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).
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The author is grateful to those whose encouragement and suggestions helped to improve this essay, especially Professor Wolfgang Haase and the perceptive referees of IJCT. Many thanks also to Sasha J. Cuttler, Beth Juhl, Chad M. Keiffer, Col. J. Barney Levine (US Army, Ret.), Judith R. Levine, Sarah R. Levine, David Mervis, Alexandra Pappas, and Susan R. Sugarman. I dedicate this essay to my teacher William K. Freiert, whose exempla of scholarship and humanism continue to inspire.
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Levine, D.B. Josef Kavalier’s Odyssey: Homeric Echoes in Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay . Int class trad 17, 526–555 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-010-0217-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-010-0217-0