Summerland

“Oracles were tricky, as Ethan knew from his reading of mythology. Often they answered the question you ought to have asked, or the one you didn’t realize you were even asking. Ethan wondered what question he himself would pose to an oracular clam, given a chance.”

As Ethan watches the faeries consult the clam prophet about the conflict against Coyote, his thoughts establish the mythologies from which Summerland draws. The clam references well-known oracles such as the Greek one at Delphi. Ethan’s thought that prophecy is tricky foreshadows his realization that the prophecy here isn’t actually about him, which makes this moment critical for Ethan as he looks back on this mistake as motivation to save his dad from Coyote. The final lines show him coming to terms with the existence of worlds and powers he never believed possible. His curiosity about what he would ask the clam reveals his belief that the Summerlands are real, which leads to his belief that Coyote’s threat is real.

“If this were a work of fiction, the author would now be obliged to have Ethan waste a few moments wondering if he had dreamed the events of the past few hours. Since, however, every word of this account is true, the reader will not be surprised to learn that Ethan had no doubt whatsoever that in the company of a shadowtail he had leaped from one hidden branch of the Tree of Worlds to another—to the realm that in books was sometimes called Faerie—for the second time in his life. He knew perfectly well that he really had met a sort of fairy king, there, and seen a ballpark made from a giant’s bones, and rescued an oracular clam with one lucky toss of a ball. Ethan could tell the difference between the nonsensical business of a dream and the wondrous logic of a true adventure.”

As Ethan wakes back in his bed following his visit to the Summerlands, Michael Chabon pokes fun at the standard thought processes of characters in situations like this while also moving the story forward. In having Ethan skip wondering whether his experience was a dream, the novel sets him up for the adventure he knows is coming, which makes him more prepared to go when the time comes. In addition, this paragraph exemplifies Chabon’s narrative style: He sometimes uses dramatic irony, stepping away from characters’ thoughts in an aside and directly addressing readers to provide inside information that the characters are unaware of.

“Few things made Mr. Feld truly angry, but one thing that did was when people insisted that there was more to the world than what you could see, hear, touch, or otherwise investigate with tools and your five good senses. That there was a world behind the world, or beyond it. An afterlife, say. Mr. Feld felt that people who believed in other worlds were simply not paying enough attention to this one. He had been insistent with Ethan that Dr. Feld was gone forever, that all of her, everything that had made her so uniquely and wonderfully her, was in the ground, where it would all return to the elements and minerals it was made of.”

These lines offer additional context about Ethan’s dad and their relationship. As in the previous quotation, Ethan jumps right into believing fantastical things, easily accepting that other worlds exist. By contrast, his father (an engineer) fixates on what he can sense and understand, which is one reason that Ethan and his dad have a rocky relationship. Additionally, this contrast helps explain why Ethan’s dad struggles to accept the Winterlands after Coyote captures him.

“Yes, if he can figger a way ta foul those waters, the Tree is doomed and that’s fer sure. And then comes Ragged Rock, in a Mole year, just like the old folks always said it would. And we’re the ones what put yer pap in the Coyote’s way. We brung him up this way, with those airship dreams. We parked him right next ta a gall, where Coyote was bound ta take notice someday.”

Cinquefoil says this to Ethan after they realize that Coyote has taken Ethan’s dad. The first part of this quotation is another reference to myth, featuring the Tree of Worlds, the well at its base, and Ragged Rock (Chabon’s term for the end of times, based on the Norse Ragnarök). The latter portion of this quotation reveals how the Summerlands have affected Ethan’s life even before he was born. By offering Ethan’s dad dreams about airships and Clam Island, Cinquefoil’s people created the circumstances not only for Ethan to become their champion but also for Coyote to find Ethan’s dad. This shows both how actions have unintended consequences and raises questions about how much of the clam’s prophesy the faeries might be responsible for.

“Ya can’t never predict what old Coyote will do. Just about everything that could turn out two ways or more was invented by him, back when he Changed the world the first time. Before that, as ya may or may not know, everything could only turn out one way. There weren’t no crossroads, fer instance. Only straight paths that didn’t bend. Toss a coin, it always came up heads. And nobody died.”

Here, Cinquefoil offers Ethan additional context about Coyote and his influence on the world. As “the Changer,” Coyote is responsible for bringing change into the world. As Cinquefoil points out here, change is neutral, neither positive nor negative; it’s just an aspect of the world, thematically underscoring The Power of Change. In addition, this passage shows the massive extent of Coyote’s influence. Before his first change, life was more straightforward and predictable, and his ability to introduce uncertainty and decision-making reveals his vast power. Conversely, it reveals that he isn’t all-powerful, because if he were, he wouldn’t need Ethan and his dad.

“They had never been troubled much by the ancient fear of being eaten. They lived in a world devoid not only of giants and ogres but of wolves, bears, and lions, too. And yet Ethan, like many children who are not otherwise vegetarian, had always felt a strange unwillingness to eat the young of animals. Lamb, veal, suckling pig—the idea of eating baby anythings had always repelled him. Now he understood why. It would be a kind of cannibalism. It would imply that he, little, defenseless Ethan Feld, might himself quite easily be eaten.”

As Ethan’s group faces off against a giant for the first time, he realizes that more things exist than he could have comprehended before. His realization takes the form of primal fears he never had to deal with, specifically the fear of being eaten. For the first time, Ethan understands that humans aren’t at the top of the food chain, which leads him to realize that the world doesn’t always work the way he thinks it does. More broadly, this passage conveys the idea that things work differently in different places.

“‘Relative to the rest of me, of course,’ the Sasquatch said. ‘I’m nine feet tall. Of course they’re bigger than yours.’

‘I guess not,’ Jennifer T. said. ‘Actually, when you look at it that way, they’re really almost kind of dainty.’”

Before this exchange between Taffy and Jennifer T., the latter gets the sasquatch’s attention by calling her “bigfoot.” Since this term has been used derogatively against Taffy’s kind, she takes offense, which shows how words mean different things to those using them versus those they’re aimed at. Like Ethan, Jennifer T. realizes that the world doesn’t always operate the way she thinks it does. Hearing Taffy’s logic about the size of her feet, Jennifer T. admits that the sasquatch’s feet are proportionate to the rest of her body and sees why “bigfoot” is an insult.

“‘You have a fine, independent, uncluttered mind. All I need to do is touch it. Just once. With my little pinky finger. As I did for, oh, Tesla, Goddard, Tycho Brahe.’ These were three of the scientific thinkers whom Mr. Feld had always most admired. Coyote might have mentioned Daedalus, Werner von Braun, or Robert Oppenheimer, but he did not.”

Coyote says this to Ethan’s dad in trying to convince the man to help create the material he needs for his machine to poison the well. Coyote’s words exemplify his ability to target each person’s fears or desires in order to get what he wants. By complimenting Ethan’s dad, Coyote uses flattery to gain favor. Further, by mentioning scientists whom Ethan’s dad admires and implying that he had a hand in their greatness, Coyote introduces the idea that Ethan’s dad could be just as great if Coyote helps him too. Since Ethan’s dad admires innovation, Coyote mentions scientists whose work was innovative, such as Tesla, rather than those known for destruction, such as Oppenheimer.

“Jennifer T. felt that the ferisher was looking right into her, into everything that had always troubled her about what old Albert called her ‘Indian side.’ How she loved all the old stories so much that it made her angry, everlastingly furious, with her Indian ancestors, for having lost everything, land, language, legends, so completely. Even though she knew it was not fair to blame them, not fair at all; there was nothing that those poor old Squamish and Salishan and Nooksacks could have done, not really, in the face of white-man inventions and white-man viruses and white man wanting them dead.”

Diving into Jennifer T.’s character and her “Indian” (Indigenous American) background, this passage reveals how she relates to her past, including both anger and understanding about how history happened. She feels it’s wrong to blame her ancestors for not doing more and recognizes that they were outgunned in many ways. Her feelings represent the complex nature of generational trauma. More broadly, the passage discusses how cultures can be lost if not people don’t preserve them, particularly when other cultures suppress them. Additionally, it speaks to the adage that “might is right,” emphasizing how this sentiment is true only to those with the might.

“Is there anything duller in all the game of baseball than watching the pitcher hit? Pitcher goes up there, if she even gets the bat off her shoulder it’s to give it a few weak waves like she’s shooing a little moth away. And then, big surprise, three or four pitches later, she’s out. Well, Coyote said, and I couldn’t argue with him, why does the pitcher have to hit? That’s all. Just a little thought. Let somebody else hit for the pitcher. One of the old-timers, somebody whose legs, maybe they’re not what they were. Or one of your born sluggers who can’t catch or run or field a position too well, but can knock the hide off a ball with one swing.”

Spider-Rose tells Ethan’s group about Coyote’s argument for establishing the designated-hitter rule in baseball. While the rule itself has garnered both approval and scorn in the sport, Coyote’s argument shows how the concept could enliven or improve the game by eliminating the drag of pitchers hitting. In addition, her words emphasize Coyote’s nature to change things. Nothing was wrong with pitchers hitting, even if it did slow things down, but Coyote suggests the change anyway, showing how he loves to incite division by inventing problems so that he can then fix them.

“He wondered idly if his mother’s address book could be somewhere in this mountain he was climbing. Whose addresses and phone numbers would have been in that book? What would those people say to him if he called them now? How many address books out there still had his mother’s name in them, neatly penciled, with a phone number that was disconnected and an address that was no longer good?”

Ethan thinks this while he searches for his piece of wood from the Tree of Worlds in the junk pile of the faeries who captured him. Throughout mythology, faeries are known for collecting or stealing lost objects, a concept that has been featured in such stories as Peter Pan when he takes the “lost boys” to Neverland. In this case, the faeries have taken objects that people have lost, either accidentally or because of disuse, which has created a mountain of objects for Ethan to search through. Ethan’s thoughts here show the ease with which things become unimportant or obsolete. Through address books, which were once a popular way to record contact information, Ethan realizes that outdated information is of no use to people, so books containing such information become lost.

“Sasquatches have acquired a reputation, in the Middling, for being solitary creatures. But as a rule it is only the males who spend their lives wandering alone. They range widely in the vast forests of the Far Territories, and from time to time one of them will stumble onto a gall where the Branches of two Worlds are pleached together. These are the unlucky specimens who wind up crashing into the camp of some terrorized party of trappers or fishermen up in Alberta, or, once, directly into the path of a man named Roger Patterson and his 16mm movie camera.”

In this passage, Chabon steps back from the plot to offer additional context on the sasquatches of his world in order to explain Taffy’s character and her later choice to help Coyote. In doing so, Chabon links his fantastical world to how sasquatches are seen in the Middling, which is relevant to the gender divide between the sasquatch that led Taffy to leave her home and be captured. Additionally, this reveals an unintended consequence of links forming between worlds: Humans may discover sasquatches. The Roger Patterson that Chabon refers to here was a real person who claimed that he filmed an actual sasquatch, which is still controversial.

“‘Say “uncle,”’ Thor said.

‘You mean “nuncle,”’ grunted the not-boy, through his teeth.

‘“Nuncle?”’

‘That’s what we say here.’

‘Say “nuncle,” then.’

‘Nuncle!’”

During this exchange between Thor and Grim while the two boys grapple, Thor has the upper hand and uses the North American expression “say uncle” to demand that Grim yield. Grim fires back with “nuncle,” which is a dialectal version of “uncle,” and its use shows how language can vary slightly from place to place. Grim understands the concept of saying uncle, and by insisting that Thor accept “nuncle,” Grim is arguing for recognition of his culture and dialect, which Thor accepts because the words themselves matter less than the two boys understanding one another.

“He had shrunk visibly, inward rather than in length, his chest collapsing and chin sinking down. His skin had turned the yellowy gray of a very old bruise, and felt leathery and dry to the touch. His feet had curled like the corners of a burning page. Meanwhile his wounded hand had swollen to four or five times its normal size, the tiny fingers protruding from it like teats from an udder; the sight of it turned her stomach.”

These lines describe Cinquefoil’s appearance several hours after he takes a shot from an iron-tipped arrow, leading to iron poisoning. In myth across the world, faeries are traditionally weakened by cold iron (also rendered “coldiron”), which is any object of iron crafted by human hands, such as nails or horseshoes. In Summerland, Chabon puts a different spin on this convention because the arrow was made by other faeries. Alongside baseball as a cultural phenomenon, this reveals the competitive nature between faerie tribes and how staunchly protective faeries are of their homes, particularly this group, which suffered after being tricked by Coyote.

“The autoclave (a kind of super-pressure cooker used by chemists), and all of the other fancy equipment in the laboratory, had been manufactured by Coyote’s grayling smiths, to Mr. Feld’s exact specifications. Coyote’s plan was founded on Middling science. So his toxin-delivery system had to be created by Middling means. Except, of course, for the fact that all the electricity was provided by Coyote’s herd of thunder buffalo. And except for the fact that the flasks and beakers had been blown by fire gnomes, and the tools wrought from walrus bone and Winterlands weird-iron.”

Chabon describes the laboratory Ethan’s dad uses aboard Coyote’s caravan, which points to how the rules of existence are consistent across the worlds, even if the nature of existence is different. Ethan’s dad needs the same tools he would use in the Middling to craft the material within the realm of the Winterlands. However, the way he gets those materials may be specific to his location, hence the exceptions Chabon describes here. Additionally, the description highlights how different cultures can produce the same innovations and situations. Ethan’s father needs electricity, but it doesn’t matter whether that electricity comes from Middling means or from Coyote’s buffalo.

“In any game where the hitting is weak, of course, it will all come down to pitching, and this, according to Professor Alkabetz in his brief summary, was the story of the game. Jennifer T. pitched for the Visitors, and here the change in size seemed to work to her advantage. Though she was now only about eighteen inches high, somehow her sense of the distance to be traveled by the ball ‘retained a certain “grandeur”’ as Professor Alkabetz puts it, and with the help of a sympathetic umpire, a local werebear named Smacklip, she was able to mow the home nine down, giving up only a cheap single in the bottom of the fourth.”

In conjunction with the previous quotation, this description shows how the rules of existence apply across all aspects of life, not just science. Though Ethan’s team has shrunk to play this game of baseball, Jennifer T. still uses the same strategies and skills she would use at her normal size, meaning her baseball practice in the Middling has prepared her to play games in the Summerlands. The fictional book that Chabon mentions here is an account of great baseball games and players across the worlds, and his choice to include such a compendium highlights how history has analyzed great figures in baseball so that others could learn from their game.

“They had the same sense of disconnected connection to the unimaginable events in the Winterlands that the Red Sox feel when the Yankees play the Orioles: there was nothing they could do to influence the outcome of that other crucial game. They just had to keep moving forward, to keep on playing their best.”

Ethan’s Shadowtails work their way through the Summerlands and play various games of baseball against groups they encounter in order to progress through the land. Chabon’s use of a baseball metaphor here gives those familiar with the game a means to understand the thought process he describes. Just as the major leagues play separate games, Ethan’s group has no control over what’s going on in the Winterlands; they can only move forward with their quest in hopes that they’ll succeed. More broadly, this description discusses the futility of Ethan’s worrying about things beyond his control because doing so would only be a distraction.

“Then the girl and the smaller of the two boys looked at the bigger one, and they joined hands, and ran up the driveway of Rodrigo Buendía’s house. They ran—the word that came to the MSO’s mind was scampered—straight through the garage door, which must, after all, have been open, even though the MSO felt certain, and indicated in his subsequent report, that at the time the children approached it, it had definitely seemed to be closed.”

This passage offers a glimpse at the mechanisms of the faerie realm from an outside perspective. The security man here has been following Ethan, Jennifer T., and Thor for several minutes and has now chosen to confront them because they might be a threat. To get away from him, the children use Thor’s shadowtail abilities to run through the closed garage door. In the moment, the security guard is sure he saw these events as they happened, but later on, he’s confused about what he saw, which exemplifies the nature of faerie powers to confuse the mortal mind.

“She had grown up on Clam Island, and yet because she was a Rideout she was never fully a part of Clam Island, and had passed most of the days of her childhood living in a world of her own, out in the wintry gray at Hotel Beach. She had, over the years, thought of herself at one time or another as a half-breed, a mongrel, a mutt, a misfit, and an odd-ball. It had never occurred to her to think of herself as a shadowtail, or to consider that you could find power in being caught between two worlds.”

These lines offer additional insight into Jennifer T.’s character and pass the message to young readers that they don’t have to fall into any one category to be valid. Jennifer T. has always struggled with feeling misplaced or as if she doesn’t belong because she hasn’t been able to fully relate to a category that defines who she is. In this moment, she realizes that this trait is a strength rather than a weakness because it makes her a type of shadowtail. In addition, it implies that being influenced by different cultures and perspectives is powerful.

“Taffy knelt, and wiped the ooze away against the rough, grayish stuff of the Bottom-Cat’s tongue. The great beast shuddered, down its whole length, and at that moment the whole of the Summerlands gave a great heave, and in the Middling a chain of earthquakes rippled outward from the Pacific Rim and rocked the temblor-prone countries of the world in a manner that was very surprising to seismologists.”

Ethan’s group is crossing the final river to get to the well at the base of the Tree of Worlds. The Bottom-Cat is the creature who exists at the base of the Tree of Worlds and is similar to Nidhogg, the great worm or dragon of Norse myth who resides at the World Tree’s roots. The result of Taffy’s action here shows how all four worlds link together and how events in one world have a ripple effect across them all. The Bottom-Cat’s shudder reverberates throughout both the Summerlands and the Middling, increasing the urgency of Ethan’s mission by making it clear that the fate of one world will be the fate of them all.

“‘I wonder that she’s so trusting of him,’ Cutbelly remarked.

‘She ain’t,’ Padfoot said. ‘It’s just that she can hear a ambush the day before it’s laid for her, smell a sneak attack, feel the footstep of a cat a mile away. Her hide is tough as steel. And her fists could splinter a mountain. She don’t trust him. She just ain’t afraid of nothin’.’”

Before this exchange between Cutbelly and Padfoot, they observe the demon-giant Angry Betty putting herself into a potentially vulnerable position with Coyote. Padfoot’s explanation illustrates Angry Betty’s power but also indicates that Coyote isn’t the strongest creature in the world and isn’t infallible. Coyote understands that Angry Betty is a threat to him and that he can’t hope to best her physically. In turn, this reveals that Coyote’s real power comes from his ability to talk his way out of situations and to convince others that what he says is worthwhile.

“‘He didn’t want to help me, you can be sure of that,’ Coyote said. ‘Though the problem interested him extremely. You can see what it did to him. He’s become a Flat Man. Same thing happened to a lot of those A-bomb fellows, you know, back when I was putting that little fiesta together.’”

Coyote has called Ethan’s father over to see Ethan, as Coyote promised. However, the current flat state of Ethan’s father means that he isn’t cognizant enough to realize he’s looking at his son, and this exemplifies how Coyote fulfills his promises without actually giving people what he promised them. This scene refers back to when Coyote convinced Ethan’s dad to help him. Then, Coyote didn’t mention Oppenheimer because he knew the scientist wouldn’t convince Ethan’s dad to help. Here, however, Coyote compares what befell Ethan’s father to what happened to scientists (like Oppenheimer) who worked on developing the atomic bomb. This suggests that another reason Coyote didn’t mention people like Oppenheimer before is that their fates would have eroded his argument, which again shows Coyote’s skill as a master manipulator.

“For the first few innings it was a pitchers’ duel. Coyote threw heat and smoke and lightning and thunder, pitches so wild yet true that you were certain they were coming at your head and yet when you looked down you saw them there, curled neat and tidy in the heel of the catcher’s mitt. Some of his pitches may well have been invisible; others turned the air blue as they ripped on through. Then there were his junk pitches, screwballs and offspeed curves, sinkers and sliders and back-door curves. They were imbued with all the craft and treachery that have made Coyote’s activities so interesting over the last fifty thousand years.”

This description of Coyote’s pitching style is a visual representation of his power. Like the chaos he causes, the pitches range in ferocity and style, and he mixes them up so much that batters have difficulty finding a pattern to determine what he might do next. In the final sentence, Chabon notes that such tactics have made Coyote’s activities “interesting,” and in doing so, he indicates that Coyote himself isn’t evil but is simply a force in the universe. This aligns with the book’s thematic messages about The Power of Change, particularly that change itself is simply an action with consequences and is thus not inherently good or evil.