The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Jessica

Rating: really liked it
Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman are drinking Peet's coffee and eating zampanos in front of the Cheeseboard on Shattuck Avenue.

MC: Ayelet, I'm trying to think of a new idea for a novel. It's gotta be fresh, bold.... Something nobody's ever thought of before!

AW: Wow, Michael, that's a tough one. There have been so very many novels written over the years, it's hard to come up with something new that's never been done before....

MC: Yeah, I need an idea that's totally original..... Maybe I should ask the kids, they're creative... Hey, where are the kids?

AW: The kids? I don't know. We had 'em when we left Andronico's....

MC: That's odd....

AW: Ah, fuck 'em. The important thing is that we're together. Let's focus on thinking of something innovative, new, a bit wild....

MC: Ayelet -- I have an idea! An idea for my next novel!

AW: What? What?

MC: It'll be about..... some boys!

AW: Yes--?

MC: Yes, some -- some JEWISH boys! And they're....

AW: They're what, Michael?? What are they doing???

MC: They're living in -- in BROOKLYN!!

AW: (gasps) It's.... BRILLIANT! My God!

MC: But not the Brooklyn of today, Ayelet, no -- Brooklyn during the middle of the last century!

AW: Oh, Michael -- you're a genius! No one's ever written a book like that before!

MC: You know what else??

AW: Don't tell me -- no, no, do! DO! Tell me right away!!!

MC: These boys.... they're into comic books! I mean, REALLY into comic books.

AW: Comic books? Jewish boys living in Brooklyn in the middle of the last century, who're really into comic books? Oh Michael, do you think the world is ready for a novel like that? Such a drastic break with the entire history of American literature -- it could be risky!

MC: It could be, that's true. Especially if I mention..... the NAZIS!

AW: It's bold, Michael. It's bold, but I think... you should do it. You know, guys like Jonathan Lethem would give their left nut to come up with ideas like this.

MC: Guys like Jonathan Lethem don't have my vocabulary.

AW: I bet you get a Pulitzer for this one, babe.

MC: I bet I do too.

Bookster: Jessica, what the hell is your problem? What are you even talking about???

J: Uh..... nothing.

B: Did you even read this book?

J: (quietly) No.

B: Do you know anything ABOUT these people?

J: (looks down) No.

B: Or this book?

J: Nope.

B: You know, I happen to love this brilliant novel. Michael Chabon is a highly gifted writer, and so his wife, who is also an extremely caring and wonderful mother, much better than you'd ever be. What do you think this behavior is all about, J?

J: (makes small shrugging motion, mumbles incoherently)

B: Can you speak up a little?

J: (more distinctly) I didn't like the beginning. (clears throat) Actually, I hated the beginning. It made me want to throw up. It made me want to throw up and....

B: And.....?

J: And it also made me want to fall asleep. So I got....

B: Yes....?

J: I got scared, B. You know that's how Jimi Hendrix died, right?

B: You're pathetic.

J: Hey, you asked.

B: You are a small person.

J: That may be.

B: You're jealous. And also not smart. You're just mad because you don't have any Pulitzers or babies, and you never will!

J: HEY, woah! Where's all THAT coming from?

B: Okay, sorry, I didn't mean.... Look, I happen to like both these writers a lot, okay? Maybe we should just stop here. Don't you have things you're supposed to be doing?

J: I guess I do, yeah.

B: You should get off the Internet. This is a little bit crazy.

J: It's been tough lately. My small life. You know, lonely, childless, semi-literate.....

B: Look, I said I was sorry. Can we drop it?

J: Yeah, fine, sure. Whatever you say.

B: You should really read this book, though. Your characterization of it is insulting and ridiculous. If you gave it half a chance, you'd be totally amazed.

J: My charac--

B: Run along!

Paul Bryant

Rating: really liked it
In the street

“Hey!”

“Huh? me?”

“Yeah – you. You wouldn’t know great American literature if a pigeon pooed it all over your anorak.”

Wow – that was surreal… who the hell were those guys?

At the office

“The boss wants to see you.”

Oh my… that’s Mrs Higgins sitting there with Mr Duthie – she’s from the HR department! What’s going on?

“Paul, hi, sit down, yes. This is… rather awkward. You see, it has come to our attention that you’ve been, well, how can I put this delicately, heard to say… hmmm…that Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is well… not bad. Pretty good. Okay-ish. That kind of thing.”

“Er, yes, that’s right, I have.”

“Hmmm, well. Er – Mrs Higgins, can you explain?”

“Certainly. Mr Bryant, we have a copy of the terms and conditions of employment which you signed. As you know, part one clearly states that the employee agrees to promote the company’s mission at all times. The mission is encapsulated in the Mission Statement. Perhaps you need reminding of it.

Our mission statement :

We undertake to manufacture by carbon neutral means the world’s greatest sprockets and to work in harmonic partnership with our friends, colleagues and customers to ensure Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is recognised throughout the English speaking world as the Great American Novel”

“Wow, I had never seen that last bit!”

“It was revised in 2000 when Mr Chabon published the novel.”

“Well, I’m not sure I like the drift of this discussion. I don’t dislike Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay! It’s pretty good!”

“Well, Paul… I’m very sorry, but that’s sort of the point of this interview. Really though, I’m surprised at you. Do you know that Bret Easton Ellis declared the novel "one of the three great books of my generation" ? Did you not know that?”

“Well, ,but, with respect Mr Duthie, Bret Easton Ellis is an overhyped jerk whose theatre of cruelty has been gulling the young and the impressionable for decades! His opinion counts for less than nothing! Less than nothing, do you hear me, less than nothing!” Bangs table.

Mr Duthie groans and puts his head in his hands.

“Mr Bryant, this is to formally inform you that this is your first formal written warning regarding this matter. Here. File it. Next to The Rules of Attraction.”

At the hairdressers

“I’m sorry Mr Bryant, nobody is available to cut your hair today.”

“But I see three of them hunched over a dog-eared copy of Wonder Boys and they’re clearly not cutting anyone’s hair!”

“I’m sorry….”

In court

Third witness : I clearly heard him say that if Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” is the great American novel then Everybody Loves Raymond is the great American sitcom.

Crowd : Ooooh – we like Everybody Loves Raymond too.

Prosecutor : Mr Bryant, Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is a magical novel. Its recreation of the golden age of the comics industry is, although cloaked in fiction, picture perfect. Its characters -- Joe and his struggle to bring his family to America; Sam and his complex relationship to his father; Rosa and the depths of both her talent and compassion -- are gripping. This novel's epic sweep is constructed with tender moments of heartfelt intimacy. The story itself is, in many ways, the story of the USA itself: the Depression, the American dream, isolationism, the dichotomy of racism and integration, sexual repression, the Second World War, the paranoid 1950s. How , therefore, can you describe it as – I quote – “often like reading a recipe book instead of eating the cake…the seventy five earnest historical facts per paragraph tend to slow the story down to a sludgy creep for fifty pages at a time…” and this… “Every 50 pages or so I had to read a couple more ecstatic reviews to jolt me into continuing, which was like getting sick of one’s exercycle and watching a George Clooney movie and thinking okay I remember why I am doing this and getting back on the exercycle.”

Crowd : booooo! Boooo!

Me : Hey, where did you get that from?

Prosecutor : this is from your very own Goodreads review…

PB : But but that’s not there anymore

Prosecutor : no, of course not, the management deleted it within ten minutes. They run a responsible book reviewing site!

At home

“Jeez, the day I’ve had.”

“Yeah, but look, you bring this down on yourself. I mean, the Daily Telegraph said Perfection. There are perhaps four other novels I’ve enjoyed this much. And none of them has made me cry more."

“Well.. er… that reviewer must have led a very sheltered life. And not read many books.”

Silence.

“My mother was right! You have a heart of stone! And very poor critical facilities! Oh, what have I done! Why did this happen to me?”

"There there, it's only a novel."

"Oh my God you're at it again!"

Violet wells

Rating: really liked it
My favourite adventure with a novel so far this year. I loved it to bits.

In many ways attempting to review this novel is like thinking back through an illusionist or an escape artist’s performance of his trick and trying to work out exactly how he did it. You’re left a little baffled by the nature of the magic of the thing. Ironically for a novel inspired by magicians, there are few tricks in this novel. It features no post-modernist sleights of hand with regards structure or voice. It is straightforward storytelling at its most magical and engrossing – the plot frequently twisting with fresh surges of adrenalin. Its mesmerising power is all in the vitality and hightide imaginative reach of its story and the compelling moving humanity of its two main characters, Josef Kavalier and his American cousin Sam Clay.

The premise: Josef Kavalier’s family pay for him to emigrate from Prague to New York as the Nazis rise to power. As often was the case for Jewish families in those days the Nazi authorities kept the money but withheld the necessary papers at the last minute. Eighteen year old Joe, with the aid of his Houdini like escape artist teacher, has to smuggle himself out of occupied Prague in a coffin with Prague’s legendary Golem. He eventually makes it to Brooklyn and shares a room with his cousin Sam Clay. The way Sam initially looks after Joe and introduces him to his world and the way their bond liberates Sam is beautifully portrayed. Sam too is a great fan of Houdini and together they invent The Escapist, a superhero whose attraction to Joe is that he can vicariously use him to wage a one man war on the Nazis. Joe’s ambition now is to pay for his family to escape the Nazis. Escape is always the name of the game in this novel. (Sam has a secret he is trying to escape from.) There’s barely a single female character in this novel for 200 pages. And then Rosa Saks arrives…

The comic book theme of Kavalier & Clay has put me off reading this for years. I remember a paperback copy was knocking about in my first flat in Florence and despite the difficulty of getting hold of novels in English I still never felt inclined to read it. Comic books have no more relevance to my life than darts or bingo. I’ve never been anywhere near a film which features a costumed hero in a mask and lurid tights. Therefore I was far from sure I would enjoy this novel.

Kavalier & Clay, like so many other novels, attempts to get at the quintessence of the American dream and it does a decent job, chronicling so many of the characteristics of American cultural and political life between 1939 and the 1950s. But the real triumph of this novel is its dramatization of intimate worlds, of friendship, of sexual love, of parenting, of private obsessions and yearnings, and of the creative process - the relationship between artist and inspiration, the process and the exuberance of artistic creation, is one of its most exciting achievements. We also see the relationship between artist and the corporate world, and between artist and censorship too.

The friendship between Joe and Sam is a joy to read from start to finish, one of the most moving accounts of synergistic liberating companionship I’ve ever read. Some of Joe’s actions are questionable but because Sammy always forgives him so do we. Sammy is a kind of moral touchstone in this novel. And, as his surname suggests, he’s also the novel’s Golem, the catalyst for all the novel’s magic. It’s also him who expresses our own scepticism about comic books as high art - though in the end Chabon makes a great case for the important cultural significance of the comic book.

This is one of those novels when you sense that half the trick of writing a rich compelling novel is for the author to feel a consuming love for his characters and get to the heart of them. Chabon clearly loves his characters and this love is highly contagious. If you haven’t already read it, give it a try. It’s heartwarming and exciting and magical and utterly engrossing.

Sarahfina

Rating: really liked it
Aaron and I are starting a club for people who hated this boring, boring book. Anyone want to join?

jessica

Rating: really liked it
this book was given to me as a gift by a good friend, with a note saying it was one of his favourites.

not only was i fortunate to read such a wonderful story, but i feel so much closer to my friend. by experiencing what he enjoys to read, i have come to understand him so much more.

and now, whenever i think of this story, i will think about him - as both are strong, courageous, funny, and show a subtle hint of love.

↠ 4.5 stars

Fabian

Rating: really liked it
Only one abnormally enormous ego could've mustered out something so monumental, so very beautiful & elegant as this sparkly-as-chrome novel. It's basically flawless--very concerned with having all sentences that make it up into wondrous, unique gems. Every sentence is constructed with care & CRAFT.

The novel begins by grabbing the reader by the lapels to show how the bonds between cousin geniuses who build an empire out of superhero comics unravel. It takes its time to get us there, so we are in for a cinematographic ride through the years that bookmarked WWII in the great land of opportunity: mainly NYC. There are collisions with history: a legacy left from Houdini is taken up by the ambitious young Josef Kavalier, Dali's life is saved by Kavalier, and Orson Welles inspires Clay to draw on his masterpiece "Citizen Kane" to change the very way storytelling is depicted in the comics. This is a petition, very headstrong and brilliant, to elevate the craft of comic books into a substantial art form. That the heroes of the tale resemble those that they draw is a guise to imbue the fantastic world with the ever-so real. Film equivalents: "The Aviator" (2005), "Citizen Kane."

In fact, it is the story of the baby-faced entrepreneur that K & C tries to emulate, & actually kinda surpasses it. It is about MANNY things, about history of course, but also about that pesky threesome that sometimes forms when great minds align. About the father-son relationship, the partnership between hero & sidekick, the building of something amazing, that lasts for future generations to enjoy or partake in. Is there any other emblem to tie all of this together than that monstrous tower a.k.a. Empire State Building on the book's cover????

Kemper

Rating: really liked it
I’m a fan of Michael Chabon even though he carries a man purse.

Joe Kavalier is a young artist who had also trained to be a magician and escape artist in Prague. When the Nazis invade in 1939, Joe is able to escape to America with the plan that he’ll find a way to get the rest of his family out. In New York, he meets his cousin Sam Clay. Sam is an artist of limited talent who has been doing drawings for the ads of a novelty toy company, but the recent boom of superhero comics thanks to the newly created Superman has inspired him to try and break into that budding industry.

When Sam sees Joe’s artistic talent, they form a partnership and Sam talks the owner of the novelty company into launching a comic line featuring masked men. Joe and Sam create a group of comic characters including The Escapist, a magician and escape artist who is also endowed with super strength by an ancient secret society to help free the oppressed. Sam’s story telling instincts and Joe’s art quickly make The Escapist one of the most popular comics on the market.

However, Joe’s inability to get his family out of Europe due to anti-Semitic German bureaucracy and US government red tape continually leaves him frustrated and angry. Falling in love only makes him feel guiltier for his happiness and success. Meanwhile, Sam buries himself in work to avoid admitting that he’s a homosexual until a relationship with a radio actor forces him to confront his nature.

Chabon’s a comic geek, and he really understands the medium at a DNA level. This is obviously his ode to the Golden Age of comics when the industry was born. My favorite part of the book is where Joe and Sam are trying to come up with a new hero, and their conversation about what will work and what won’t is a great deconstruction of what makes for a good superhero. The following weekend they spend with a group of artists cooking up several heroes to fill out an entire comic book made me feel the energy and creativity that seemed to be present in air of the New York comic scene in those days.

The book also highlights the flaws of funny books of the time, too. Chabon makes it clear that a lot of the stuff that came out was schlock thrown together cheaply and quickly, and the stories about creators getting ripped off by publishers are legion.

We also get into how comics were thought of back then. Despite their large sales, they were shunned and mocked by the general public and seen as lurid trash for children. Joe and Sam are proud of their creations, but they’re also embarrassed to be writing about men in tights. Joe often feels that he’s wasting his time with war looming and his family trapped in Europe, but it’s giving him the money he needs to try and get them out so he takes out his frustration by having The Escapist beating the Nazis in the pages of the comic book.

The first half of the book is the portion that I really love. There’s a point where Sam & Joe attend the premiere of Citizen Kane, and its clever story structure and inventive camera angles inspire them to push their own work into a more adult direction. (It’s also a nice nod to the way that comics eventually started breaking the old nine panel per page format and became more cinematic.) To me, that’s the high water mark of the book because for one brief shining moment, the two men see what a comic book could become and temporarily manage to push their own self-imposed limitations aside to create something new. Unfortunately, like any Golden Age, it doesn’t last

Joe can’t let go of his desire for the kind of justice that a character like The Escapist deals out regularly because he‘s looking for the wrong kind of satisfaction. Sam wants so badly to be ‘normal’ and respected that he ends up living a lie and trying to be anything but what he is: a gay writer of pulp fiction.

Chabon has crafted a great look at a bygone era and meshed it with a pretty good story about a couple of likeable characters so embroiled in their own private triumphs and tragedies that they don’t realize that they’re among the pioneers of a new art form even as they create it.

Michael Finocchiaro

Rating: really liked it
While being a fun and interesting story, K&C does not feature deep character development and was IMHO about 100 pages too long. That being said, I found it highly entertaining and even instructive about the origins of comics. The descriptions of New York in the 30s, 40s and 50s was nice and the comics Chabon invented to tell the story were very creative. There is a bit of sentimentality here, but not too much and it was interesting to read this book just after Roth's I Married a Communist as the commission at the end was inspired by the same inquisitorial period of the 50s. Overall, I did enjoy it but wonder if Joyce Carol Oates or Joy Williams fans felt ripped off but I have read neither Blonde nor The Quick and the Dead which were respectively their books that were Pulitzer runners up when Chabon won in 2001. Perhaps someone else has? How about Chabon’s other books?

Kelly

Rating: really liked it
Whenever I mentioned the name of this book to a friend, a huge grin broke out of their face. This was a universal reaction. As were the words: "I LOVE that book. That book is GREAT." Not just how good it was, or skilled writing (though those things are also very true), but just how in love with it they were. You can't fake that. And now I know why!

I read it in two short spurts, covering about three days each, and I was done. Once you pick it up, its hard to put it down for around another hundred pages. There are some sentences that are just so absorbing and beautiful, passages that are just built up so well that I found myself going back to read them over and over. Parts of it were just so exhilarating to read, I had to stop and just bask in how good it made me feel to read. (Similar to the feeling I got from Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.)

The only complaints I had about it (which is why it gets four stars and not five) is that my attention wandered during Joe's travels in the middle. I thought that was a bit much and it didn't make sense to me except as a metaphor so heavy handed I will hit the author if that's what he meant. I also didn't like the way that so much time passed, and yet 12 years later everything could be tied up with a little shiny bow as "best for everyone," like so little had changed. I just didn't think Chabon gave enough credit to what twelve years does to people. He sort of dealt with it, but very quickly, and it felt like after hundreds of pages of careful development he was rushing to bring it to a close. Then again, that could be me just wanting more of the characters, who knows?

Still fantastic. If you have ever loved comic books, this book is necessary to your life. It's a love letter to escapism in general, but to the comic book industry and superheroes in general.

Candi

Rating: really liked it
3.5 stars

"The magician seemed to promise that something torn to bits might be mended without a seam, that what had vanished might reappear, that a scattered handful of doves or dust might be reunited by a word, that a paper rose consumed by fire could be made to bloom from a pile of ash. But everyone knew that it was only an illusion. The true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of the things it contained to vanish, to become so thoroughly lost, that they might never have existed in the first place."

Joe Kavalier is an amateur magician living in Czechoslovakia during the rise of Hitler. His Jewish family saves enough money allowing Joe to make a daring escape to freedom and his American family. He leaves behind his loving parents, a grandfather, and a beloved younger brother; but they promise to soon follow and reunite with one another once again. After a harrowing journey, Joe eventually lands in Brooklyn where he is taken in by his aunt and his cousin, Sammy Klayman. Thus begins a new adventure into the world of comic books as the two pair up to realize a dream – that of producing their own comic book hero, The Escapist. The Escapist takes on the role of single-handedly challenging the Nazis in order to rid the world of this evil once and for all. Never once does Joe forget his own heart’s desire – to rescue his family from the terror that is seeping into Europe.

There is much that I liked about this book. The budding friendship between the two cousins, Joe and Sammy, is nothing short of heartwarming. The historical pieces are engaging and informative. I loved the adventurous bits – Joe’s escape from Prague, some nail-biting scenes involving small-scale terrorism, a formidable venture into the lonely and treacherous landscape of Antarctica, as well as Joe’s various magic performances and displays of escape. I genuinely cared what happened to each character in this novel. Even the world of comic books didn’t turn me off… at least not right away. I enjoyed learning about the creative process and this unique form of art. The world of comic book publishers, editors and marketing was interesting. Then, it became too much for me. I would start to lose interest as the narrative would jump from the real life story of Joe and Sammy to that of their comic book characters. I was never a big fan of comic books; as a child, only occasionally would I sit in front of the screen to see which villains Wonderwoman or Superman or even the Wonder Twins were busy fighting for our sake. When the Marvel movies appear on my television set on a fairly regular basis , I slightly cringe and remove myself from the room with book in hand. That is sort of how I felt for parts of this book... just get me out of this and into another book for a bit. But then, Chabon would thankfully switch gears and I was fully immersed once again. I was able to quickly savor the last quarter or so of this book and enjoyed the introduction of Tommy into the story. The ending was quite fitting, in my opinion.

To be honest, I have been putting off writing this review simply because I really don’t want to criticize the incredible feat that this author has accomplished with this book. I recognize his talent, his love for the comics and for his characters. The writing, when I was engaged, was superb. However, I felt I needed to express my personal hesitation with this book and explain why it took me so gosh darn long to get through it! Don’t write this one off – it’s definitely a worthy book. You will just need to decide what works for you and your personal reading taste before you commit yourself to this fairly lengthy read. I would most certainly like to try another Chabon novel (this was my first), and welcome any suggestions!

Ahmad Sharabiani

Rating: really liked it
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001.

Joe Kavalier, a young Jewish artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdini-esque escape, has just smuggled himself out of Nazi-invaded Prague and landed in New York City.

His Brooklyn cousin Sammy Clay is looking for a partner to create heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit America - the comic book.

Drawing on their own fears and dreams, Kavalier and Clay create the Escapist, the Monitor, and Luna Moth, inspired by the beautiful Rosa Saks, who will become linked by powerful ties to both men.

With exhilarating style and grace, Michael Chabon tells an unforgettable story about American romance and possibility.

عنوان: سرگذشت شگفت‌انگیز کاوالیر و کلی (ماجراهای شگفت انگیز کاوالیر و کلی)؛ نویسنده: مایکل شیبون (چابون)‬‏‫؛ مترجم ماهرخ آخوند؛ تهران، نشر نون، سال1400؛ در 704ص؛ شابک9786227566314؛ ‬موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 21م

داستان جالبی بود اما چندان به دلم ننشت، باید این واژه ی جالب یا (اینترسان) را نیز گشود، رمان با الهام از جادوگران نگاشته شده، ولی ترفندهای کمی در رمان وجود دارد؛ از نظر ساختار یا صدا هیچگونه دستکاری پست مدرنیستی ندارد؛ داستان در سحرآمیزترین و جذابترین حالتش تنها قصه میگوید - توانایی سحرانگیز کتاب همگی در سرزندگی و گستردگی خیال انگیز داستان آن، و نیروی انسانی در حال حرکت دو شخصیت اصلیش، «یوزف کاوالیر» و پسر عموی آمریکاییش «سام کلی» است

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 19/07/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

Em Lost In Books

Rating: really liked it
It started with a bang and was a smooth ride until one of character decides to abandon everything and jump on the WWII wagon. It went downhill for me from then on. It became a little too long and predictable. Writing is great and I enjoyed it while reading it but it didn't leave an impression on me.

Samantha

Rating: really liked it
I hated this book. For me the characters were not only unlikeable but lifeless. The whole thing was contrived and pretentious and painful to read from start to finish. I am dumbfounded by people's enthusiasm for this book. Dumbfounded.

Maciek

Rating: really liked it
Eh?

I have started reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay with certain expectations - if not great, then at least considerable. I have seen Chabon's name pop up on this site pretty often, reminding me of the fact that I have not yet read anything by him - this seemed like an obvious choice. At 634 pages it stands proudly as the author's magnum opus, and proved to be a critical darling by winning the Pulitzer in 2001. When you can, aim for the greats!

So what's the big deal? The book has an engaging premise: it opens in Prague of 1939, where a Jewish teen named Josef Kavalier is fascinated by Harry Houdini and studying the art of escapology to prepare for the biggest trick of his life - flee the Nazi horror which slowly begins to surface in Czechoslovakia. After forming an ingenious plan and successfully carrying it out, Josef arrives in New York City to live with his cousin, Sammy Clay. Although things are awkward at first, the boys quickly hit it off when Sammy discovers Josef's artistic talent and lands him a job as an illustrator at Empire Novelty Company - Josef rebrands himself as "Joe" to sound more American. It's the Golden Age of Comic Books; after the enormous success of Superman the company wants to jump on the bandwagon, and is willing to let both boys prove themselves. The Kavalier & Clay duo creates a new character, The Escapist - an anti-fascist superhero who can perform amazing feats of escapology to fight crime, with Sammy writing the stories and Joe illustrating them. Although The Escapist achieves immense popularity, the boys lives are not free from trouble and worry - with Joe frantically trying to get his family out of Prague and Sammy struggling with the question of his own identity.

Chabon's love for the comic book is obvious: Joe's escape from Prague is a heroic attempt which could well find its place in a graphic novel - the theme of escapism is present throughout the book: Joe's literal escape from certain doom and later from his own demons, the character of the Escapist, escaping reality through reading, etc. Chabon's novel is a paean to comic books - set in their Golden Age, a period which has seen the rise of heroes such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain America...Chabon's characters face the realities of publishing world at the time - they are mercilessly exploited by the publishers and shunned at by the reading public, as their work is seen as immature fun for children. The creation of The Escapist allows Chabon to have his character ponder what makes superheroes "tick", and their creative energy and joy of creation reflect the author's own enjoyment and love for the subject.

The bad thing is that it overshadows almost everything else. There are so many fascinating topics in this book which are barely glossed over and given the most cursory treatment. Josef is a Czech Jew - but you would never guess that if it wasn't explicitly stated. Although the novel opens in Prague during the war, it could be set anywhere in eastern/central Europe - it's only set in Prague because Chabon wants to employ the local legend of the Prague Golem and incorporate it into his work as a clever way for his character to flee the country. The Czechs are wonderful people with a specific and unique culture and a long and interesting history, and their mountainous country is gorgeous (I had the pleasure of visiting it last year so my memories are especially fresh). I have read Czech and Slovak fairytales and fables when I was a boy. There's so much more to the country and the people than the legend of the golem - unfortunately, in this novel an entire nation has been reduced to background decoration for the opening act and discarded afterwards. After Joe's arrival in New York City, nothing more is made of his Czechness and he doesn't even experience any struggle with adaptation to the new country, typical for new immigrants - although he was not happy about leaving Prague for "unimaginable Brooklyn" he adapts to the U.S. literally overnight, and is ready for enormous success the next day - making the character look flat and lifeless.

Last year I've read David Benioff's enormously entertaining book titled City of Thieves (reviewed here), set in Leningrad during the German occupation - the deadliest siege in history. Benioff's book has a great sense of place and is compulsively readable - he's a screenwriter by profession and he knows how to use tension and sustain pacing, and at the same time create memorable characters and an engaging narrative, holding true to an outlandish premise but not rendering the whole book flat. That's not the case here - Joe's escape is a small section at the beginning which ends almost immediately after it starts. Joe initially arrives in San Francisco from Japan - but the possibility of an adventure in imperial Japan (and Stalinist Russia before it - have to get to Japan somehow) is completely dropped, as if Chabon couldn't muster the energy to fully develop the possibility of his own creation.

Anyone seeking an insightful work of fiction concerning World War 2, the Holocaust and antisemitism will also likely be disappointed. These characters seem to live in an America of complete religious tolerance - somewhat surprising in mid 20th century. as I felt as if the whole background of war was employed because it's a big subject, which is likely to appeal to readers and critics alike (not to mention the Holocaust). It feels exploitative; I was born in a city destroyed during the war and in a country which it damaged beyond repair. My primary school is located on the street named after a member of the underground resistance, who was caught by the Gestapo and put through extremely brutal and torturous interrogation - just a few streets away from where I'm typing these words. He was liberated after a brave attack on the car which was transporting him to prison, but died from injuries inflicted upon him by the Gestapo. People put flowers and light candles under memory plaques, and the streets fill with them - schoolchildren regularly do that to commemorate those murdered by the German soldiers. Joe Kavalier seems to be made a Jew and escape the Holocaust only to have a semblance of personality - after all, how could one call a Holocaust survivor dull?

In 1943 Betty Smith wrote A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which is also set in New York although a bit earlier - in the early 1910's. Smith's beautiful book did not win a Pulitzer - it did not win any awards - but remains a timeless classic and a timeless portrayal of the struggles faced by an immigrant family in the Brooklyn borough of Williamsburg. I doubt that any reader would be able to not care for Francie Nolan, the protagonist; Smith effortlessly paints a vivid and detailed picture of Brooklyn and its inhabitants with care and compassion as she herself grew up poor in Williamsburg, making Chabon's portrayal of New York look like a cheap imitation.

The relationship between Joe and Sammy resembles the traditional relationship between the Hero and the Sidekick, and since Batman will always be cooler than Robin Sammy gets pushed into the background, and even when Kavalier is not on the stage he always plays the main role. And then there is....(view spoiler)[the fact that Sammy is gay - the struggle with his sexuality is so insignificant that it's barely noticeable, and comes out (get it? ha ha!) as tacked on as yet another big subject to cross of the list - New York? Check. Jewish characters? Check. World War 2? Check. The Holocaust? Check. What did we forgot? Aaaah, a gay character! Check.) (hide spoiler)]. It seemed to me that these characters were not done justice; the ideas of these characters are great, not so much the characters themselves. There's too much melodrama, and not enough depth. It's especially evident in the fact that they're contrasted against the even more unremarkable background characters, who move in and out without greater significance.

It seems to me as if Michael Chabon wanted to have two worlds in this book: a real world and a comic book world, but didn't quite know how to mix them and achieve a compromise and resorted to an either-or: a real world (complete with footnotes) when it comes to comic books, the seriousness of being an artist and all the joys and frustrations that come with it, being trapped in a creative ghetto of a form looked down upon, but applied the comic-book simplified and generalized approach to almost everything else, concluding with a sudden and anti-climatic ending. It's almost as if the author's pen started running out of ink early into the project, and he had to dilute it with water - lots of water - to be able to continue to write: the resulting pages include sections which are sharp and clear and some which are almost transparently thin. The result if a short and readable would-be novel, which somehow became an overly long and often plodding book resembling an old circus performer, long out of practice: while it can still manage some entertaining stunts, in the end it loses balance and stumbles on its own legs, falls down and lands flat on the ground and doesn't really know what happened.

Whitaker

Rating: really liked it
In The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Chabon asks one of the oldest questions asked in stories, and gives us the oldest answer. But, you know, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that because, really, the oldest answer is the right one. What’s the question? It’s the one asked by ever since man started telling stories: What is a hero? And his answer is, “It’s not the guy who goes out there with fisty cuffs and guns blazing. It’s the guy who goes out there and comes back every night to feed his wife and kid. That’s the hero.”

He’s taken all the tropes of super hero comic books, but in the end it’s not the guy with the magic, the secret lair, the girl, and the gun that’s his hero. In the end, he’s just the side-kick. It’s the other guy. The one you didn’t notice, the one with the secret identity hiding his true self. He’s the hero. He’s the one who puts aside his own life to set free the people he cares most about. That’s what heroism is about.

I love this book. I love that it’s about comic books, and superheroes, and story-telling. But most of all, I love that it’s about love and what it takes to be a real hero.