Chabon's Brain

Michael Chabon, author of Wonder Boys and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, has a great web site, MichaelCabon.com, that lets a visitor browse around the writer's brain.

Clicking on the link, A Yiddish Pale Fire, you are treated to an essay on European Jewry that begins, "Probably the saddest book that I own is a copy of Say It In Yiddish, edited by Uriel and Beatrice Weinreich, and published by Dover. I got it new, in 1993, but the book was originally brought out in 1958. It's part of a series, according to the back cover, with which I'm otherwise unfamiliar, the Dover "Say It" books. I've never seen Say It In Swahili, Say It In Hindi, or Say It In Serbo-Croatian, nor have I ever been to any of the countries where one of them might come in handy. As for the country in which I'd do well to have a copy of Say It In Yiddish in my pocket, naturally I've never been there either. I don't believe that anyone has."

And linking from Obcure Bits, Michael offers us a Recipe for Life and asks the question, "are novel's Golems?"

Click on The Joe Kavalier of Western PA to meet the inspiration for the novel, James Steranko, a real escapist turned comic book artist.

It's a fun site that is worth browsing around for a while, offering insight and quirk. Chabon is also very generous in reprinting many essays that have appeared elsewhere in print magazines.

Mahalo