Guardian that a film adaptation of The Yiddish Policemen's Union was in pre-production, to be written and directed by the Coen Brothers.[18] The Coen Brothers will begin working on the adaptation for Columbia Pictures after they complete filming of A Serious Man.[19]

has there been any updates since 2008?

was given Manhood For Amateurs as a gift last year, found myself really enjoying and admiring him as an essayist, but I'm having a really hard time mustering the enthusiasm to read any of his fiction.

apparently delayed til after true grit anyway wonder if it still happens

really loved kav & clay and yid pol pretty good but suffers by inevitable comparison - the only two I've read

love his fiction... mysteries of pittsburgh is excellent, as is wonder boys, and kav and clay is probably my favourite. his children's fantasy novel - the one about the baseball team - is a pleasure too, a little overlong but a great read.

does anyone know what happened to chabon's website? a bunch of years ago it used to have a bunch of writing on there and stuff iirc

i think shakey mo and john byrne might have the same objection to K&C

read wonder boys enjoyed it

http://twitter.com/#!/ayeletw/status/114002620800180225

*retweets* *to conservative nutjobs*

i can't remember, is there some 'thing' with michael chabon's ex-wife? i think i read that it was the subject of a chapter in one of his essay books maybe.

i can't quite decide which side i'm on between her & hadley

I like HF but it seems a bit contradictory to immediately retweet something you don't should have been made public in the first place.

you don't *think* should have been ...

i think shakey mo and john byrne might have the same objection to K&C

weird, I missed this... I shudder to think what I have in common with John Byrne

anyway I totally hate this guy

does Byrne complain about teh gay or what

not while I'm eating

I like HF but it seems a bit contradictory to immediately retweet something you don't should have been made public in the first place.

aw no i don't think so, i don't know that a conscientious effort not to add to the proliferation of something on twitter would be noticeable, you know. it becoming hadley's mission to withhold that info. think it's just an amusing conflict because through HF's lens - like, people & their twitter activity & personas - it's something to flag up, but AW's right that it shouldn't be a big deal.

i read that elif batuman takedown of contemporary american literature (short stories) recently, in which kavalier and clay crops up at the end. it proves a lot of her points but i remember being absorbed. i wonder whether the book that drove him to be all THIS ONE IS FOR DILLA @ the atlantic will be good or not

'shouldn't be a big deal' = shouldn't be the sort of the thing in any way restricted from casual mention/a taboo etc

tweet gone--what is this all about then?

someone with cervical cancer? fuck if I know

I just started reading Kavalier & Clay last night. That's some really engaging writing - fluid and easy to read, but never boring.

Several months after finishing Kavalier & Clay, I find myself really pining to somehow return to its world. I love it unequivocally, and at risk of sounding like some sad EL James fan, I actually miss the company of the characters. It's extremely rare that I'll be saddened (as opposed to relieved) on finishing a book of that length. My only problem was that the end is a bit weak and unfulfilling, particularly the parting gestures at the very end. Too bad, but still - I'd like to read another book that engages me this much.

Also... the Antarctica section is one of the best bits!

new essay on Finnegans Wake in the NYROB.

Several months after finishing Kavalier & Clay, I find myself really pining to somehow return to its world

There's a short sequel novella published in an issue of McSweeney's as a little seperate book:
“The Return of the Amazing Cavalieri: From Untold Tales of Kavalier & Clay.” McSweeney’s 7. McSweeney’s Quarterly, 2001.

it's the booklet on the far right: http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/70/b4/f3a3c0a398a0db7eb1960210.L.jpg

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh is the only one I love -- such a time-and-place novel. Too bad the adaptation is wreteched; its acceptance of sexual ambivalence is if anything timelier than ever.

Oh wow... Where can I get hold of a copy of the novella?

(don't know what McSweeney's is - is this a US publication?)

love chabon. he scripted the best superhero movie, too (spiderman 2)

his short story collections are wonderful as well... and wonder boys... oh wonder boys...

I don't think much if any of Chabon's script remains in the completed Spider-Man 2

McSweeney's is a sometimes good, sometimes incredibly annoying lit magazine from the US: David Eggers and co--someone aptly described it as a magazine for writers who have read to much David Foster Wallace

You can get 2nd-hand copies of that edition at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/McSweeneys-No-Dave-editor-Eggers/dp/0970335563/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342135851&sr=8-1&keywords=mcsweeney%27s+7

Who's got a spotify playlist for all the awesome tracks name checked in Telegraph Avenue?

Someone beat me to it:
http://open.spotify.com/user/128607480/playlist/4FHhfwsPA41cG6KnqMsZxA

so is this his Fortress of Solitude? the one review i read made it sound exactly like it.

that playlist is great, thanks for sharing

it is a little reminiscent of fortress of solitude, but i like it more (not surprisingly, since i'm not a lethem fan). also it takes place in the present day (well, i think 2008 based on the cute obama cameo). some of it's a little too writer-y but it's a fun read. i'm not quite done with it yet though.

About 80 pages into Telegraph Avenue and really, really liking it so far. Definitely my favorite Chabon since Kavalier & Clay, though I never got around to his last one.

same here. really enjoying it.

Aww, I should have gone and seen him read and talk about it in DC tonight.

Finished Telegraph Avenue today, it took me ages but that was partly due to just not wanting to pick it up very often. I've only read Kavalier & Clay up until now (loved it) and can't work out if Chabon's writing style has got worse or if I'm just less receptive to it now.

Like there's all these lengthy sentences that coil around themselves and fit in a load of superfluous character detail (I became infuriated by the fourth time I was told what kind of shoes a character was wearing). And I love people like Pynchon and DFW who are kings of superfluous character detail but those guys write amazing sentences and Chabon doesn't really, so the effect here is just gloopy.

Suppose I'd have got more out of it if I cared that much about the characters but only Gwen and maybe Julie really held much interest. But I suddenly started to care towards the end as it was hurtling towards its conclusion but the ending was just... weak.

It's not a patch on The Fortress of Solitude but they're not really comparable, Lethem's book felt more realistic despite the flying dudes, Telegraph Avenue felt like an excuse to let some broadly likeable characters percolate around with a load of fetishised 70s cultural references for 400 pages.

The ending *was weak, I agree, and I thought the writing - which was mostly really engaging and charming, as chabon always is - seemed to slip a little. But I really enjoyed it, fetishisation and all - I mean, I think it walked a thin line between fetishising 70s cultural reference points, and depicting a very real subsect who fetishise 70s cultural references. I've enjoyed most of Chabon's post-Kavalier work, but they've felt minor for the most part, genre exercises by a writer at leisure to play around. Telegraph Avenue felt like his first "Michael Chabon" novel in a while, and it delivered that, even if it didn't entirely satisfy elsewhere.