the where of it

Michael Chabon’s antarctica

• Posted by Summer Wood on February 23rd, 2009 filed in books, craft of writing, places
• 1 Comment »

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay came out in 2000 and won the Pulitzer Prize for best novel of that year.  I read it the following year, in paperback, and loved it.  “Gosh-wow”, one of its reviewers claimed; “super-colossal” – and it is, both in its literary virtuosity and in its success in adopting the slam-bang style of the comic books it draws from.  Chabon’s facility with language, his skillful pacing, and his emotional fearlessness all contribute to making the book a tour-de-force of contemporary fiction.

What I remember most these eight years later, though, is a sequence that took place in Antarctica.  For me it dominated the book, and I was surprised to find that it occupies a mere 43 pages in a hefty tome that clocks in at over 600 pages.  (Part V, Radioman, for those of you who’ve read the book – and for those who haven’t, I’ll try hard not to give away the surprises.)

A quick summary, first.  Joe Kavalier, escaped refugee from the Nazi invasion of Prague, lands among cousins in New York and makes a name for himself as a comic book artist.  A personal tragedy hits, he enlists in the RAF, and he’s stationed in Antarctica.  We’re never told why there, exactly – but we never think to ask, because the action starts immediately and we’re swept up in the flow of events.

The events carry the reader along, but it’s not incidental in the least that the backdrop is Antarctica, one of the most extreme places on earth.  I went back to look at how Chabon used the setting to snag and sustain reader interest, simultaneously calling up and playing down the exoticism of the place to pump the section with energy.

It’s a marvelous accomplishment, worthy of more attention than a short blog entry can offer.  That said, I want to point out three particular strategies Chabon employs that a reader or writer who cares about place might want to examine.

1.  Chabon dives into the action and makes immediate and effective use of plot.  He doesn’t dawdle with lengthy physical descriptions before introducing the characters into the landscape.  Things happen, and as they continue to happen the reader gets a sense of how deeply geography determines what will confront the characters, and conditions their responses to it.

2.  The relationships that govern this section are the direct result of place.  Joe’s bond with Oyster, a working sled dog described as “a gray-brown mongrel with the thick coat of an Eskimo dog, large ears inclined to undistinguished flopping, and a stout, baffled expression,” is essential to both the dramatic progression and emotional punch of the section.  The two other significant characters – the American pilot Shannenhouse and the German geologist, Klaus Mecklenburg – also do double duty in conveying experience of place and forming the hedge of connection against the implacability of the landscape.

3.  Chabon is profligate but discriminating in his use of detail.  I know that sounds contradictory, but in the wealth of detail about the card games the men play and the particulars of their bunking arrangements and the frozen piles of shit in the latrines and the mechanical bits and pieces of decrepit airplanes, he builds a world that is vivid and absolutely convincing.  There is not a single dull or extraneous detail.  He contrasts the appallingly alien landscape with the heartbreaking (and hilarious) efforts of the men to make themselves at home.

The book as a whole is – well – an amazing adventure.  It’s a funny, emotionally wrenching, rollicking good read.  But it’s also a case study in how to make place work in literature.

On Thursday I’ll spend some more time talking about transporting yourself to Antarctica.  Physically.