Chabon Style Character Introduction | Ethan Walnut | Blog Post #2
Ethan Walnut was the father of all fathers and the drinker
of all drinkers; his Hanes white T always smelled of dependable and sensible Tide
pods amalgamated with Buchanan’s Scotch Whisky; and he was relentlessly bursting
with tales of both adventurous family hiking excursions to Acadia National Park
and poker group mishaps culminating in either a broken femur or a broken marriage.
Ethan’s complete disinterest in his work was akin to that of Peter Gibbons’ -
although Ethan actually had a family to look after. This minute detail,
however, was unimportant because his Quagmire-like jawline and Flandersesque altruistic
personality allowed for his career-related aggrandizement. If left to his own
devices, Ethan’s default nature would have him demolish a bag of Pop-Secret
Movie Theater Butter microwavable popcorn and a glass to a bottle of Buchanan’s
Scotch Whisky while viewing “The Pink Panther” with Steve Martin. Ironically,
his love for comedy did not have an impressive return on investment. The only
jokes he told were for his children in the form of “Hi hungry! I’m Dad, nice to
meet you.” No jokes were told at the poker table. Walnut’s face transmuted from
Quagmire into Mr. Burns as he attempted to conceal the additional cards in his
pants pocket. He had no reason to cheat. In fact, his salary was deep into
seven figures while his poker buddies were struggling in the low fives. He
thrived knowing that his friends were jealous of the life that he lived: safe
and secure finances, a beautiful wife, three children – what more could he
want?
Your character ID perfectly embodies Chabon's characterization and description of the characters in Kavalier and Clay! One of the aspects that jumps out to me the most is your prevalent use of elevated and seemingly uncommon diction, which Chabon takes full advantage of to describe his own characters. Using words such as "transmuted" and "aggrandizement" rather than words that could have a similar meaning but are seen more often in writing is a style of writing that Chabon employs, and you employed in a successful manner. Making references to outside people and brands is another aspect of Chabon's writing that I feel you demonstrated successfully. You integrated these references in a natural way that relies on a reader's outside knowledge and social literacy to succeed. Much of Kavalier and Clay is like this, as Chabon aims to relate to the reader on a more intimate level by speaking in a familiar way (such as using people and things the reader knows of). Though not stated explicitly, your imagery in terms of sight and smell play a major role in characterizing Walnut in a way that the reader can vividly see. Chabon uses a similar technique of describing setting to the reader to imply characteristics of the characters.
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