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A review by davybaby
Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands by Michael Chabon
3.0
Maps and Legends is a collection of Chabon's literary criticism, from the comic book [b:American Flagg!, Vol. 1|790396|American Flagg!, Vol. 1|Howard Chaykin|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1347415868s/790396.jpg|681889], to [b:The Road|6288|The Road|Cormac McCarthy|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320606344s/6288.jpg|3355573], to Sherlock Holmes; as well as a few essays about his own writing life and career. Even his essays on subjects about which I knew nothing and gave no shits were entertaining and well-written. In his fandoms, Chabon tends toward the fantastic and nerdy. Even when he writes about mainstream or classic literature (Sherlock Holmes, Norse mythology), he writes focuses on its similarity to "genre" writing. I get the feeling he has some buried nerdguilt about becoming a successful literary novelist when his roots are in comics and pulp.
Directly because of his essay on it, I've begun reading the delightfully strange comic strip, [b:Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer|251427|Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer|Ben Katchor|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1391846639s/251427.jpg|243638], which is pretty high praise on its own.
As anyone who's read him knows, Chabon has a lovely way with prose. It's a joy to drift in his splendid sentences, swirling along his stream of language, only buffeted occasionally by (sometimes obnoxious) unknown words or phrases. While the critical essay isn't the most lyrical of genres, Chabon does well with it. From "Golems I Have Known," he writes about his feeling from writing his first short story:
"It was as if I had opened a door and stepped into the room in which all my favorite writers were sitting around waiting for me to show up. They were a disparate bunch, from Judy Blume to Edgar Allan Poe, spread over different eras, continents and genres. Some were close kin to each other- Lord Dunsany, H.P. Lovecraft- while others seemed to have nothing in common beyond their connection to me. And somehow, I sensed, their intersection defined me. They were, in other words, my family. I derived from them, they explained me. And more than anything else I wanted- I knew it now- to be accounted one of them. This was the wish- to be a credit to that far-flung family of literary heroes- that I have sought to embody, to express in the infinitely malleable clay of language, ever since."
I don't think I could put the appeal of reading, or writing, any better than that.
Directly because of his essay on it, I've begun reading the delightfully strange comic strip, [b:Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer|251427|Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer|Ben Katchor|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1391846639s/251427.jpg|243638], which is pretty high praise on its own.
As anyone who's read him knows, Chabon has a lovely way with prose. It's a joy to drift in his splendid sentences, swirling along his stream of language, only buffeted occasionally by (sometimes obnoxious) unknown words or phrases. While the critical essay isn't the most lyrical of genres, Chabon does well with it. From "Golems I Have Known," he writes about his feeling from writing his first short story:
"It was as if I had opened a door and stepped into the room in which all my favorite writers were sitting around waiting for me to show up. They were a disparate bunch, from Judy Blume to Edgar Allan Poe, spread over different eras, continents and genres. Some were close kin to each other- Lord Dunsany, H.P. Lovecraft- while others seemed to have nothing in common beyond their connection to me. And somehow, I sensed, their intersection defined me. They were, in other words, my family. I derived from them, they explained me. And more than anything else I wanted- I knew it now- to be accounted one of them. This was the wish- to be a credit to that far-flung family of literary heroes- that I have sought to embody, to express in the infinitely malleable clay of language, ever since."
I don't think I could put the appeal of reading, or writing, any better than that.