Chabon’s criticism of fiction is, I think, quite valid, but his own style I do not think lends itself to being a part of the solution.
Throughout Telegraph Avenue I just kept thinking that it was a book that couldn’t decide what type of book it wanted to be. While it is easy to pick up on the themes that are quite plainly within the text, the novel comes up short in providing any worthwhile commentary. It’s apparent that with Telegraph Avenue he set out to take in his own criticism and write something that relied heavily upon a strong plot, attempting to mix in themes in subtle ways. Chabon has criticized much of literature as being too self-indulgent and forgetting the value of a plot within a story. If it sounds complex, that’s because it is.
The story deals with what it means to be an authentic person, America’s selling of its soul to preference corporate businesses over “Mom and Pop” stores, parenthood, homophobia, and racism. Telegraph Avenue is a book about two families, one white and one black, whose husbands own a used-vinyl record shop, and whose wives work together as midwives. I definitely agreed with some of the criticisms and I will be echoing them momentarily, but first, let me attempt to explain what the book is about. I was probably 250 pages into Telegraph Avenue when I finally googled it to see what the cool kids were saying about the novel. The point is that I’m a big fan of minimalist cover-art and using my preferences to judge books.
Chabon’s archive of books have a consistent cover art that is absolutely over the top, and could potentially be described as maximalist. So as I ventured through my local Books-A-Million (the store’s name referencing both its stock and its pricing) and found a really interesting cover (the one at the top of this review) and that sold me enough to buy my first Chabon novel. In the case of Telegraph Avenue I knew that I wanted to read Michael Chabon, but I didn’t want to start with his Pulitzer Prize winner The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. I don’t often read a book “cold.” Meaning that I rarely go into a book without first knowing at least a basic plot point or main character.
0 kommentar(er)
