The Relation between Words and Worlds in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Abstract

This paper offers an analysis of Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. In the first part, Chabon’s novel will be read as an example of what Linda Hutcheon has coined “historiographic metafiction”. In the second part, I will show that The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is an excellent illustration of Brian McHale’s definition of postmodern literature and that this postmodern identity plays an important role in expressing the novel’s main theme, escapism.

Keywords

• Michael Chabon
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
• postmodernism
• historiographic metafiction
• possible worlds
• "ontological" layers
• (de)mythification
• escapism