I’ve been rereading “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Klay” to refresh my memory, in advance of checking out Mason Bates’ new opera at the Met this week. A little while ago, I watched an unrelated interview with the book’s author, Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon, who straddles the worlds of “serious” and pop cultural fiction (i.e. comic books, the pulps, genre pastiche) with the authority of a literary colossus. The interview was geared toward young readers, and one of the things he recommended was making an effort to read outside one’s comfort zone. By that, he means not only reading about subjects to which one wouldn’t ordinarily gravitate, but also getting to know different characters by writers who come from diverse backgrounds, as it can really expand one’s understanding and empathy for other perspectives. It’s clear that Chabon practices what he preaches, as it’s the only explanation for the richness of the world he creates and recalls in “Kavalier & Clay” (much of the book is set during the Great Depression and World War II) and the realistic characters who occupy it.
For instance, I don’t know what kind of music Chabon enjoys, but clearly he’s an intellectual omnivore. His curiosity about the classics may not extend very deeply into opera (the premiere of “Kavalier & Klay” was the first time he ever set foot in the Met), but it drove him far enough beyond Bach and Beethoven to turn up no less than Karol Szymanowski. Szymanowski, one of Poland’s foremost composers, was born on this date (according to some sources) in 1882. Szymanowski is referenced multiple times throughout “Kavalier & Clay,” and I’m not entirely sure why. It could just be that the author enjoys his music, or perhaps he simply likes the sound of his name (Shim-an-OFF-ski). Or it could be that he is trying to demonstrate, as he lets drop several times throughout the narrative, that many of these characters who are caught up in the pulp, comic, and novelty business are actually very talented people, immigrants who perhaps abandoned their higher aspirations when they settled in the United States and determined to improve their lot. Which would explain why long-suffering publisher Sheldon Anapol is a member of the Szymanowski Society.
Later in the book, Szymanowski is not mentioned by name when we are told that a portrait of the composer of “Songs of an Infatuated Muezzin” hangs on the wall behind his desk. Holy moly, Chabon! “Songs of an Infatuated Muezzin” isn’t even one of Szymanowski’s better-known works! I wonder if, thematically, the author might also have found the subject matter – a Muslim holy man who, in the execution of his sacred duty to call the faithful to prayer five times a day, finds himself increasingly distracted by erotic thoughts of his beloved – apposite to the situation of one of Chabon’s protagonists, Joe Kavalier, who succumbs to his guilt over the distraction from his primary mission, to get his family out of Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. In the meantime, he’s been engaged in a serious affair. Two affairs, actually – one with a free-spirited Greenwich Village bohemian and another, his artistic devotion to comic books – and the reader wonders which passion outstrips the other. In his way, he too is distracted from his sacred duty by a beguiling mistress.
I don’t know that Chabon had this in mind, but the parallel is there. Or, as I say, it could be that he just likes the music.
Looking forward to “Kavalier & Clay.” Also, happy birthday, Karol Szymanowski!
“Songs of an Infatuated Muezzin”
“The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay” at the Met
https://www.metopera.org/season/2025-26-season/the-amazing-adventures-of-kavalier–clay/
Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto No. 2, recorded by Henryk Szeryng
Michael Chabon interview geared to young readers
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: The novel, a still from the opera, and Karol Szymanowski
