The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay | Michael Chabon | if you only have the chance to read...

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay | Michael Chabon | A world of its own

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The Amazing Advent...

	The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay Michael Chabon Picador, 2001 - 656 pages average customer review:based on 594 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

if you only have the chance to read one book this year make it this one, you wont be disappointed.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay was an instant popular and critical success when it came out in 2000 being nominated for a raft of awards. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001 and Hollywood has been sniffing around it ever since. Michael Chabon the author wrote the only known screenplay, which struggled to reduce a 635-page book to a 2-hour film. At one point, the cast was Toby Maguire (Peter in Spiderman) to play Sam Clay, Natalie Portman (V for Vendetta) to play Rosa Saks and Jude Law to play Joe Kavalier.

The difficulties for the film is what makes the book a joy as it starts in 1938 as Superman bursts on the scene and ends in 1954 as the Kefauver Senate hearings delivers the death blow to a declining comic book industry. A central theme is the roles of the Jews in the comic book industry: it explored the mythology of comic hero and its impact Joe and Sam own struggles and personal journeys form the stories of the Escapist which in turn shape their lives. Sam struggling to come to terms with being Gay and Joe trying to rescue his family stuck in an increasingly bleak Nazi run Prague. It also explores the historical rip off the artists and writers of the period. Superman's creators did not come into the real money until the blockbuster Superman movies and a court case prised the money out of Hollywood's coffers. Historical characters from the period from the comic industry and the movie, art and political world some in and out of the story. The Escapist also draws on Joe Kavalier's training and experience of magic and Houdini type tricks and the impact this has on his life.

The writing is a tour deforce so that you hear, touch and smell the period. Each character has their own voice and even minor characters when they enter the story in a few paragraphs you have their back-story and motives seamlessly woven in so they become real characters. The point of view moves from character to character and no easy option or resolution is allowed as the story builds to the magic trick ending. Scenes are comic one minute and bitterly tragic the next as you join in the roller coaster of their lives. Yes I am going say it...if you only have the chance to read one book this year make it this one, you wont be disappointed.

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A world of its own

The Amazing Adventures is not just one of the best books you are likely to read in a while, it is one of the most beautiful.

Beginning in Prague before moving, through various unexpected locations, to New York, the novel tracks the lives of a Czechoslovak refugee and his American cousin, both adolescents at the start of the story, in the first years of WWII. The young men are obsessed with action comics in what is the genre's golden age, and they become their own characters on the brimming, coloured pages they create. But the war, and the protagonists' family past, keep interfering.

This is a coming of age story, and at the same time it is about the healing power of art or - if that sounds trite - about redemption through dreams and imagination. It is both interesting and, to borrow from the comics' own hero, a major piece of escape artistry. It is fast paced and engrossing; I found myself wishing it wouldn't end as I neared the last few pages. But the reasons why this novel is so powerful must distil down to two: the characters are at once human and irresistibly likeable, and the book, without verging into the fantastic, creates, around comics, a world of its own, lush, vivid, pungently attractive. And Chabon's style is stunning. There is pleasure in re-reading some of his turns of phrase and at the same time it is clear and direct. It is also packed with entertaining details that show the massive research which must have gone into the work. The early chapters contain minor historical errors, seemingly intentional. See if you can spot them!

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Tour de Force

Now THIS is truly an exemplary work of art. This book works on a very high plane on so many different levels. One can certainly read and enjoy this book for the plot, which moves along at a brisk, entertaining pace. At the same time, the characters are so well developed, so realistic, so believable and so fascinating. Given the quasi-historical backdrop of the novel, some historical persons, such as Salvador Dali, Orson Wells, and Alfred Smith, are interwoven into the story in a meaningful way, giving us a window into time and place. Along the same line, Chabon gives what I understand to be a relatively accurate account of the development of the American art of comic books, both pre and post-World War II. Apparently, comics books not only reflected the times, but helped shape them. For me, the icing on the cake was the wonderful symbolic interplay between the characters of the novels, the characters of the comic books they created, elements of judaic folklore (particularly, the "golem," being a clay "protector"==the ancient equivalent to a superhero (while a main character's surname was Sam Clay), and the repeated use of themes, most significantly, "escape," to tie these elements together. These themes were so cleverly interwoven into the story, I suspect a second reading would uncover many missed the first time around.

In creating my Amazon reviews, I am generally a tough critic. Typically, I am only willing to bestow 5 stars on those very special, very deserving, very rare books--my own personal best of the best of the best. For me, this book fits into that category, deserving of all of the plaudits it has received. One of the best books I have read in a long time, a compelling store, written in the timeless manner of truly fine literature--a true tour de force.

Enjoy.

Kenny

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Rich, Detailed, Extravagant. A Wonderful Book.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is the story of Sammy Clay and Joe Kavalier, cousins, Jews, reaching their young manhood during WWII. It ends in 1954 in a suburb of New York.

Sammy and Joe invent a comic book hero, The Escapist, based on their early childhood experiences. They grow up, fall in love, have disappointments... I want to tell the WHOLE STORY here, but there's so much to it that I couldn't do it justice. You just have to want to read a book about Jewish boys, New York in the 40s and 50s, Czechoslovakia, WWII, comic books, suburbs, the Navy, The Empire State Building, and love.

This book is rich. It's rich in the storyline and in the language and sentence structure. Michael Chabon is generous with detail and subplots and lets you enjoy his characters as he develops their lives. I really liked Sammy and Joe and Rosa and Tommy.

Joe is the most complicated of the characters and if I actually stand back and review his actions I'm still puzzled at some of the things he did in response to the crises of his life. It's a pleasant sort of puzzlement and doesn't detract from my loving this book.

It is a very long book - 635 pages in trade paperback - and there were a few slow parts for me, but once I got to about page 250 or so, it took off. In looking back, I see how everything Chabon wrote in the early parts that were less interesting to me contributed to the book as a whole.

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5 star for 70% of the book

I thought the first portion about the comic books was exciting and well written and above all enjoyable. However there were a few scenes that seemed to be a bit too progressive for 1930-40's America. A father walks into a room where his daughter is naked with a man in bed and just seems to chat? A mother accepts her son's homosexuality? I was not alive at the time, however, I found those scenes to be a bit hard to believe.
After Joe goes off to war, I found the book a bit too easy to put down and a bit harder to pick up. It seemed to have lost a bit of its momentum.

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