Chabon fathers delightful reading

It’s got to be hard being one of the most beloved authors
in the United States. And by hard I mean pretty easy.

Take Michael Chabon, he’s recently been the first guest
editor of the hip literary quarterly McSweeney’s, seen one of
his books get turned into a hit movie (“Wonder Boys”)
and another win the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 (“The Amazing
Adventures of Kavalier and Clay”). His latest release
“Summerland” tackled childhood and the American myth.
The world may be on the brink of war and the most turmoil since the
end of the Cold War, but Chabon is interested in talking about
kids, comics and writing screenplays. He did just that at Royce
Hall on Sunday night, as part of UCLA Performing Arts’ Spoken
Word Series.

The night began with Chabon reading an essay-type piece
lamenting the loss of freedom and imaginative space allowed to the
current generation’s children. He read in a gentle, even
fatherly, voice. The essay was both poignant and funny ““ it
was a solid well thought-out piece of prose. Basically, it was
pleasant. Like many passages in Chabon’s fiction, the essay
was warm, nice, enjoyable and entirely unspectacular. If the
reading was a bath, it would have been lukewarm.

When he finished reading and the applause died down, Chabon
asked for the house lights to be turned on and took questions from
whomever was willing to raise their hand. The questions mostly
centered on the aforementioned childhood essay and some audience
members’ embarrassing fixation on “Kavalier and
Clay.” Chabon handled the questions deftly, playing on a
quick innocent humor and personalizing many of the ideas in his
essay with self-deprecating examples from his own parenting
experience. He also fielded a couple questions about his work on
screenplays, which includes a script version of “Kavalier and
Clay,” and a stab at the script for “The Amazing
Spiderman.” Chabon said that, while scriptwriting takes up
time he sometimes thinks might be better devoted to other
literature, it helps pay the bills.

If the talk was any indication, then Chabon will continue to
produce well-told fiction that is both engaging and pleasing to a
wide audience. As for riding high on his wave of success, he gets
to write all day long and then tour around and talk to people who
adore his writing. It might not be a demanding gig, but he
certainly seemed happy to do it.

After the question-and-answer session, much of the audience
rushed out of the hall while the applause was still in full swing.
They were trying to be the first ones in line to get their books
signed in Royce’s west lobby.