Michael Chabon's America

by Jesse Kavadlo

  Tipton, Nathan G. “Gender Trouble: Frank Miller’s Revision of Robin in the Batman: Dark Knight Series.” Journal of Popular Culture 41.2 (2008): 321–36. Academic Search Complete. Web. 2 Mar. 2013.

  Chapter 7

  “An American Golem”

  Seth Johnson

  The Necessity of Myth in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

  Michael Chabon’s paean to the golden age of comic books, the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000), is notable for its unabashed praise of the artistry, innovation, and storytelling virtuosity of superhero comics and for highlighting the genre’s Jewish origins.[1] Spanning decades and continents, Kavalier & Clay juxtaposes the social and political landscape of America with the evolution of comic books, the superheroes that populate them, and their creators. As America moves from isolationism to direct involvement in World War II, comics’ characters too move from attempting to bring attention to the atrocities in Nazi-occupied Europe to entering directly into the fray in the pages of comic books, through rallying readers to buy war bonds, offering moral support and entertainment to the troops abroad, and by battling the enemies of the United States in the pages of the books themselves. As the war winds down and Americans return to normal life, the role of the superhero changes with them, as humor, camp, and more mundane daily tasks replace the serious battles against a mortal enemy. Chabon illustrates, throughout the novel, the ways in which comic books reflected the concerns of the mostly first- and second-generation American Jews who created them, and, more broadly, the changing face of American culture in general.

  Kavalier & Clay traces the lives of two young cousins, Sammy Clay (Klayman) and Josef (Joe) Kavalier, who, out of desperation and a fit of creative genius, create the massively popular comic book superhero, the Escapist. Beginning in the 1930s, with Joe’s early life in Prague as a burgeoning escape artist, magician, and visual artist, the novel follows, first Joe as he escapes from the Nazis to New York, and then both him and his cousin Sammy as they help to define the comic book superhero as we know it. For inspiration, Joe and Sammy mine their own experiences, fears, wishes—ranging from the worsening crisis in Europe seen by Joe to Sammy’s desire for a father figure and to cure himself of his own crippled legs—and Jewish folklore to create a character that is driven by a need to free people from bondage and fight oppressors domestic and foreign. The Escapist begins his career as Tom Mayflower, a crippled assistant to his uncle, a brilliant escape artist called Misterioso. When Misterioso is assassinated by an evil organization called the Iron Chain, a thinly veiled stand-in for Nazis, Tom is given a magic key, granting him superpowers, and he becomes the Escapist: “Master of Elusion.”

  The novel follows Joe, Sammy, and their creation through their initial, desperate pitch to publish the character, through his wild successes in comics, advertising, and radio, and on to its eventual fall after the war, and the postwar hysteria fueled by Dr. Fredric Wertham’s book Seduction of the Innocent (1954) and the Senate Hearings on Juvenile Delinquency headed by Senator Estes Kefauver. The Kefauver committee, taking its cue from Wertham, placed the blame for youth crime solely at the feet of comic books. Throughout the novel, Chabon mixes historical events with fiction, and creates, in his two protagonists, composites of many of the most influential artists and writers of the golden age. In so doing he illustrates the impulse for such superhero conventions as the secret identity, mythic powers and origins, and his or her relentless fight against unimaginable evil. In addition, Chabon suggests that the superhero’s birth and development cannot be separated from its time and place, or from the Jewish backgrounds and experiences shared by so many early creators.

  Critical to Chabon’s depiction of the birth of the superhero is his assertion that the foundation upon which it was built is the legendary Golem of Prague. It is no secret that the vast majority of early comic book artists and writers were Jews: Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (Superman), Bob Kane and Bill Finger (Batman), Will Eisner (the Spirit), Jack Kirby (known as the “King of Comics”), Joe Simon (Captain America, with Jack Kirby), and Stan Lee (Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, the X-Men), to name just a few. Many scholars have compellingly illustrated the numerous ways in which the Jewishness of these creators helped to form many of the common tropes associated with the superhero. Super strength is often associated with the biblical hero Samson; Superman’s origin as a baby sent away by his parents in order to save his life, only for him to grow up a secret alien who saves his people harks of Moses. Even the secret identity, shared by the vast majority of superheroes to this day, suggests both the desire of many American Jews of the time to pass as gentiles—Kal-El adopts the name Clark Kent, recalling the many Jews and other immigrants who anglicized their names upon arriving in America—and a sense that there is something inherently great in them behind the disguise.

  While addressing many of these notions, Chabon highlights Jewish folklore rather than the Bible as the key source of inspiration for the superhero. His linking of the Golem of Prague story directly with the creation of the superhero serves two purposes. First, it more firmly places the genesis of the superhero in a decidedly Jewish context. This is especially important in light of the ways in which contemporary portrayals of many superheroes, notably Superman, have tended toward the Christlike. For instance, in the 1993–1994 story arcs “The Death of Superman” and “Reign of the Supermen,” Superman is killed and later resurrected. In his book, Superman: The High-Flying History of America’s Most Enduring Hero (2012), Larry Tye remarks that the Christ imagery imbedded in the story line “could not have been clearer—from a noble death to the discovery of this empty tomb, the resurrection itself, and his making clear that he was back to redeem mankind” (251). Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns (2006) is filled with similar Christ imagery: Lex Luthor’s stabbing Superman in the side with a kryptonite blade, which is preceded by a brutal beating and humiliation scene by Luthor’s henchmen; Superman’s body, lying with arms outstretched, as though crucified; not to mention his return to save humanity. Yet as Chabon shows, and this chapter will illustrate, the foundation upon which the superhero is built is a distinctly Jewish folkloric tradition.

  Second, the reemergence of the Golem of Prague, both as a physical relic and as the model for the superhero, underscores the importance of myth to culture. The Golem turned superhero is emblematic of an inherent cultural need for mythic heroes to call its own. Chabon thus suggests that the reason we remember and retell these stories is because they seem to have continued relevance beyond their time and place. His incorporation of the Golem of Prague in the context of the superhero speaks directly to the ways in which folklore speaks to common human experiences.

  It should be noted that Chabon is not the first to suggest that the Golem is an early inspiration for what would become the modern-day superhero. Tye observes that early comic book creators needed heroic prototypes upon which to base their own characters, and often looked to biblical characters such as Samson. He remarks, however, “a good place to start was with the Golem. A he-man shaped from clay, this mythic character emerged repeatedly throughout history to safeguard Jews from aggressors” (73). In Superman Is Jewish? (2012) Harry Brod adds, “No matter the specifics, the golem is always portrayed as a hulking brute. So it was probably inevitable that one day there would actually be a story comparing the Hulk to the golem” (40). Citing December 1970’s The Incredible Hulk #134, called “Among Us Walks the Golem,” Brod points out that at the end of the story, which takes place in a small village in Eastern Europe, that “the Hulk eventually plays the role of the powerful, liberating golem, helping overthrow the evil dictator against whom the villagers are fighting” (41).

  In From Krakow to Krypton: Jews and Comic Books (2008), Arie Kaplan notes that Will Eisner “also viewed Superman as a mythic descendent of the Golem, and thus a link in the chain of Jewish tradition: ‘[Jews needed] a hero who could protect us against an almost invincible force. So [Siegel and Sh
uster] created an invincible hero’” (17). Kaplan quotes Al Jaffee (of Mad magazine fame), who takes the notion a step further remarking that he “sees Superman as not only an updated Golem, but also as stemming from a desire to embrace a messianic figure. ‘Who is the Messiah? The Messiah is Superman, a Super-God. I think that’s a great part of Jewish history, the need for a Messiah. And of course in modern times, the Messiah turns into Superman’” (17). Though many of these early comics creators, Eisner included, have asserted that they did not consciously draw from their Jewish background when writing their stories, most concede, in retrospect, that the influence is impossible to deny.

  In fact, in 1998 artist Jon Bogdanove and writer Louise Simonson took the step that Siegel and Shuster and publishers Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz refused to back in the 1930s and ’40s, and placed Superman in Europe during the Second World War. As Kaplan describes it: in the three-part story arc, the Man of Steel “literally becomes a Golem, helping to defend the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto” (17). He adds that two of the children saved by the Superman/Golem look very much like Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and “are mysteriously compelled to draw pictures and tell stories (respectively) about an ‘angel’ who ‘would save us,’ a caped and costumed celestial” who is conspicuously reminiscent of the Last Son of Krypton (17).

  Despite the already wide acceptance of the Golem as an important superhero antecedent, Kavalier & Clay moves beyond simple comparisons between the superpowered figure of Jewish legend and the superheroes of the modern day. Chabon’s novel incorporates the Golem story both into the creative history of the superhero and into the lives of the creators themselves. Not only does the superhero bear a striking resemblance to the Golem, but the lives of Joe Kavalier and Sammy Clay share a remarkably similar narrative trajectory to that of Rabbi Loew, legendary creator of the Golem of Prague. Additionally, Chabon’s mining of early comic book history to create his dual protagonists as composites of many of those first artists and writers emphasizes the idea of the superhero as folk hero.

  The Golem of Prague has been adapted and readapted numerous times in works as varying as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), to Cynthia Ozick’s The Puttermesser Papers (1997), wherein Ruth Puttermesser, a low-level bureaucrat in the government of New York City, creates the world’s first female Golem, to Marge Piercy’s He, She and It (1991), a love story about a woman who falls in love with an android whose story parallels that of the Golem of Prague. Significantly, in each of these retellings, the general outline of the story of Rabbi Loew’s Golem of Prague remains relatively unchanged: The Golem, a humanoid creature made of inanimate material, is created in a time of need, for protection, or to act as a servant; the Golem is given life by its creator (often by words be they spoken or written, and by the walking around the inanimate figure throughout the ceremony); the Golem successfully protects and otherwise aids its creator; the Golem becomes too powerful and ultimately uncontrollable, wreaking havoc upon those it was created to protect; the Golem’s life is taken away, generally by performing the reverse of what brought it to life. This final lesson suggests the uncontrollability of nature—be it human or otherwise.

  Though there are many varying Golem stories, the specific story of Rabbi Loew’s Golem of Prague is both the most well known and, clearly, is the narrative that underpins Chabon’s assertions of the Golem as superhero antecedent. Before examining Joe, Sammy, and their Golem, the Escapist, it is worth looking at the most relevant stages of the story of the Golem of Prague in some detail, as it relates to Kavalier & Clay. For this I will rely primarily on the narrative retelling of the Golem story by Chayim Bloch in his book The Golem: Legends of the Ghetto of Prague (1925).

  In the legends surrounding Rabbi Loew, the Golem, first and foremost, is created out of need. Having bested the Cardinal of Prague in an ecclesiastical debate, and fearing violence against the Jews of Prague by angry Christians led by the priest Thaddeus, Rabbi Loew creates the Golem to act as their protector. In order to perform the intricate ceremony to create the Golem, he enlists his son-in-law and his pupil who each would walk around the Golem, reciting the Zirufim (charms). “Then Rabbi Loew himself walked once around the figure, placed in its mouth a piece of parchment inscribed with the Schem (the name of God)”; after which he bowed in all directions, the three of them recited a quotation from Genesis, and the Golem was born (68). Rabbi Loew is adamant about the Golem only being used as a force for the public good, and not as a private servant; yet, first at the behest of his wife, and then at his own choosing, the Golem is given menial tasks, which it performs too well. For instance, the Golem is sent to fetch water but is not told to stop and floods the house.[2] The Golem proves it is insufficient for duty outside its original purpose. It also hints at the uncontrollability of the Golem. Even when given specific tasks, those tasks often end up failing.

  While the Golem successfully serves its designed purpose of protecting the Jews of Prague, it eventually loses its capacity to do so effectively. This happens when first there is an attack on the Golem, followed by the Golem’s running amok. According to Bloch, the Golem is dispatched by Rabbi Loew to apprehend a man who has disobeyed an edict. The Golem then goes “straightway to the house of the porter, grasped him by the back of his neck, and carried him, like a slaughtered little lamb, through the city to Rabbi Loew’s house” (169). It is this gruff handling and inglorious parade through town that causes the man to blame the Golem as his chief antagonist and attack it, throwing the Golem down a freezing well.

  The story of the Golem comes to an end when Rabbi Loew forgets to tell it what to do, one Friday afternoon, and “the Golem, like one mad, began running about in the Jewish section of the city, threatening to destroy everything. The want of employment made him awkward and wild” (189). The story of the Golem of Prague ends in a demonstration of the complete uncontrollability of the creation, hinted at early in the story. Rabbi Loew later de-animates the Golem, “when the community was no longer molested by blood accusations” (192). Having served its purpose, the Golem is no longer needed. The realization is made, that though it is humanlike, the Golem is ultimately a tool and therefore when its utility is gone, it should be put away.

  Chabon’s description of the birth of the Escapist recalls the creation of the Golem performed by Rabbi Loew. He writes, “Every golem in the history of the world . . . was summoned through language, through the murmuring, recital, and kabbalistic chitchat—was, literally, talked into life. Kavalier and Clay—whose golem was to be formed of black lines and the four-color dots of the lithographer—lay down, lit the first of five dozen cigarettes they were to consume that afternoon, and started to talk” (119). Significantly, Joe and Sammy also form their initial ideas while wandering around New York, fleshing out their ideas, mirroring the walking around the inanimate Golem by Loew and his two cohorts.

  Connecting his two young comic book creators with the legend of the creation of the Golem of Prague adds grandeur to their endeavors. It also establishes the creation of superheroes with other, more universally lauded, acts of creation. Chabon, thus, makes two important suggestions in this scene: that the superhero is as important to the young Jews of mid-twentieth century America as the Golem of Prague was to those sixteenth-century Czech Jews, and that the Golem need not be a physical being, walking the earth, so long as it is a powerful enough idea to effect positive change in the lives of those whom it is meant to serve.

  Like Rabbi Loew, fearing violence against Prague’s Jews, the Escapist is created out of dire need, and to serve as a protector. Joe Kavalier’s life in occupied Prague shows that for Europe’s Jewish population the situation is similarly desperate. As the lone family member to escape the Nazis, he fears for his family and the violence that they will suffer. The promise of “big money,” which he can use to buy the freedom of the rest of his family, lures Joe to support Sammy’s dream of inventing a comic book character despite his complete unfamiliarity with comics. Given these circumstances, it is
little wonder that Joe’s idea of the superhero would be the Golem. In fact, when Joe is tasked with drawing a superhero for the potential publisher, he draws a picture of the Golem, explaining, “To me, this Superman is . . . maybe . . . only an American Golem” (86). It also establishes an early connection between the superhero and the Golem, outside of a physical manifestation. Each man, Rabbi Loew and Joe Kavalier, creates an artificial humanlike figure that is brought to a form of life, for the purposes of rescuing those close to them from an aggressive, powerful, and violently anti-Semitic force.

  Sammy’s purpose is less magnanimous. For him, at first, the Escapist is a vehicle for his own salvation. He is looking for a way out of poverty, and he believes comic books are his ticket. In convincing his mother and Joe (and later the stable of artists he will need) he invents the exorbitant sums of money they will make: “Fifty dollars a week. Maybe more . . . Forty at least” (78). While it is clear that he is pulling numbers out of the air, it is equally apparent that he is fully confident both in his own ability and the potential of the comic book medium. This proves to be a slight deviation from the theme inherent in the Golem story, but Sammy quickly amends his motivation to include the Kavaliers of Prague. For instance, he is willing to abandon the whole project if Joe’s cover of the Escapist punching Hitler in the jaw is not included. In addition, the money Sammy earns is used to raise his mother and grandmother out of poverty as well as himself. It is true that Sammy’s situation is not as dire as Joe’s, but in making Sammy’s reasons more personal Chabon hints that the Golem is a powerful idea that can serve multiple purposes and many people in varying and personal ways.

  The Escapist is able to give hope to Joe and Sammy, and presumably freedom for their families. Along with the making of money, this is one of the character’s chief purposes, and it harkens to the Golem’s mission. When they decide upon the concept of the super–escape artist, Sammy remarks, “He doesn’t just fight [crime]. He frees the world of it. He frees people, see? He comes in the darkest hour. He watches from the shadows” (121, emphasis in original). Just as the Golem of Prague is intended to send the anti-Semitic followers of Thaddeus scattering, the Escapist literally breaks the chains of those trapped by tyranny, seeking to destroy the oppressors. Here we see Chabon highlighting the power of storytelling—all manner of storytelling—which has defined much of his literary career.