Batman Versus The Novelist

Over the weekend, novelist Jonathan Lethem returned from his fortress of solitude in Maine (with a new novel in the can, we speculate). At a time when most writers would crack a bottle of champagne, this comic-book obsessed novelist took a crack at Batman instead.

His New York Times op-ed added more fuel to the summer’s dueling metaphor debate about Batman’s politics–did the caped crusader support the Bush administration’s war on terror? Lethem summed it up neatly: “‘The Dark Knight,’ with its taciturn and self-pitying vigilante, its scenes of torture, rendition and interrogation, its elaborately leveraged choices between principles and human lives, might offer a defense of the present administration’s cursory regard for human rights abroad and civil rights at home…”

No matter what your take on Batman, Lethem has joined the swelling ranks of a new literary club: Novelists Who Write Op-Eds About Blockbuster Movies. In the last year and a half, novelists Neal Stephenson and Andrew Klavan also mined mundane multiplex fare for larger cultural meaning. Thanks to Fimoculous for the links.

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