Summerland

** By Michael Chabon.

The premise is that Ethan, an 11 year old rotten baseball player, is recruited to foil wicked Coyote's plan to bring about the end of the universe. To do so, he and an ever-growing team of friends travel through Summerland, one of the four worlds making up the universe which happens to be where all your American folk creatures live and where matters of enormity are settled through baseball games.

The basic idea was fun, and the writing is very fine. But the story moves slowly, is cluttered with characters, and, in my opinion, lacks direction. It's like Chabon knew how he wanted things to end up but wasn't sure why the hell things would happen so that things would end up that way. Like, the whole initial problem is that Coyote wants to end the universe, but hardly anyone else really seems into the idea (bad guys included) and no one can really figure out why the hell Coyote wants to do this. In fact, Coyote doesn't even really seem sure. It's just because he's perverse and enjoys causing chaos and pain -- or something.

The story does have its moments, however. I particularly liked the character of Taffy the Sasquatch who sings long, depressing songs, is very sensitive about the size of her feet, and is spoken to like a widdle puppy doggy by the giant who has imprisoned her.

Overall, though, the story seemed to ramble a lot, and there was so much going on at any one time that any particular devices Chabon used sort of got lost in the shuffle.

Posted by Lisa on February 27, 2003 04:39 PM