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Far exceeded my expectations Dec 4, 2000 (157 of 167 found this helpful)
"The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" works on so many different levels. It has the thrills, action and pacing of a comic book, yet also has the beautiful language, fully developed, memorable characters, and moving, non-manipulative drama of the finest literary novel. It is rare to see excitement, sadness, history, and humor mix so seamlessly together. I hesitate to write too much about the plot, because this is the type of novel where if you learn too much about the fate of the characters ahead of time, it will ruin much of the fun in letting yourself get absorbed in the suspense of the novel. There are so many things done right in this book that it seems like a disservice to not try to mention as much as I can about its qualities. Chabon is able to include in this novel the history and development of the comic book, Jewish mysticism, mid-20th century American culture, the Holocaust, US involvement in WWII, Houdiniesque escape and magic, all without ever letting this researched information interfere with the flow of the story. It is also rare to read a novel where the setting is so vividly created for the reader. A large part of my enjoyment of the novel, aside from the story itself, was using Chabon's prose as a guide to transport me to New York during the middle portion of this century. This may be the one of the first enduring literary works of our new century.
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An Epic & Brilliant Novel!! Nov 3, 2000 (116 of 129 found this helpful)
This is a stunning novel about the adventures of two boys who write comic books during what was known as the Golden Age of comic books in the 1930's. This book about Joe, Sammy, and Rosa and their lives spans continents, eras, and many years of love and much hardship. The details of their lives is written in such beautiful language it makes you feel you are living in this time period. I have never been so involved in what I was reading as I was in this book, all 636 pages of it. It's a long story but one you will think about long after you have finished it. The characters you will never forget. So I guess I am saying Michael Chabon is a brilliant writer, who can certainly capture the attention of his readers. He has a florid way of writing and I really enjoyed that.
I was never a great reader of comic books, but you don't have to be to enjoy this book. I could go on and on about the story, but you just have to read the book description for that. It's all there. I would highly recommend this wonderful book if you have the time to read it. You'll find yourself staying up late till you reach the last chapter. What a great movie this would make. I really enjoyed Michael Chabon's other three novels, but I think this is his best yet.
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Not life-changing, but worth the read. Jul 8, 2002 (37 of 39 found this helpful)
When I read this book, I didn't even know that it had won the Pulitzer Prize--there's no trace of that information anywhere on the library hardback that I read. So I was blissfully unaware that I was reading what was supposed to be a Literary Masterpiece, and I would have been surprised if I had known.
There's no doubt that Michael Chabon is a master of his craft; his writing is a mix of the matter-of-fact and flights of fantasy, and often reality is granted an additional glow of the magical. His characters are real from the start: Sammy, Joe, Ethel and Kornblum are not talking heads, but characters who are distinct and touching in their fallibility.
Probably the best aspect of this book is where it deals with art, and art and escapism are themes that are tightly woven throughout this story until they become inseparable. At first art is the means to manipulate one's personal reality, as Joe convinces himself that he is fighting the war against the Nazis by having his hero fight them in the comics; and later this idea is carried further, so that art is not only used to manipulate reality, but to escape it utterly; and this is viewed as the ultimate goal of the artist.
Another high point of the novel is its moments in which the blend of art and realism are so seamless that at first it is difficult to tell where reality ends and the art begins. These moments are consistent with the magical atmosphere that marks Kavalier and Clay's "Golden Age," as well as with the theme of art as a means of escape.
The theme of art and its relationship with escapism is the one theme that threads consistently throughout the novel. Otherwise, one might say that "Kavalier and Clay," for all its strong points, is lacking in that after the tight, virtuoso beginning, the story loses focus and eventually all sense of unity. The plot becomes somewhat convoluted in the manner of John Irving, as if Chabon is throwing oddities into the mix just to keep things interesting. Hence we get Antarctica, the oddball marriage, and the threatened jump from the Empire State Building, which feel as if they are taking place in a world apart from the rich world to which we were originally introduced as readers, which was in itself so compelling. The result is that one begins to wonder where the original story went, if this is the same book, and to wish that it had ended before the pure magic of the atmosphere became replaced with coincidence and contrived circumstance.
Another drawback to this book was Joe Kavalier himself, who was simply too much of a good thing, especially in contrast to Sammy Clay. Just when it seemed that there was nothing else that Joe could possibly be good at, something else came out to prove that assumption wrong. In comparison, Sammy comes across as a failure: his talent for writing is never vindicated in the way that Joe's talent for drawing is vindicated to the hilt from beginning to end; yet the original idea for the Escapist came from Sammy, so clearly he is not a wholly insignificant talent.
If Joe was meant to seem perfect and Sammy a failure, then this is not a drawback but a fact; but my sense of it was that somewhere, Sammy's story simply fell by the wayside to make way for Joe's. As a reader, I found Sammy a more interesting character precisely because nothing came easily to him and because he was so conflicted in every aspect of his life. Many times I found it strange that he was so unappreciated while Joe had center stage, yet this dynamic was never commented upon in the book, as if the author didn't notice it himself.
Without giving anything away, the ending was a climax of banality, and not a particularly realistic one at that. It is as if the author became tired and just wanted to get it over with--a common occurrence, but a bit hard to take after the epic scale of this novel had seemed to promise so much. While "Kavalier and Clay" is worth the read, it leaves lacunae to tease the reader, like a detailed paint
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The Real Wonder Boys Oct 16, 2001 (59 of 66 found this helpful)
"A faster read than a Grisham book. More powerful than an Oprah pick. Able to win Pulitzer Prizes in a single bound edition. Look! Up on the bookshelf! It's pulp fiction! It's serious literature! It's `The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay'! Yes it's `The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay', written by a strange visitor from Pittsburgh who came to the literary world with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay', a book that can change the course of mighty literary trends, bend public discourse in its bare hands, and which, disguised as Michael Chabon's latest novel, a mild-mannered bestseller for a great metropolitan readership, fights a never-ending battle for Truth! Justice! and the American Way!"
Pretty cheesy, that. But good cheese, no? Actually, the above is just a thinly veiled attempt to usher you into the world of super-hero comic books that Michael Chabon has created for this book. It is a world of convenient coincidences, of nick-of-time rescues, of unbelievable happenstance, and hyper-romanticism. It's a world whose characters are drawn in two tones (black or white), where good and evil combat in epic struggles, and little boys pay ten cents an issue to read about it. It's an entirely made up world, embracing its own fictionality, but one that the reader can easily get lost in. Chabon has written a book that takes the conventions of the comic book and exploits them. If you encounter a situation here that tests the boundaries of reality, try reading it as if spread over six cheerily drawn panels. It'll make much more sense that way.
The reason for this technique, if I may be so bold as to articulate it, is quite simple: Escapism. Joe Kavalier at one point lists the reasons why he loves his comic books: "for their inferior color separation, their poorly trimmed paper stock, their ads for air rifles and dance courses and acne creams..." But most importantly, for this young man newly escaped from occupied Prague, for the way they allowed young boys to escape from reality and dream their dreams. It's a pretty moving message. Joe and his cousin Sammy Clay (nee Clayman) create a comic book superhero to exploit this theme, named appropriately enough "The Escapist". It's popularity ends up rivaling Superman and Batman. I'm not going to tell you what Sammy is escaping from, for that would ruin one of the book's best and most tastefully portrayed surprises.
However, all is not painted in comic book artificiality. In fact, much of the book's sub-text is quite poignant and real. I mean, the book's title, which looks very comic-esque, is actually quite ironic. The boys' adventures aren't really that amazing together (it's run-of-the-mill, everyday stuff, except for a huge joint success). Joe has some topsy-turvy times himself, and Sammy's are more internal and domestic than anything. Even their names are ironic. Joe is certainly not cavalier about the cause he finds himself obsessed with. Sammy's clay (his "fundamental nature or spirit") remains hidden for the majority of the book, only drawn out against his will. Chabon only uses the comic book template as an easy entry point into this world. After that, he creates some complex human situations. And the book is set in and around a very real New York City, during its golden era. Not only are the city's alleyways and seedy apartments and subways represented, but so are some of its most famous landmarks. It's no coincidence that the Empire State Building stands tall and proud on the cover of the book's first paperback edition. It plays a major role in many of the boys' "adventures". As does the recent World's Fair, in a minor but crucial way.
The knock here is that Chabon's prose is a little too purple, a little too flowery, with a vocabulary that may stymie the majority of his readers. Frankly, I've read prose infinitely more difficult. Chabon, by comparison, is
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Outstanding novel about WW2, comic books, and New York Jan 29, 2001 (37 of 40 found this helpful)
This is a wonderful book that I'll read again and again. Kavalier and Clay's adventures begin in New York 1939, the dawn of comic books and superheroes. The reader doesn't need any knowledge of comics to love this book--indeed, even Joe Kavalier has no knowledge of them when he arrives as a Jewish refugee and settles in with his American cousin, Sammy Clay. The pair become a success with their superhero character, The Escapist, modelled after Houdini and Kavalier himself--lucky enough to escape Nazi Europe, but struggling to bring his younger brother over to America. Chabon does a brilliant job of tying together the events in comic books to other political and cultural events in American life. Along a journey that spans the period from 1939 to the early 1950s, Joe Kavalier meets Salvador Dali and Orson Wells, and serves the war effort in Antartica. It's a bittersweet journey, filled with love, loss, greedy comic book publishers, and the need for revenge. Samuel Clay's tale and journey is more introspective, as he struggles with his place in the world as a man. This has to be my favorite fiction book of 2000! I don't think you'll be disappointed in Kavalier & Clay.