Michael Chabon: Summerland

Reviewed by NORMAN BILBROUGH

As a devotee of C.S. Lewis and Tolkien, Michael Chabon always wondered why there was not an American equivalent of Narnia or Middle Earth. After all, America is not lacking in its own faerie-lore, its own body of little people and magic.

This 500-page novel is his answer. It's an adventure, apparently, for young and old readers.

Chabon is known for his novels Wonder Boys and, more recently, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. His prose is so adept and knowing that at times it can leave a reader breathless. This skill is accompanied by an inventive imagination. With these talents in mind, and his intention of creating a rival to Narnia or Middle Earth, one starts Summerland with a good deal of anticipation. Will he succeed in creating a whole new mythology, and will it have the sort of ageless appeal of the other classics?

Summerland is about baseball, and an inept player of the game. Indeed, Ethan Feld, the teen protagonist, is the worst player in the history of the junior league on Clam Island, Washington.

But the game is the scheme, the frame of the book. A baseball series is followed in the real world - and in the faerie world. Gradually these games assume a life and death significance, and the climactic game in Summerlands, the main faerie world, is crucial both for the survival of that world and other worlds.

One day, while journeying with his father to a weekly game, Ethan encounters a werefox, a magical creature from another world. This creature is actually a talent scout for baseball leagues, and he introduces Ethan to Summerlands, a wonderful world that exists in the branches of the great tree of the universe. It's possible to scamper from Ethan's world into Summerlands, rather like leaping from branch to branch.

But Coyote (the devil) is about to destroy Summerlands and eventually poison the great tree - and it falls to Ethan and a motley band of friends and strays to remedy this situation by playing baseball. A big task for a kid who never ever keeps his eye on the ball, and whom nobody wants on their team.

It sounds like a simple tale, but in fact the story is meandering and often incoherent. Chabon's inventiveness works against him. He presents an enormous cast of faerie tribes and sub-tribes, living in worlds and sub-worlds, and these smaller mythologies and histories drastically loosen and clutter the narrative - and undermine its tension. Coupled with this, the evil characters lack impact because the author views them too ironically, and even though the end of the world might be at stake, one is not really convinced. Finally, the wheelers and dealers are too charming and benign.

But this doesn't stop Summerland being an immensely interesting work. It's written by a man with a fertile consciousness and a fascination for vivid mythologies, and although Coyote isn't the Dark Lord, he's an interesting dilettante.

So don't expect the heroic and tight moral backbone of Narnia or Lord of the Rings. Don't even expect to be gripped, but look forward to a stimulating and diverse read.

Fourth Estate, $34.99

* Norman Bilbrough is a Wellington writer.