Neil Gaiman, Eat Your Heart Out

Summerland by Michael Chabon

As I read this through for the fourth glorious time, it occurred to me that if there is a more perfect, lucid, shimmering children's book, then I for one have not read it. From the way baseball is raised not merely to an art form, but to the source and purpose of all life in every universe, to the way the characters' most vivid emotions are presented simply, plainly, and powerfully, to the occasional authorial asides that provide a whimsied contrast to the drama of the plot, there is nothing done that is not perfectly done.

But more than this, on this latest rereading something occured to me: Mr. Chabon loves books. Loves them with all his heart, soul, and creative passion. He has to, since even while writing one book, he inevitably includes other, lesser books.

For example, in Summerland, he includes Peavine's How To Catch Lightning And Smoke as well as the book of Wa-He-Ta lore that Jennifer T. Rideout consults. In Wonder Boys, of course, there is the manuscript the main character is endlessly writing. In Kavalier and Clay, there are the golden age comic books and Chabon's own Escapist. It's as if he creates a world with each book, but can't manage to create a world without books -- and it makes me wonder how deep it could go, if he let it take over entirely. Books within books within books ...