The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

But Joe Kavalier is driven by motives far more complex than your average hack. In fact, his first act as a comic-book artist is to deal Hitler a very literal blow. (The cover of the first issue shows the Escapist delivering "an immortal haymaker" onto the Führer's realistically bloody jaw.) In subsequent years, the Escapist and his superhero allies take on the evil Iron Chain and their leader Attila Haxoff--their battles drawn with an intensity that grows more disturbing as Joe's efforts to rescue his family fail. He's fighting their war with brush and ink, Joe thinks, and the idea sustains him long enough to meet the beautiful Rosa Saks, a surrealist artist and surprisingly retrograde muse. But when even that fiction fails him, Joe performs an escape of his own, leaving Rosa and Sammy to pick up the pieces in some increasingly wrong-headed ways.

More amazing adventures follow--but reader, why spoil the fun? Suffice to say, Michael Chabon writes novels like the Escapist busts locks. Previous books such as The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Wonder Boys have prose of equal shimmer and wit, and yet here he seems to have finally found a canvas big enough for his gifts. The whole enterprise seems animated by love: for his alternately deluded, damaged, and painfully sincere characters; for the quirks and curious innocence of tough-talking wartime New York; and, above all, for comics themselves, "the inspirations and lucubrations of five hundred aging boys dreaming as hard as they could." Far from negating such pleasures, the Holocaust's presence in the novel only makes them more pressing. Art, if not capable of actually fighting evil, can at least offer a gesture of defiance and hope--a way out, in other words, of a world gone completely mad. Comic-book critics, Joe notices, dwell on "the pernicious effect, on young minds, of satisfying the desire to escape. As if there could be any more noble or necessary service in life." Indeed. --Mary Park

Product Description
Winner of the Bay Area Book Reviewers' Award, New York Library Book Award Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, PEN/Faulkner Award, Los Angeles Times Book AwardJoe Kavalier, a young Jewish artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdiniesque 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.

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.


The Real Wonder Boys   October 16, 2001
 55 out of 61 found this review 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 actually quite an easy, straightforward read. And for a 600+ page book with little in the way of narrative thrust, it's quite a page-turner. He has a sly little sense of humour, littering the text with some very silly, sarcastic moments (e.g., a brainstorming session almost ends with Kavalier & Clay's super hero being called `The Mandrill', with his "multicolored wonder ass that he used to bedazzle opponents"). But for the most part the book has a very somber tone. Before you begin, though, do yourself a favour and read up on the legend of the Golem (and not just in the Tolkien sense of the world). It'll help you to better understand many of the book's themes.

Chabon has done a wonderful job mixing a lot of research on comic book history (and I mean a lot), with a fake comic book history (perfectly believable in this context), with a story about two young men trying to live the American Dream. Don't be afraid by the book's heft; it's an exciting read, filled with suspense and cliffhanger endings, just like a real comic would be.


No   September 27, 2000
 39 out of 74 found this review helpful

I tried to read this, but gave up. I can't stand florid writing. If you love florid writing, this is your dream. There is no one more florid than Michael Chabon. Jonathan Braine in his book on novel writing, said that in his highly regarded novels he tried never to use an adjective. Chabon LOVES those adjectives. Hemingway in "A Moveable Feast" relates advice given him (I think by Ezra Pound) to use adjectives very sparingly. There is Hemingway heeding advice that Chabon fails to. Oh, and Chabon loves cliches, too. But he's no Theodore Dreiser whose over-all impact transcends the clumsiness of some of the word-for-word writing. I want to like Chabon. I really do. I think he portrays characters with kindness and sensitivity, when so many writers--like Tom Wolfe--traffic mainly in brutal and/or shallow portraits of people. I mean, I imagine Chabon makes for a great friend! But the way he delivers those characters makes me grind my teeth. The "NY Times" raved about this, so Chabon will shortly become THE literary dude of the moment. And, again, if florid writing, and purple prose, and adjectives and cliches are your thing, by all means click that shopping cart!!


Chabon Draws A Brilliant & Moving Book   November 14, 2000
 38 out of 42 found this review helpful

With Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon will finally get all the attention he so richly deserves. The book is a feast for the imagination, and spectacularly written.A young Jewish man, Joe Kavalier, uses his fascination and dedication to the art of magic as a means to escape from German occupied Prague.He arrives in New York City, and with his cousin Sam Clay invents The Escapist; a comic book super hero who fights villians heavily based on Hitler. This is America in the forties, when Superman had just become a hit, and young boys everywhere were eagerly waiting for the next issue to see what would happen to their caped crusader. What follows is their rise in the comic book industry, as well as battles with their own personal chains that lead them to their ultimate destinies.

Chabon's canvas merges fact with fiction, and the characters interact with Salvador Dali, Uta Hagen, Stan Lee, Orsen Wells, and the great Harry Houdini among others. That only makes his characters so much more real as you read it, it's easy to forget it's fiction. If you're looking for the type of book that creates a detailed world with artistry in the writing, and a moving collection of characters, this is the one.