“OF COMICS, DETECTIVES AND MODEL ROCKETRY” EXAMINING POST-POSTMODERNITY AS THE RESULT OF COMBINING TRAUMA, HISTORY AND FICTION IN THE WORK OF MICHAEL CHABON Aantal woorden: 25329 Casper De Koker Studentennummer: 01005694 Promotor: Prof. dr. Joost Krijnen Masterproef voorgelegd voor het behalen van de graad Master in de richting Engelse Taal- en Letterkunde Academiejaar: 2017 - 2018 Acknowledgements “In the immemorial style of young men under pressure, they decided to lie down for a while and waste time.” ― Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay To start, I would like to thank the university of Ghent, the Hogwarts to my Neville Longbottom, for having me and allowing me to develop as any good round character would. Thanks to the many professors who helped me learn to read in new and improved ways. Then I would also like to thank the people who helped me complete this dissertation and hopefully helped me graduate. First, I would like to thank Professor Joost Krijnen, the Ben Kenobi to my Luke Skywalker, for his introduction to trauma literature and his insights and advice throughout the writing process of this dissertation. Second, thank you to Tine Kempenaers, the second reader of this dissertation, for taking her time to read this. Third, I would like to thank my family and specifically my mother, the Loralai Gilmore to my Rory, for her adamant belief that I could in fact handle education at a university level. Finally I would like to thank my lovely girlfriend Chloë, the Miley to my wrecking ball, for her love, her hawk-eyed proofreading, her words of wisdom and her lack of restraint in calling me a doofus whenever I write stupid things. ii Preface In front of you, you have the master dissertation “‘Of Comics, Detectives And Model Rocketry’ Examining Post-Postmodernity As The Result Of Combining Trauma, History And Fiction In The Work Of Michael Chabon”. Throughout the course of studying English literature and linguistics at the university of Ghent, I encountered a great variety of novels and authors that span literary history. From Old English and American revolutionary literature to contemporary postmodern fiction and even graphic novels. Those who were in charge of teaching and broadening my literary mind never seemed to run out of interesting novels to contemplate, analyse and discuss. In this vast library of works however, there was one author who specifically stood out from the crowd. This author is Michael Chabon. This dissertation looks at four novels by Chabon and was written with the goal of graduating the English Literature and Linguistics Master course at the University of Ghent. Over the course of the fall semester of the 2017-2018 academic year, I came up with the idea of writing a dissertation on Chabon’s latest novel Moonglow. With the help of my promotor Professor Joost Krijnen, this idea changed into an examination of Chabon as a Post- postmodern author. The guidance and suggestions of my promotor added to the paper your will read below. I cannot thank him, and everyone else involved enough. Although this is not the paper I set out to write, I worked hard on it and really tried to engage with the novels through close reading while using theories and ideas I picked up along the way during my time at university. This paper got me out of my comfort zone of just writing papers about comic books and graphic novels. Although I usually thrive with shorter papers, this long piece of writing will hopefully meet your high standards. Happy reading. Casper De Koker – January 2018 iii Table of Contents Introduction 1 Part 1 - Theory ........................................................................................................................................ 6 Chapter 1 Theory ........................................................................................................................ 7 1.1 Trauma Studies ........................................................................................................................ 7 1.1.1 What is Trauma? ......................................................................................................... 7 1.1.2 Trauma and Literature ................................................................................................. 8 1.1.3 Trouble with Representing Trauma in Literature ..................................................... 10 1.2 Historical Fiction ................................................................................................................... 12 1.2.1 The Difference Between Documentary and Historical Fiction ................................. 13 1.2.2 Why Historical Fiction? ............................................................................................ 14 1.2.3 Historical, Pseudo-factual or Historiographic Meta- fiction? ................................... 16 1.3 Post-postmodernism .............................................................................................................. 19 1.3.1 Succeeding Postmodernism ...................................................................................... 19 1.3.2 Post-postmodernism and Its Return to Realism and Humanism ............................... 20 1.3.3 Recurring Post-postmodern Themes and Strategies ................................................. 21 Part 2 - Analysis ................................................................................................................................... 25 Chapter 2 Analysis of Recurring Themes in Michael Chabon’s oeuvre .............................. 26 2.1 Five Noteworthy Themes and Their Connection to Post-postmodernism ............................. 26 2.2 Contextualising Chabon’s Selected Work:. ........................................................................... 29 2.2.1 Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay .......................... 30 2.2.2 Michael Chabon’s The Final Solution ...................................................................... 34 2.2.3 Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.................................................. 40 2.2.4 Michael Chabon’s Moonglow ................................................................................... 45 2.3 Other Post-postmodern Techniques ....................................................................................... 54 2.4 Result ..................................................................................................................................... 58 Conclusion 59 Bibliography 62 Primary works: ....................................................................................................................... 62 Secondary works: ................................................................................................................... 62 iv v List of Abbreviations Kavalier & Clay The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Final Solution The Final Solution Yiddish Policemen The Yiddish Policemen’s Union Maps Maps and Legends 1 Introduction Michael Chabon authored many works. One example is The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, a contemporary English novel that won the Pulitzer prize for fiction in 2001. It has since become a mainstay in high school and university syllabi. It is considered to be many things: a coming of age novel, a fake documentary novel, an immigrant story, a clear-cut representation of the American dream and sometimes a third-generation American trauma narrative dealing with World War II. This last consideration is owed to the fact that it, although from a distance, represents the Holocaust in a literary works of fiction. The novel deals with a historical traumatic history and events related to it. From the experience of studying it at university, the idea formed to write a dissertation on a topic related to Michael Chabon because he is a versatile, interesting and clever author able of weaving many ideas into his works. The focus would be put on a more recent work by Chabon because the premise seemed as interesting and versatile in talking about the Holocaust as Kavalier and Clay was. Chabon published his most recent novel Moonglow and now, almost a year since it was published, Chabon’s Moonglow has remained somewhat untouched by academic discussion or literary analysis. Initially, this dissertation was specifically going to look at Chabon’s Moonglow by itself. This novel’s main story takes place in 1989, at a time where the real Michael Chabon's was taking a break from his first novel’s book tour to visit his mother’s home in Oakland, California to see his terminally ill grandfather. Under the influence of painkillers and approaching death, Chabon’s grandfather shares memories previously unknown to the author. Chabon, feeling like he met a totally new person due to these revelations, decides to weave this experience into a novel which would ultimately become Moonglow. The premise of the novel starts out similarly and the Michael in the novel goes to visit his dying grandfather which leads him to uncovering bits and pieces of a history long since kept a secret. Chabon turns the experience of listening to his grandfather’s revelations into a novel Moonglow yet 1 the result is something that feels realistic and biographical and not fictional at all. Moonglow touches on similar themes as his previous work The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay such as history, trauma and escapism but Chabon actually plays with the genre of historical fiction to set readers off on the wrong foot. Through the use of the form