A Model World

Michael Chabon

1991 • 207 pages

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A story collection from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, “one of his generation’s most eloquent new voices” (The New York Times). With his first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Michael Chabon announced his presence as a literary wunderkind of style and substance. A Model World and Other Stories only burnished his reputation as a distinctive prose stylist. In eleven elegant tales—some of them linked—by the New York Times–bestselling author of Telegraph Avenue and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Chabon’s singular characters hold tight to private dreams even as their closest relationships crumble. Five stories follow an anxious adolescent from the beach vacation where he learns of his parents’ divorce to the confused days of a woefully misguided crush. Others find ex-lovers tormenting each other at an oceanside café, a washed-up professional baseball player attending a teammate’s funeral, and a Pittsburgh disc jockey still pining for a woman who married him to get her American citizenship. “Chabon moves across powerful emotional ground with certainty and delicacy,” raves the Chicago Tribune. “There are heartbreaking moments in these stories, but they are rendered so precisely, through incidents that capture the subtlest of feelings, that the reader can only smile at Chabon’s skill.” This ebook features a biography of the author.

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Metaphorosis Reviews

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Model World and Other Stories, A
Michael Chabon

2.5 stars

I hadn't heard of Michael Chabon until last year, when I happened across a New York Times profile of Jack Vance, which quoted Mr. Chabon as someone whose opinion was of importance. Chabon spoke well of Vance, and I took note of his name. Some casual research turned him up as an award-winning and well-respected author. So when Open Road Media had a good sale, I picked up one of Chabon's short story collections.

The collection turns out to be ‘older' - from 1991. Perhaps that explains my reaction, but I presume that these are also the stories with which Mr. Chabon made his mark. Some of them were first published in the New Yorker, and certainly many of the stories have that New Yorker feel - slice of life stories in which nothing much really happens. I'm afraid it's not a style that's particularly appealing to me, and I found myself highly disappointed by the collection.

The book is composed of two parts - the first, ‘A Model World', of unrelated stories, and the second, ‘The Lost World', of stories about Nathan Shapiro. The latter are stronger, but largely because none of the stories ever really reaches a meaningful completion, and the Nathan series at least offers a feeling of (disconnected) growth and development.

Having read the stories, I'm a bit puzzled as to why Chabon made such a splash. I found the writing to be generally good, but not in any way outstanding. I didn't really connect with any of the characters, though there were some I found interesting. Most of the stories left me with a distinct feeling of ‘so what?', and while they weren't bad, I can't say I'm interested to pursue Mr. Chabon's work any further.

February 1, 2014