Sean Collins Walsh/The Daily Northwestern
As a bullied tween, Michael Chabon found solace in the life and works of Edgar Allen Poe, he told a packed audience at the Owen L. Coon Forum on Tuesday night.
“Bookish, homely, clumsy, bright, friendless, arrogant and self-pitying – I was all those things at the same time,” the Pulitzer-winning author said. “The tag of ‘nerd’ did not come into general use in the school corridors of my hometown until the following year and words like ‘geek’ or ‘fanboy’ or even, in its full derogatory richness, ‘loser’ remained years away from finding their way onto the ‘kick me’ sign I wore taped to my back.”
Peppered with references to Klingons and Quentin Tarantino, Chabon’s prose was met with appreciative laughter from an audience of students, faculty and guests.
Chabon’s most recent works include “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay,” which earned the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.” Many audience members said they attended because they were fans of his work, rather than being particularly interested in Poe.
“The opportunity just to hear him speak and see him in person was enough to bring me up here,” said Chicago resident James Curly. “He can expound on a topic I have no big relationship with and give it such life.”
The lecture, which discussed the larger mysteries lurking beneath Poe’s familiar words, lasted 90 minutes.
When quoting Poe and reading his own words, Chabon’s voice was low and dramatic, his diction pronounced. Within the brightly lit confines of the forum, Chabon evoked the dark, misty forest of Poe’s “Ulalume” – his rendition was more performance than presentation. After reciting the poem, he questioned the text with the accusatory nature of a cross-examination, and later credited the lawyers in his family for his ability to craft sentences and speak them compellingly.
“I was taught by the lawyers and the linguists that each of these words has at least five meanings, at least two of which are good for a laugh,” he said.
The American Studies program sponsored the talk as the last in a series of lectures called “Great Authors,” which was funded by a grant from the Office of the President, said Kate Baldwin, director of the American Studies program. The lecture series featured contemporary authors who discuss writers of their choice.
Mark Shpizner, a Weinberg senior writing his thesis on comic book superheroes, said he was honored and nervous when given the task of introducing Chabon.
“I had to rack my brain and be really introspective,” he said, describing how he went about writing the introduction. “A lot of it came pretty naturally because I think I share a lot of interests intellectually in a lot of the topics he writes about.”
Shpizner was one of many attendees who clutched a copy of “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay,” waiting for Chabon to sign them. After the speech, audience members held stacks of books, some worn and ripped, some glossy and new, waiting for Chabon’s autograph.
“He’s one of my favorite authors,” said Weinberg sophomore Travis White-Schwoch. “I thought he was really engaging and well-spoken and I appreciate that he was sort of honest and satirical and wry about his arrogance.”
At 10 p.m., after the last title page had been signed, Chabon said he hoped he could be for his fans what Poe had been for him, giving “some young reader out there the same sense of companionship.”
