Josef Kavalier’s Odyssey: Homeric Echoes in Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

摘要

This paper shows that the numerous parallels between Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer-Prize winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000) and the Odyssey portray the novel’s hero as a Jewish Odysseus. It illustrates how Chabon’s work contains episodes, structures and character typologies that correspond to numerous exemplars in the Odyssey, including the Telemachia (Od. 1-4), Kyklopeia (Od. 9), Nekuia (Od. 11), Anagnorismos (Od. 16), Toxou Thesis / Mnesterophonia (Od. 21-22), and the “Wrath of Poseidon.” In addition, the novel’s main female character shares similar characteristics with Penelope. A preoccupation with “escape” is central to the novel, reflecting one of the essential themes of the epic and the specialty of its hero. Chabon himself invites a study of this sort, having recently written that the Odyssey and its hero form the original paradigm for the “Adventure Story” — especially where Jewish characters are concerned (2007.201-203).