Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands
    Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands
    Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands
    Ebook269 pages5 hours

    Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands

    By Michael Chabon

    3.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    The Pulitzer Prize winner explores the literary joys of sci-fi and superheroes, gumshoes and goblins, and the stories that bring us together.

    “I read for entertainment, and I write to entertain. Period.” Such is the manifesto of Michael Chabon, an author of indisputable literary renown who maintains a fierce appreciation of the seductive arts of so-called “genre” fiction.
     
    In this lively collection of sixteen critical and personal essays, the author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay champions the cause of westerns, horror, and all the stories, comics, and pulp fiction that get pushed aside when literary discussion turns serious. Whether he’s taking up Superman or Sherlock Holmes, Poe or Proust, Chabon makes it his emphatic mission to explore the reasons we tell one another tales.
     
    Throughout, Chabon reveals his own blooming as a writer, from The Mysteries of Pittsburgh to The Yiddish Policeman’s Union. He is living proof of his theory that the stories that give us great pleasure are in many ways our truest, best art—the building blocks of our shared imagination—and in Maps and Legends, he “makes an inviting case for bridging the gap between popular and literary writing” (O, The Oprah Magazine).
     This ebook features a biography of the author.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateDec 20, 2011
    ISBN9781453234136
    Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands
    Author

    Michael Chabon

    Michael Chabon is the bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of seven novels – including The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and The Yiddish Policemen's Union – two collections of short stories, and one other work of non-fiction. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife and children.

    Read more from Michael Chabon

    Related to Maps and Legends

    Related ebooks

    Literary Criticism For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      5 Lessons Fiction Writers Can Learn From Playwriting

      Jun 13, 2022

      Sometimes I look around, and I am gobsmacked by the world. For entertainment alone, I have a smorgasbord of choices: YouTube, Netflix, TikTok, not to mention being determined to get out of the house after being cooped up for two years. I wonder in th

      6 min read

    • Article

      Movement and Flow

      May 10, 2019

      A FEW YEARS AGO my mother had a phase in which every three or four months something would short in her heart or brain, and she’d slump to the floor. Whatever did this left no trace; we guessed some kind of seizure. By the time I’d find her in the eme

      11 min read

    • Article

      What Agents Wish Writers Knew

      Dec 21, 2021

      What Agents Wish Writers Knew
      9 min read

    • Article

      How I Remember It

      Jun 20, 2020

      This is the way I remember it: We’re all gathered in the kitchen on Christmas Eve, too many bodies for one small space, and my grandfather is telling stories. We clear the dishes as he starts recalling the first time he made mashed potatoes as a fled

      3 min read

    • Article

      Writing, Always Writing: On Charles Baxter, Craft, and Aging

      Sep 14, 2020

      The sort of realism that I’ve practiced in the past isn’t adequate to the times we’re in. The post Writing, Always Writing: On Charles Baxter, Craft, and Aging appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Twelve Ways to Create Space to Write No Matter Where You Are

      Dec 14, 2022

      1. Turn your mind inside out. One of my favorite discoveries has been dry-erase paint. I fully painted two of my office walls, and it’s where I do my first project outlines. The temporariness of it gives me permission to be messy and the space to con

      3 min read

    • Article

      David Treuer of Pantheon

      Feb 16, 2022

      David Treuer of Pantheon
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Writer’s Bookshelf

      Aug 17, 2022

      As you find your path as a writer, there may be no better support than the wisdom of your fellow travelers. Let these twelve recent and forthcoming books by some of contemporary literature’s most insightful and generous luminaries guide you on your w

      4 min read

    • Article

      Page One

      Apr 13, 2022

      “I open my eyes to forget / I close my eyes to remember” Line and Light (Graywolf Press, May 2022) by Jeffrey Yang. Fourth book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Jeff Shotts. Publicist: Claudia Acevedo-Quiñones. “Some nights, when the rabbit a

      2 min read

    • Article

      DIY Mfa

      Mar 26, 2022

      DIY Mfa
      3 min read

    • Article

      All About Omniscience

      Feb 14, 2022

      All About Omniscience
      10 min read

    • Article

      The LAST CHAPTER

      Oct 17, 2020

      The LAST CHAPTER
      11 min read

    • Article

      Royalties: The Long Tail

      Oct 18, 2021

      When I first signed with my agent, I joked that I wanted my advances to be paid in the form of solid gold toilets,1 and that’s been our code for good news ever since. When I get an email with the subject line “Gold Toilet Incoming,” I know we’ve sold

      4 min read

    • Article

      What Physics Can Teach Us About Writing Fiction

      Mar 6, 2018

      Sometimes writing fiction feels to me like that oft-used image of a godlike creator: the man pulling the strings of the marionette, orchestrating each fine movement from above the stage. One string might be character, another plot, a third setting, a

      6 min read

    • Article

      Recommended Flash Fiction from the Editors of 100 Word Story

      May 3, 2018

      As writers and editors of flash fiction, we love stories that are structured around a story’s gaps, the nuanced caesuras of what’s left out. In fact, the promise of a good flash story—a genre usually defined as being less than 1,000 words—is the way

      7 min read

    • Article

      Wrath Of The Gods

      Oct 18, 2021

      The Poppy War trilogy, Rebecca F. Kuang’s debut fantasy series, creates a new magic system with very old roots. the Chinese-American writer borrows Taoist and Chinese folk themes to build her own pantheon of gods, then draws on the ancient tradition

      6 min read

    • Article

      A Diverse Perspective

      Feb 14, 2022

      Writing is empowering. Publishing is exhausting. That is how most of my conversations start with diverse author friends since the beginning of the pandemic. Not only are we experiencing a social justice crisis, but we are also seeing more and more cr

      4 min read

    • Article

      Required Reading

      Oct 2, 2018

      AS A PROFESSOR teaching creative writing to undergraduates, I’m asked dozens of questions about writing on a weekly basis because my students distrust struggle and mistakenly sense that they’re somehow doing it wrong. I try my best to respond with th

      7 min read

    • Article

      Freshen Up!

      Mar 26, 2022

      Freshen Up!
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Maps and Legends

    3.5/5

    294 ratings16 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      Chabon's essays on writing - both his and others' - shows a deep fascination with golems and comic books
    • 4/5
      Great book of essays made all the more wonderful by an incredibly artistic triplicate dust jacket.
    • 2/5
      We've got a kind of 'doth protest too much' thing going on here. Chabon claims to be writing simply to entertain, but his essays and novels are filled with literary allusions and philosophical stratagems. I only managed to get through two of these, though I skimmed most of the rest. I did not feel enriched, nor as if there was anything truly illuminating or even all that evocative here. I'll continue reading him, as I've loved some of his other works. But I won't expect to be pleased with every one of them. Sorry.
    • 4/5
      (A Short Review for a great book.) Great Read. Chabon an explorer of all genres of fiction, a great story teller, shares his map to Fictional Worlds: "It is along the knife border land between these two kingdoms, between the Empire of lies and the Republic of truth, more than any frontier on the map of existence, that Trickster makes his Wandering way, and either comes to grief or finds his supper, his treasure, his fate." 222
    • 4/5
      There's no denying that Michael Chabon cares very deeply about literature in general and genre fiction in particular, and his enthusiasm for storytelling is contagious. However, I have to admit that I didn't connect with some of the pieces, having never read anything by Cormac McCarthy, Will Eisner, etc. -- which I admit is my fault, not Chabon's. However, it would have behooved Chabon to recognize that not everyone would know the authors he was extolling/critiquing, and only the pieces about Arthur Conan Doyle, Philip Pullman and M.R. James are long enough to give non-fans a real sense of those writers' qualities. His more general essays about fiction are fine, but my favorites are the autobiographical pieces, as those gave some real insights into his background and favorite themes, and also tend to be more revealing and funnier (along the lines of his later collection "Manhood for Amateurs").
    • 4/5
      At their best, these essays are superb. Would particularly cite the opening essay ("Trickster in a Suit of Lights" which focuses on the modern short story, and laments the increased divergence from its roots in ghost stories, adventure stories, and the like) and the closing essay/fiction ("Golems I Have Known" which seamlessly weaves autobiography with invention to describe Chabon's encounters with three golems that shaped his subsequent life and trajectory, with a particularly richly drawn fraudulent writer/Holocaust survivor).

      In between, many of the essays focus on particular books or authors. When you have read/like them, they can be extremely good (the essay on His Dark Materials is fascinating, describing it as coming from the Christian tradition while most other fantasy is from the Norse), in some cases they serve as a good introduction to an author you may read little or none (e.g., "The Other James" about M.R. James), but in many--especially the ones about comic books I have never read--it is less interesting.

      Overall, the goal of the book is to defend genre fiction--and especially comic books--celebrating the "trickster" in literature who entertains with well shaped stories with good plots, interesting characters, and leaving the reader uncertain what is real and what is a trick. And it was successful in achieving this goal.
    • 4/5
      This collection of essays has moments of brilliance...and then some "just good" essays. I especially loved the essay about his childhood in Columbia, Maryland, a planned community much different than the rest of late 1960s - early 1970s America. The essay on Cormac McCarthy is wonderful and made me almost want to read another of his works, but I'm not quite convinced. I do want to read the "His Dark Materials" trilogy by Pullman. Overall, I am very glad that I read this work.
    • 4/5
      Not all of this was new to me, but I've got somewhat of a soft spot for Chabon's ruminations on genre fiction. The man makes a good argument about how foolish it is that some writing can be considered Literature, while other writing is condemned to be thought of as little more than a childish diversion, merely because of the subject matter.

      Nevertheless, he feels a bit like a mad prophet shouting in the desert. Capital-L Literature ain't going nowhere.

      As the book proceeds, the essays become more and more personal, as Chabon comments on his own writing, fears, hopes, and dreams. At times, this seems to stretch the boundaries of his self-defined "Maps and Legends" framework (intentionally, perhaps?), but it also renders the book more effective and affecting.

      The essays are all pretty short, which does offer the advantage of keeping the author from belaboring his points overmuch, but at the same time, I would have liked him to comment in more detail on some of his thoughts.
    • 4/5
      At their best, these essays are superb. Would particularly cite the opening essay ("Trickster in a Suit of Lights" which focuses on the modern short story, and laments the increased divergence from its roots in ghost stories, adventure stories, and the like) and the closing essay/fiction ("Golems I Have Known" which seamlessly weaves autobiography with invention to describe Chabon's encounters with three golems that shaped his subsequent life and trajectory, with a particularly richly drawn fraudulent writer/Holocaust survivor).In between, many of the essays focus on particular books or authors. When you have read/like them, they can be extremely good (the essay on His Dark Materials is fascinating, describing it as coming from the Christian tradition while most other fantasy is from the Norse), in some cases they serve as a good introduction to an author you may read little or none (e.g., "The Other James" about M.R. James), but in many--especially the ones about comic books I have never read--it is less interesting.Overall, the goal of the book is to defend genre fiction--and especially comic books--celebrating the "trickster" in literature who entertains with well shaped stories with good plots, interesting characters, and leaving the reader uncertain what is real and what is a trick. And it was successful in achieving this goal.
    • 3/5
      I love Michael Chabon novels, so I had high hopes for this collection of essays. I loved this book best when he wrote about his own evolution as a reader and a writer. The genesis of his works is apparent.
    • 5/5
      Essays and insights into one of the most fascinating literary minds of our time.
    • 3/5
      Chabon's essays on other writers verge on the purple - always a danger with his prose. But once he starts writing about his own works (about half way through) the quality of the work picks up. His essay on superhero costumes is the one exception to this rule - it is quite good.
    • 5/5
      Sixteen essays on the nature of Chabon‘s and other genre fictions. The essay on McCarthy‘s The Road, I didn‘t read, as I haven‘t yet read the novel. The cover is one of the best and most unusual I have ever seen: the outside has an ancient Greek ship in teal, alongside a sea monsters. Then there‘s a green jungle scene with Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson, a cracked up biplane and Tarzan. Inside that cover is a tan desert scene several ragged adults and a parent, an ill or dead child and a shopping cart, a cowboy on a horse, Napoleon, a golem, and Thor at the top watching it all (on all the covers?) and inside that the hardcover with Michael Chabon‘s name, the “o“ is a sun peaking out over all the covers, with “Maps and Legends” (a cut out from all the other covers) as a big gold ‘X.’ Chabon‘s point, is that genre fiction is just another way to tell stories and as valid, such as it is, as any other fiction. “Imaginary Homelands,” or the ideas that lead to The Yiddish Policemen’s Union came from a Yiddish phrasebook for a country that never existed, where Yiddish is the primary language. In “Trickster in a Suit of Lights; Thoughts on the Modern Short Story” Chabon writes: “Entertainment has a bad name. Serious people learn to mistrust and even to revile it. The word wears spandex, pasties, a leisure suit studded with blinking lights… The brain is an organ of entertainment, sensitive at any depth, and over a wide spectrum. But we have learned to mistrust and despise our human aptitude for being entertained, and in that sense we get the entertainment we deserve. I’d like to believe that, because I read for entertainment, I write to entertain.”
    • 4/5
      Chabon’s writing is challenging in an energizing way, spurring this reader on to further thought, related reading, and flights of fancy. I was reminded of the essays of dear, departed David Foster Wallace–erudite AND entertaining, though Chabon’s book has far fewer footnotes. I’m not sure the book would be as entertaining to non-geeks, but I found a great deal to appreciate.
    • 4/5
      When I was a college student in the 1980s, Michael Chabon's first novel, "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh," came as a huge revelation and a relief. Until then, I had feared that our generation was going to be led by the likes of Bret Easton Ellis and Tama Janowitz. This was not a good feeling. Reading "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh," on the other hand, gave me a very good feeling. It was the same feeling that helped make me an addicted reader in the first place, of not wanting to put a book down, refusing to set it aside for a meal or sleep. Now we have Chabon's first book of nonfiction, a collection of essays in which he comes clean with his real literary love: what is condescendingly called genre fiction, otherwise known as stories people actually want to read. This is in contrast to the higher brow reading matter that often feels like the literary equivalent of vitamins and wheat germ. You know it's supposed to be good for you, but it's not much fun to take in. "Maps and Legends" is not a manifesto. It's an essay collection. But it has a common thread running throughout: Chabon's love for the written word and defense of forms that have been dismissed into genre ghettoes not worthy of the attention of our finest writers. Because this book is a collection of essays written for different occasions and differing publications, it varies quite a bit but it's all pretty easy going down. I liked his essay about golems, but it didn't resonate for me nearly as strongly as his piece about "Norse Gods and Giants" - now known as "D'Aulaires' Book of Norse Myths" - which Chabon loved as a child. My sister taught me to read from that book and I can still see the illustrations of the cow licking the universe into existence, and the three Norns, who are sort of like fates, spinning strands of yarn that represent human lives. I won't even go into the trickster god Loki and his repellent ship covered in toenail clippings. Other pieces in "Maps and Legends" point to new reading opportunities currently buried in old anthologies, particularly a ghost story writer named M.R. James, whom Chabon refers to as "the other James." Henry gets all the love now but back in the day it was M.R. who got the readers and Chabon thinks he should get some back. "For the central story of M.R. James ... is ultimately the breathtaking fragility of life, of 'reality,' of all the structures that we have erected to defend ourselves from our constant nagging suspicion that underlying everything is chaos, brutal and unreasoning." That sounds like real literature to me. As a still-recovering English major I particularly appreciate smart, appreciative, nonturgid literary criticism. I still don't get why anyone wants to spend her life in the field of literary studies merely to tear apart her subject. Chabon not only loves literature, he wants to be read and understood and not just by a few PhDs who have learned a particular incomprehensible ugly jargon. For that, I thank him. And I hope he helps a new generation love their literature without shame. I'm going to do my part by looking up the works of M.R. James.
    • 4/5
      A nice little collection of nonfiction from Chabon, including some autobiographical, reviews, thoughts on writing, and thoughts on genre.

    Book preview

    Maps and Legends - Michael Chabon

    D_book_preview_excerpt.html}|˒F`6cYdt͢Eʒ1YMS<Wpd0g'%}ιD2#p_so0Vo~fS?˅kB׵S]_૧15>Mηճ|ÇXݝ}'{x)q }9LUU0Uq_ __b)3.#AՏB1;Xm_{y TuÓwX5i?su~t8/csFkѠ6 U? aV9(osT/cG[y:̯njn觨>&+{_WR;Wl[+~U=`x7UL\a/Zcumބi}"^N0{w]_Gw7Z盛!`++ZWϲ?v o3?/F-ݪX_뛽X`o^ b*&@0yXun1ck1Uw>`CʛqHI0m1V\t:<0tFS LtM!1m{~ ('cc\Σ4 7M58M~ΣIax3Q7rPwoe4.8औ vtv]G\<ڐ?S*T?;yxpBQOW~@>ͽvmFe-C׭ch70c;u E&z50p_f)6s=UCj;=nqۄ =+`45l\-)qois먥zx K{HK8I"- >0uu0+7T%,fB@\d箯UKv3}0Lm4lR_A㣽p #Ѧ<}S`ʯ*8Kx3a)67R`?8UΝZ(LyCWsXn&BN0<+n7e4hB?rAa*DHY'o@_K*?|;xJ/ʿ|4%h~bs$7`T=ЙA"M}?B9) 댡`Hx);p(2[M aCNhCg½36De&\? pNQ(9Ӄ_4Y0xd`|a W?jn_9m@YC鸶:lOHBg!VysԻleJ`m:($̹B {.ur%ZmxOr#k7h{7"y[C(pdL^;~5i B5#X;:f#<jEb϶Ѧ;$}>lc%O~VnnG/aB\L=8QmewP%bHPECx_r _iNl'GEi[/33N,ioǢ!@ q~*pR!m) ^ mZ  j"H~[78w+v9`#OS  L=uIafsmOjOʎ02z> b э9`oc|o='`K:? ]Ȓ`_<"89BêUވQn7JҍT1zY;hٵcAܟi4>[LWlCg:FRt͘/_GNfu6 FbĎ'<(g Fb!!%%G#>7{vp U=.Yn.><1xD7z"$I;d5Lѐ{<* :Qz9yW/' h/EyɏX7)La:/a `YWؼoDq,&P)0-B&MF1|wMcg^NHjrr(S]nLM%ӸHqa5MPP6O3rt &˙2 *>[N^: #p/ 7b*s]G{ĭvBg)q3a)<`HME\C'`Xfr &}ɓwglch0Bb`?DrpEk3#Ű.,vp1>ab4Qvg_Vj5-E}Onrǔ0llc>7*aiKB!((q!0Ǥؘ iJR߀<F O>@D0UMapcw]FlNN$R^ k{{ &?-A&n>tFW+ze&9oX4ZbMaIRHl#ݾ w0P0&^0ӌO߉n6g>~IN%9u?-K*z=Kznj v} x9 _x󍥐B3[n@;z>2H"'`IN?A|ɬt@\$O(4ZI+/6wOU::EST4_N1b~2(.7^.m 8\9fsbla%b@b:l mdj(7cHSaHI]*v/0ܛ6~&`r*~o e#l M}fws_+26 #Y!} !-1֎!:/bF'&E e6R.|QVNb#Q[:-2r@0 kDS|}5SN A3Gpf%Dɖs|e܂ؓ(A)L穤hǜ0R]Ǩ/3Q3 ;E!RVVS\0[3}|j~tV)c-ZiVRKG?-3 .SHV dNz@a@ t D "(rf~V D%q 4T+ȈI3 Ƃq>1OTbdtdHovwTCv@0c4o$u d̘Y{\MN{u|j^ ])nY|DxfoE_A^+e#'H~g<)۫z횳W;F9qb$z4 $ F|Ԥj,Dwɋk@J`x&-.IJMw-4Y/LI[Ė6,aa1[ UJ 9犔S\vPyZ%k)[ jL! (979Slf(<#Uƺ_;3~J.@y?cbtrAIk ݬ 3HB8([xw%GlKې >1+64vWHُDLx#E\=ݚRD+p!!aE LmiClZ`7웪ʄb7`~GAY'u@=~C&MZc'rzpр*CeZ,nJ2絰'HLRWi*Xɡ}mi4ޘ|0ك?a<.LYM,VyjlUqlEc@2deKL37"햷y_JV>/a7[-,R+6G+4$@f+hop.i1-eh: ? mQuI:R+X+(6WR9ӥF{ɕ\vg&'w78_5-K Tq*N3b\,Y;_{)ɘ6)=3.դN /է-+_o)\QMsSPWr{q d[qj,1!turV՘YlU"Sݐ0r6'{[@Trw3wGw:QFIι4V:9+VV Ԉ'$ *ҪfwP*bXQRw! Ɵ=)Jd*sk 1401k_+K]Q¾f݂$)=i$=c -9AS35+`ͥ%ICsHI^}']I~njz + &cbU$$e [e=3V3YOF._9ٞl27,d}:Wm)"dVh4NlL]]G0J=zw18Z[ʽz0a<ׇҶ(k[GR"t"<%Ppt y$ 7/ ?yЩy2f+8o7l MgȺ3{1LN& vVyX!?Qw[hBnerܻ/jzFvP5 mO}:/uN9qNn7er;6aKQC5IҘvbB lv,_F[(V 辐9'Z7L5@#WuSbgR0,M51vZ9Z>Kǖ"]TɐS$/"Qlp5 `AA.0-PRΧ_=KN'*%ka ZvS4U'@sؔ8[.),F88OKnevn||!uWtX:P}qWbK]6WFyg:ה4S6l FgTXa,@T/&l3 rEÿ~ S)Z*ɸHnǛUR+Chz؁YٵomwZL3dѺʒ [aSeU@Zvؔ|Wh;s $ȩ&zÑS+I-a#3bG (>v`hYUaףP[|:gtH&!q(E;27MrlZv|U%,FpA[LIr aլNjrmvR%vgRyX/ ;?i(l_tojD{V~gKu} ^rjjhlW͵krrCPSAQj䡰ijP*բؗv4˒l;r:T#K_#Rce)9{Dו :Tϋ2ũqL'ңP`M\z']È.* p,([U!9oŧŁUjSI<آeiW R0~oܙ"я.Ih Xo*R-l 2~L4\%7EsF󭅠mz6,㉨K},rs@5nWb,"Ъbr]P"s{(Sz--~RK9aicZC420ꭜOKvE&?O|x\[ :-A1-svE;#(DV}%uc-+2ҟdC>X+?Ff+|cK9+7KrnZ'ngKML*i7dF$m/<|Y}b8'Nf>x) ".by%\Nd[uOQǃC֓}>x})O+W漍[}C^9Co|<.r~>gCɝ_-6{VH)|v](Cv2&{C!e9߿Y>R:R椈g;8.˃`$-4b>ZG-nk tarR*tiׇI]9Y/A(|GTك6U]6BS!V~UgP&"rl޵}?¼~'|y|\L2֕-d+zO3nF.iC˱U.{'GG>Tl|Ր,->*V=7H |)IvEuȣ_Կ?ݶ0D S5r9¸/,`vl@B U5(.JVv na>.@1O- si!9W&:E MZ48_D OI7'fe | hG,`?rT6je`I2(eÎOi4Z\$g!㕅.eXPlm8T
    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1