The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
by Michael Chabon
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Book Reviews of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Book Review: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
Summary: 5 Stars
Michael Chabon, author of Wonder Boys, brings us the Pulitzer Prize winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. A riveting novel of the comic book world set against the backdrop of the Second World War. Its two heroes, Joe Kavalier and Sam Clay, fight through the world of color, ink and writing, to compete with the likes of Superman and Batman - the result is an amazing story that has never been told.
This is a coming-of-age story for two very distinct characters. One is Sammy Klayman, an aspiring writer trying to make it in New York. Working for Empire Inc., the best he can do, in his diminished capacity, is come up with catchy ad slogans. Though he hopes for so much more, he seems stuck in this rut. During his spare time he draws pictures; though not excellent in skill and look, they are good enough for comics, one of his great loves.
Then there is Josef Kavalier: a boy born in the impoverished ghettoes of Prague, where every day is a fight for survival. Taken under the wing of a mentor, Bernard Kornblum, he is taught in the ways of the magician and illusionists - the immortal Houdini. As months pass, he is soon able to break out of any chains, and undo any luck with the help of his small tools (secretly stashed amongst his teeth and gums). Then he performs a might illusion: breaking free of a chained sack that has been hurled into an icy river; he survives barely, but his brother suffers a debilitating accident, and from then on Kavalier will have no more to do with this trickery.
His only hope of coming to true fruition is to get to America, where there is insurmountable opportunity. Having failed to get a visa, with the advent of the Germans seizing further control of Eastern Europe, h hides himself in the coffin of a golem and makes it to Lithuania, where he catches a ship bound for New York. There he meets up with none other than Samuel Klayman.
The two get together and propose their idea for the first comic book to the head men of Empire Inc. They are given the weekend to come up with the entire comic, and come Monday morning they deliver the first episode of the superhero known as the Escapist - his job: to disperse all evil; there is no lock he cannot pick, no bond he cannot break. And so begins the fulfilling career for these two young mean, covering many years and riches.
Chabon is a certified master of the language, taking the reader on sweeps and bounds through imagery set at a new level: "Thunder harried the building like a hound, brushing its crackling coat against the spandrels and mullions, snuffling all the windowpanes."
Once the reader finishes this book, they are left with the happy complacency that Amazing Adventure received one of the highest prizes possible. The story is of a quality that is a rarity in the literature of today's world. In short: everyone needs to read this book, be they reader or writer.
For more book reviews, and other writings, go to www.alexctelander.com
Book Review: The Rise of Men in Tights and Capes
Summary: 5 Stars
1930's New York: Bread lines, thirty percent unemployment rate, labor unrest, a city still trying to assimilate a large influx of refugees from Europe (though that river has now been slowed to a trickle by new immigration limits), a great city with hopes for the future as shown by the World's Fair, but overhung with depression and despair - what better time for the rise of the pure escapist literature of the pulp magazines and comic books? Where Batman, The Shadow, and yes, Superman! can drape a veil over everyday concerns, and allow the reader to wallow for a time in a world where things go right, where evils are summarily defeated, and where, disguised as the superhero sidekick, the reader can imagine himself playing a role.
Into this world Chabon injects Sammy Clay and his cousin Joe Kavalier, one raised in New York, the other in Prague, two young men with both artistic and literary ability, who conceive of a new idea for a superhero, the Escapist, a man whom no locks, cuffs, or iron bars can hold. An idea at the right time and place, and leading to a fantastically successful publication, though Sammy and Joe only get to see a small part of that success. As time moves on and WWII intervenes, we watch these two men develop and change, each in their own way fighting for the American Dream.
Chabon's theme is inextricably intertwined with the dreams and actions of these two men, and the road they travel is not without a large number of bumps, upheavals, disappointments, obsessions, loves, hates, and ironies. These characters are sharply drawn, their reactions to world and local events makes good sense for the type of people they are. While Chabon's prose occasionally rises to the level of some purpleness (and might make some people reach for a dictionary), it does an excellent job of making this world come alive. Clearly Chabon did his homework in digging out the history of the comic book, and his injection of his own creation into this world fits so seamlessly that it is difficult to separate the real names and history from his fictional ones.
Perhaps the best thing about this book (for me, anyway), were the times when Chabon details some of the actual story lines for these comic books, as they capture the spirit and heart of what this new medium of comic books was all about.
This may not be the greatest book ever written, but it presents a solid case for the usefulness of `escape' that I don't believe I've seen elsewhere, makes you live and see that period of our history, peoples it with some very real, if somewhat unconventional, characters, while not avoiding the darker aspects of human nature and the sometimes horrendous actions of humans against humans. And in doing all this, it is easy to see why it took the Pulitzer Prize.
---Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)
Book Review: 3/4ths of the Great American Novel
Summary: 4 Stars
I started reading this book in February or March of 2003. For one reason or another I was only a couple of hundred pages into it when it was due back to the library. As is usual with me, I decided to give up reading it and turn it in, rather than recheck it. This is not a comment on the quality of the read, but rather a quirk in my own existense. I was fairly busy at the time and I figured that if I only made it through 200 pages in the first three weeks, another three weeks wouldn't get me to the end of this 636 paged tome. Finding it in the library here, I decided to pick it back up. I'm glad I did, and grateful I managed to finnish it this time.
Chabon has created a magical book. Slightly based on the history of the comic book, and partly a fictional account of a small group of Jews during the atrocities of Hitler. Though, as Chabon admits, he chooses to ignore facts and history as it suits his story. It is the story of the friendship between Joe Kavalier and Sam Clay. The story begins with Joe having fled Nazi run Prague for the comforts of his cousin, Sam's comfortable apartment in Brooklyn. They quickly become great friends and enter into the burgeoning comic book world.
Chabon writes beautifully crafted sentence that course forwards and bacwards through time to tell a multi-faceted story. His pen pauses in moments of time during the present and pulls the reader into a back story of Prague, the Kavaliers and comic books. Joe Kavalier's story is beautifully told, encompassing a stint as a magician and escape artists before travling from Prague to New York by way of Asia and California. The story of how Joe traveled to New York by way of a golem filled box is hilarious, frightening and poignant. For the first 2/3s of the book, Chabon's pen doesn't let the reader down from it's magnificent begining.
Yet it is about 2/3s of the way in, that the story begins to faulter. In an effort to tell a grand, epic story, Chabon treads beyond the beautifully told past, and magnificent present, into a less than glorious future. Seeing his characters rise from humble, troubled beginings to a stellar, triumphant present, only to have them fall again was a mistake. It's not so much the fall that hurts the story but the rushed way it is told. The novel moves at a slow pace, giving many sumpuous details and never minding to slip into the past for a revealing story. Yet, when it moves to the future it seems to force things along. You can feel the writer telling his story to point towards his final concluding point, rather than just allow the story to unfold. To really flesh out the future section he would have needed another few hundred pages. I would have preferred him to wrap up the story leaving out the future scenes. He does manage to salvage the conclusion and bring his characters into fully realized beings
Book Review: Ambivalence
Summary: 3 Stars
I was rather tentative on writing this review, but to justify, I'll weigh out its different attributes...When speaking in terms of the art of prose, "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" can very easily be listed among the prestige elite - Chabon's vocabulary and its employment is excellent, and the first half of this book was saturated with it - it glistened and shined. For the first few hundred pages, I was enamoured. I was enraptured. I was charmed.
The thing about "The Amazing Adventures..." is that, while its telling is among the best, it does not conceal the fact that the story being told is not nearly as strong. Even the most talented authors need firm structure in their works - And for the first half of the book, this had it. But the story began to wear thin. You can't comprise an excellent story out of beautiful prose, just as you can't grow a forest from leaves.
The main thought that played itself about in my mind during the reading process was: "What is the point?" Obviously, I understood the primary premise (alliteration!) about the business of Kavalier and Clay - but this did not seem to be the the triumph nor the failure of the story - nay, it appeared rather as a setting - the thread from which the tapestry was to be spun.
If so, what was the story? Where was the prominent conflict? There were many conflicts, of course, but which had any bit to do with the real storyline? I found that about 3/4 of the way through the book, I had lost the entire point of the story, other than the progression of life for the characters, which would be a fair premise for a story - were it not for the evident intentions of the beginning. It seemed as though Michael Chabon had forsaken his original plans and gone off on digression after digression.
There seemed to be a big exhale, as well, in the characters. All of Chabon's characters were thought-provoking and real ...but in the end, they all seemed more or less burned out. Sammy and Rosa had succumbed to the plebian reign of the suburbs (not to mention their marriage - that disappointed me greatly) - but why? There were no rejuvenations of the old spirit, no nothing. Just characters getting old and tired in spite of everything they had ever been. One big exhalation.
Again, I ask: What is the point?
This book skyrocketed at first, reaching the heavens ...but then it just sort of drifted on down. There was no climax. There was no distinctive, single, point. The only feeling I had upon completion was simple and honest liberation. I could only sense what a beautiful feeling it was not to be shackled in any more, forcing myself to trudge along.
This is highly discouraging.
If I would reccomend this book, it would be mainly because of Michael Chabon's excellent tongue and wit. But I would reccomend scores of other books before it.
Book Review: Brilliant
Summary: 5 Stars
I have only this to say. I finished the book last week, and I have started it again.
I genuinely like Michael Chabon, although I admit I do not dash off to the bookshop when he has a new book in the stacks. But in "Kavalier & Clay," he has achieved something special, weaving traditional, well-worn themes like love and loss, family, faith, human dignity, and artistic vision and desire into an overall compelling tale with familiar yet delicately nuanced characters. I found myself backtracking a great deal, not because I was lost or confused, but because I found it joyful to find those "small connections" he makes throughout the book which make the various subplots as compelling as the main story. It's a beguiling puzzle-box of a book. I wish to say more, but I am afraid of "spoiling" the pleasure of it! And it's all set in locales that, through Chabon's descriptive power, are so familiar but belonging to another time, yet made accessible to a modern reader. I could "feel" the New York of the 1930's, the grimy comic book sweatshops, the clothing and speech patterns of the day. I was amazed, even at points, enthralled.
I note that some reviewers complain about the language, the "purple prose," the extensive vocabulary deployed. I do not understand these criticisms. While I too thoroughly enjoy writers like Hemingway and admire how he and his generation could convey so much by saying so little, I do not see how he, just to name one example, became the "exemplar of all that's holy" in American writing. And that of itself is not a criticism, just an observation. To play the apologist, I suppose I would say that sometimes lavish prose is needed to narrate a lavish backdrop and equally lavish personalities. A "Hemingway-esque" style would just not have fit this particular bill, in my personal opinion. And yes, this can be intimidating. But, I do not think this is literary "sin." I found the layered complexity refreshing and wonderful. And, in this book, Chabon actually subtley changes his style depending on what he is writing about, using language he finds fit to illuminate a given scene. This, to me, is the mark of a master storyteller.
But, I did notice that one negative reviewer, in comparing this book to "Wonder Boys," said, in so many words, "Does Michael Chabon have to have a gay writer in all of his books?" I did have to laugh out loud at that delightfully pithy observation. And I agree that perhaps he has mined that vein enough, although I do not find Chabon's characters of any persuasion to ever be formulaic, stereoyped, or - worst of all - dull. This is not a writer who has a stable of "stock" characters.
It's a masterful work from a very, very talented and erudite man. I recommend it with great enthusiasm.