The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay | Michael Chabon

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay | Michael Chabon | Amazing... One of the best books in years !

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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

Only Comics, Until Now...

I'm a slow reader, sometimes I have to read a sentence a few times before it will stick. So after middle school I pretty much wrote off reading other than magazines and comic books. I have to say I was caught up in the story about 3 pages in from the 1st chapter. The way the author describes his setting and plot lines, a picture truly forms in your mind. A great story about a young jewish Kavalier escaping nazi controlled Prague, and finds himself in Brooklyn, NY meeting his cousin Klayman(Clay). Both are artist and looking to score on the new craze, the comic book. I guess I never really thought there was anything different than like wizards, love stories, suspense, or crime mysteries. Its inspired me to try and look for more obscure books that I can continue with my new found love of reading, and am on book #3 since reading the multi-award winning "Kavalier and Clay".

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Amazing... One of the best books in years !

I found this book through a Twitter contact and mainly by accident... but what a find ! This is one of the best books I have read in the last 15 years. Is it because it features topics I like a lot; New York, the 30ies, 40ies, 50ies, comic books and superheroes or the very humane story of a boy during WWII... I don't know... but the great writing skills of the author certainly help to make this a page turner. Simply a wonderful read.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

The Best Book I Have Ever Read

Simply put: this is the best book I have ever read. When I was about half way through the book it dawned on me that this was my favorite book, to know that half way through, made reading the rest that much more enjoyable. To my amazement this feeling never dissipated nor did the story let up at any moment, it just kept getting better. The story of Joe Kavalier and his cousin Sammy Clay is one of hope, trust, misfortune, unfairness, love, life, disappointment, comedy, tragedy and of course comic books. From Joe's amazing escape from Nazi occupied Prague to his dumbfoundedness on the fact that he can make money at drawing comics to the rage burning inside him for revenge against the Nazi's is so clearly defined by Chabon that you empathize with him immediately. To counter Joe's leading man status, is his "sidekick" and cousin American born Sammy Clay, who always seems to come in second place in life, whether it be with his circus strongman father, his job at the whoopee cushion creating novelty house or love and happiness, he always seems to be playing second fiddle. That is until Joe Kavalier enters his life and together, and to their out and out amazement they create the wildly successful comic book character of "The Escapist" (based on Joe's being trained as one as a young boy), which gives Superman a run for his kryptonite. The ups and downs and ins and outs of their lives through comic book creating, the love of Rosa (a girl that Joe literally stumbles upon) and the state of the human psyche through sheer pleasure and terrible atrocity is all right with in the 637 pages of this book. Michael Chabon is clearly one of the most talented writers to come along in a long time. His descriptions are beyond reproach, with his twist of a word or a flick of an adjective you are literally smelling the coffee, hearing the wind, and envisioning each character to a tee. Kavalier and Clay is a fantastic journey through the World War II era through the lives of two cousins that accent each other and are just opposite enough to create a wonderful taste of literature. I absolutely recommend this book and hope you enjoy as much as I know I did.

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The amazing writing of the amazing Adventures

What could be a more apt metaphor for the experience of Jewish survival in World War II then the escape artist? This novel is about 2 early comic book artists at the onset of the war who create the hero the Escapist among other great allegorical comic-book figures such as the Luna Moth. One of the pair, Josef Kavalier had escaped from Czechoslovakia having overcome comic-book-level complications and is forever scarred by the loss of the rest of his family and friends, in particular his brother Thomas. Thomas' escape from the Nazi's on the other hand was cut short at the last moment when his ship is sunk by a U-boat at the shores of America. This causes Josef to join the army but his experience of war turns out to be strangely life affirming though nonetheless difficult. Josef becomes psychologically stuck and unable to return to his normal life after the war; to his friends and lover he just disappears with no trace.

But this book is not a downer; it cannot be as it is infused with such a creative and playful spirit. Josef's son Tommy, born while Josef was off at war, without knowing about his real father, is also fascinated by comic-books and magic. How Tommy helps his father finally return from the war, in a hyper-plot worthy of a extraordinary comic book, is the crux of the story. Though this novel has elements of the comic book it also has depth, rhythmic writing, imagery, smoldering sexuality and sophisticated, complicated feeling. The other main characters i.e. the other comic-book artist Sam Clay (the man who is strong and loyal enough to not escape) and Josef's love Rosa are marvelously realized.

Here are just a couple of excerpts:

(Tommy in the city) He heard men swearing and singing opera. On a sunny day, his peripheral vision would be spangled with the light winking off the chrome headlights ..., the buckles on ladies shoes, ... the bulldog ornaments on the hoods of irate moving vans. This was Gotham City, Empire City, Metropolis. Its skies and rooftops were alive with men in capes and costumes on the lookout for wrongdoers ...

Tommy had his shoes off, his eye patch on, and half a pack of Black Jack in his mouth.

(children watching a superhero about to jump) The slow, dull, dark submarine of their lives in which they were the human cargo had abruptly surfaced. Their blood was filled with a kind of crippling nitogen of wonder

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what makes us human can be the most painful experience of all...

this novel is quite difficult to describe, its impact too ambiguous for words. to say that it's a "good" read is not quite cutting it. it touched upon many themes: from discovering one's true self by embracing one's sexuality, standing up for what one believes in despite the probability of derision, holding on to fragile hopes of a future free of tyranny in all forms, to electing modes of "escape" from the world at large and oneself in particular, and more.

the interactions/dialogues between the characters were what i found very enjoyable rather than the descriptions and explanations of what they were doing. also, chabon refrained from being overly serious, contemplative, or even expansive. somehow what i got was the impression of "lightness"--but not the ha-ha kind of funny. certainly the intimations about the Jews in Europe, the view of homosexuals in the 1940s, and such were very heartwrenching. what balanced it for me was the inspiring friendship that formed between Sam and Joe.

for me it was a bit of a struggle to begin this book, but halfway through, i suddenly found myself eating up the pages and wanting to know what will become of Joe and Sam, with their definitive life's work, and their struggle to to emancipate even just a handful of Jews, starting with Joe's family.

whether you're a comic books nut or otherwise, this novel will stay with you for a long while. i expected blatantly daring-do's from the duo, and yet what i got was an intensely emotional and human experience during one of the darkest times of our history.

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