The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

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The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

4.16 of 5 stars 4.16 · rating details · 89,502 ratings · 6,191 reviews

Like the comic books that animate and inspire it, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is both larger than life and of it too. Complete with golems and magic and miraculous escapes and evil nemeses, even hand-to-hand Antarctic battle, it pursues the most important questions of love and war, dreams and art, across pages lurid with longing and hope. Samuel Klayman--...more

642 pages

Published (first published September 19th 2000)

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Sep 26, 2007 Jessica rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone but me, they all seem to love it

Shelves: here-is-new-york

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 a...more

231 likes · like · see review

Jul 24, 2007 Kelly rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone, particularly anyone who has had an "escapist" hobby (esp. comic books)

Shelves: fiction, wits-and-fools, 21st-century

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...more

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Jan 10, 2012 Shovelmonkey1 rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone looking for a philip roth-lite

Recommended to Shovelmonkey1 by: 1001 books list and a chance encounter in a book shop

Shelves: 1001-books, read-in-2012

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is amazing. Well, some of it is. To be specific I found it fairly amazing up until about page 429. Then it got slightly less amazing which was sad really because, prior to that it was zipping along so nicely like Superman with a new stream-lined cape sliding in and out of the slip stream. After page 429 it became a bit more like Superman trying to erratically jump over tall buildings with Dr Octopus tied to one leg and the Juggernaut tied to the other....more The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is amazing. Well, some of it is. To be specific I found it fairly amazing up until about page 429. Then it got slightly less amazing which was sad really because, prior to that it was zipping along so nicely like Superman with a new stream-lined cape sliding in and out of the slip stream. After page 429 it became a bit more like Superman trying to erratically jump over tall buildings with Dr Octopus tied to one leg and the Juggernaut tied to the other. You just know that weighty baggage like that is going to slow our hero down and make him a lot less agile and graceful. Yes, yes, before people write in and complain I know they're not all from the same comic book stable... it's just a metaphor alright?

The book starts off light and agile. The prose is nimble and immediately I was engrossed which was great because this was a spur of the moment purchase which had to see me through a long day of waiting for builders to decide to do nothing for a very large part of it (now you see how I get so much reading time in!)

Cousins Kavalier and Clay are thrown together by a secret transatlantic crossing where Joe Kavalier escapes from Prague, the Nazis and certain death. His first introduction to his cousin, the redoubtable Sammy Clay is when they are forced to share a bed together. Not the most conventional of first meetings for those who wind up being business partners, although maybe this is how it goes on Wall Street and I am just ignorant of the fact. It quickly becomes apparent that Joe's talent for drawing and Sammy's quick-fire pulp fiction brain are together the most unstoppable comic strip writing duo that American has ever seen. And so that's what they do. Write comic books.

With the Nazis invading most of Europe and implementing their programme of anti-semitism the backdrop to the entire book is the havoc wreaked by war in the Old World while America gamely attempts to negotiate a political minefield without having to immediately send itself into the fray. The tactful negotiation even extends itself as far as the mild censorship of comic book content. The comic books and their heroes represent not only a decent wage and but a shift towards the American dream for Kavalier and Clay who quickly find that with fame comes responsibility. A conduit for the anti-Hitler message the Kavlier and Clay hero "The Escapist" represents a force for good but is also symbolic of Joe's escape from Europe.

The shiny potential for happiness created by Kavalier and Clay quickly becoming the embodiment of the 1930s American dream was great but obviously, like life, things can't always be great for long and this is when the book began to take a bit of a faster-than-a-speeding-bullet style nose dive. Still I stuck with it till the end like a faithful sidekick should and was rewarded with the tying off of a few loose ends and one last act of escapology, albeit an emotional rather than physical one.(less)

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Jul 07, 2012 Kemper rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: plain-old-fiction, modern-lit, 2012-reread, comics

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...more 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.

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Jul 24, 2012 Whitaker rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-read, contemporary-fiction, united-states

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...more

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Nov 28, 2010 Paul rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novels

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 Micha...more

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May 01, 2013 Tricia rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Originally posted in In Lesbian with Books

WOW!
To tell you the truth, I tried reading this book earlier last year (around March—I was supposed to bring this with me to Singapore but settled with The Eyre Affair instead) but I gave up after 3 chapters. I was having hard time adjusting to Chabon's narrative (I think he overused the comma or maybe that's just me).

I don't know how I will start my thoughts about this book because I don't want to start gushing about how great his book is, but really,...more

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Sep 28, 2007 W rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"Absolutely, gosh ,wow" (cover quip) on his sentences? Yes, very yes. Chabon can flat out compose sentences. Think Dickens, Pynchon, Tolstoy. But that's it. You keep waiting for the sentences to compile some meaning but they never seem to achieve any depth. He uses the backdrop of the comic book heydays, WWII, and magic acts, his neither here nor there Jewish-ness, to stitch together an overly long book that basically explores the relationship between two male characters who are caricatures them...more

26 likes · like · see review

May 05, 2008 Nathan rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Closeted carnies.

Shelves: fiction

I did not get this book. First of all, there was too much gay rape. Second, not enough cocaine. Also, I do not like cartoons. This book could be renamed Superman Had Daddy Issues and nobody would know the difference, except the people who read it, who wouldn't care anyway, 'cause they'd all be too shocked about the gay rape. Ban this useless book from Good Reads.

NC

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Jan 04, 2012 Katja rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people who "just don't get comics". and people who do

Shelves: meh

This book might eventually merit a new shelf: stuff I keep trying to read and put aside because while they are good and everyone raves about them I just jump at the chance to read almost anything else.
In terms of writing, scope of imagination, and peregrinations of plot, completely deserving of its Pulitzer, but there's a self-congratulatory facility, a "look how I make a marginalized hobby into an academic metaphor for life and growing up in America and I TALK ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST TOO" feeling...more

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Apr 06, 2013 Maciek rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: big-tomes, historical-fiction, pulitzer-prize-for-fiction, read-in-2013, reviewed

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...more

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Oct 06, 2012 Neil Powell rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Classic novels eh? We've all seen adverts at train stations and the tube. We all get nagged to read latest "buzz book" or the recommendations from friends/colleague/acquaintance/social board pseudonyms that are guaranteed to be the most amazing collection of words committed to paper and will change your life. Sometimes we get burned by these tips: Heart of Darkness, On Chesil Beach, Brave New World and most significantly for me, Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/....more

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Aug 25, 2008 Sarahfina rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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

33 likes · like · see review

Jan 11, 2010 Laura marked it as tried-to-read-and-gave-up · review of another edition

I know I'm totally an outlier on this one. But I tried four times, literally four times, to read this and could never get past page 50. It's extraordinary enough for me to give a book a second chance after flunking my 50-page rule, but a third and a fourth? That was enough for me. And I love comic books, too. So go figure.

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May 06, 2008 Taka rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary, japan_jul07-aug10, post-modern_lit, 1-fiction-you-must-read

Awesome (4.5)--

Chabon is now one of my three favorite contemporary writers (others are David Foster Wallace and Neal Stephenson) with his graceful, elegant prose, extensive vocabulary, and entertaining plot. While the book was not "fall-on-the-floor-funny" as one reviewer says, it certainly was entertaining and beautifully written. I really was floored by many of his metaphors.

Many reviewers complain of Chabon's narration that does a lot more telling than showing, which makes it more difficult f...more

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Mar 27, 2008 will rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Is it just me or do you hate it when you can see how a book is going to end and you don't want it end that way? With 100+ pages to go, I lowered the book and sulked. Sulked in that way I knew that Maria would ask what was wrong. She did. She never fails me.

Do you not like the book?

I did. I loved the book. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon is a wonderful book. Maria's kids wanted to buy their father a book for his birthday and had picked one of the "3 for 2" pile. In a...more

Is it just me or do you hate it when you can see how a book is going to end and you don't want it end that way? With 100+ pages to go, I lowered the book and sulked. Sulked in that way I knew that Maria would ask what was wrong. She did. She never fails me.

Do you not like the book?

I did. I loved the book. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon is a wonderful book. Maria's kids wanted to buy their father a book for his birthday and had picked one of the "3 for 2" pile. In a bitter-twisted-we-hate-the-ex sort of way we both took the opportunity to pick up a book each and then feel good about the fact that we hadn't had to spend any money on his present! His book was free! (Yes, I can be this childish!) I nearly put it back down when Maria pointed out that she had loved the author's "Wonder Boys" - a book I hadn't read but knew that Michael Douglas had been in the film and Michael Douglas is not one of those people who inspires me. However, time was marching on, I couldn't see another book I wanted, it was thick - all good criteria for picking a book. And I loved the book.

It is one of those books that covers the different events in people's lives as "momentous" moments happen (gosh I love it when I write so good). There is the story of an escape from the Czech(oslovakian) Jewish ghettos (I learnt all about Golems). There is the founding of a comic-book empire. There is a war story. And through it all there is a love story that involves two men (Kavalier and Clay) and a woman (Rosa) which nicely deals with the morals and intricacies of life in New York from the life before the Second World War, through it, until just after.

It is a very good book. At first I thought it was a "fictionalisation" of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (which would have interested be intensely because I am a "geek") but it isn't, it is much more than that. Oddly it is a book that is improving the further I get away from it. As mentioned above - I knew I was going to hate the ending but, the more I think about it, the more I realise that it is a good ending, a happy ending for Clay. And that was the important thing for me. You see, although the book purports to be about both Kavalier and Clay it isn't - it is about Kavalier. And, to tell the truth, I didn't like Kavalier as much as I liked Clay. This made me slightly different to the author. He wanted the reader to like Kavalier, heck, I think the author wanted to be Kavalier, but I didn't get that empathetic feeling to him. True, I have nothing in common with Clay but his story interested me more. His character I wanted to know more about. It was Clay whom I wanted to have the happy ending for and yet, as I closed the book, I felt that he had (sort of) missed out. Yet the more I think about it, the more I realise that, Clay got the happy ending because he gets the new start. And now it hits me, I can see a bit of my story in Clay's!

Anyhoo. Good book. Read it if you get the chance!
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Jul 29, 2008 Grant rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-century-american-literary-nove

this is a bit of a rant. i liked this book, but it just did not live up to my expectations. what to say. not quite sure. it opens great. sammy's background with his father and joe's escape from prague are a wonderful set up. but in some ways, in particular joe's very adventurous beginning, the beginning is unbalanced. we never really see that kind of adventure again. but nor do we want to, because the beauty of this novel is that "the amazing adventures" of these two men are not super-hero like...more this is a bit of a rant. i liked this book, but it just did not live up to my expectations. what to say. not quite sure. it opens great. sammy's background with his father and joe's escape from prague are a wonderful set up. but in some ways, in particular joe's very adventurous beginning, the beginning is unbalanced. we never really see that kind of adventure again. but nor do we want to, because the beauty of this novel is that "the amazing adventures" of these two men are not super-hero like escapades, but the everyday triumphs, ordeals, and suffering two middle-class men in america might face in that time. they are not saving women and foiling super villains. they are doing the unglamorous and unfullfilling: creating their art of which they do not reap the full benefit, living a lie and losing a chance at love because of others' closed minded views on sexuality, and living with extreme guilt because you live comfortably while your family abroad is killed for no good reason and on top of that feeling powerless to stop it. at times all of that great, everyday desperation comes out. i like that sammy is kind of joe's side-kick in keeping with the comic book theme. though i think not enough attention is given sammy through most of the book. chabon's talent for detail and research or very evident here. the wet streets and smokey dinner rooms of prague, the inky, long hours of the comic business. awsome.
but for me the book seems to lose its sturdy ground after the first 200 pages or so and not gain it back until the end. for me too much detail or space was focused in the wrong place. chabon's writing is solid, which comes out is his descriptions of action, work, cities, food. but the writing does not dig the reader deeper into the story, into the characters. so many mini adventures happen in the middle, and they are always easily solved by a phone call to the president's wife or a quick fight. these little adventures are wrapped up faster than a comicbook. many of these take place during the tease regarding thomas's situation. everything's fine, not fine, fine, not fine, then you know...the you know lost it's power for me. the situation from the beginning seemed to rely on a fix that was too quick. i did not get the build up of sweat and ingenuity that put it in place. so when the end of that smaller story came, i did not feel it was earned. this also goes for characters whose background takes up nearly as much space as their actual interaction in the book. for instance the other comic book creators who start with joe and sammy or the american facist who joe stops in one single move. then there is one of the biggest characters of all; cigarette ash. a lot of time was given to describing cigarette ash. and instead detail is missing that builds the relationships between joe and sammy, sammy and rosa, and to a lesser extent rosa and joe. for me it was not until the end where rosa and sammy are married that any real intimacy is conveyed. but even there the relationship is not explored much. not to give it away, but that to me is the most interesting part of the book, the dynamic twist. but we end up knowing little about it's day to day life.
which leads me to joe's disappearance. like "to the lighthouse" this could have been an opportunity for change based on an event larger than the story and the event's personal effect it has on the characters causing them to take on new roles, grow if you will. joe's absence set's up rosa and sammy's relationship, but what does it serve. joe does return. and he is the same. we learn very little about what he has been doing, people he has been in contact with, if he has truly come to terms with the holocaust. a fourth of the book is taken up telling about him being stationed in antartica after his attempt to actually fight in the war effort. so he can't do anything about his family? we already knew that. and all the time rosa still loves joe. and sammy still hates having to live a lie about his sexuality and work by selling his soul. joe's disappearence simply serve to createa reunion. but no one changed, which means the drama of the reunion is limited. joe and sammy even want to start doing comics again together. it's like the beginning of the book.
last i feel the theme of the golem is never really taken advantage of. certainly their comic hero nor any of the individual characters embody that role. and maybe it is that they are all at times playing that role for each other, taking care of each other.
i liked it. but it could have been much better. the book is torn about what to focus on and i think chabon was weighed down by the volume he took on, and simply skimmed the surface of the incredible characters he created.(less)

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Sep 15, 2010 Alex Telander rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-in-2000

THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER AND CLAY BY MICHAEL CHABON: 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...more THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER AND CLAY BY MICHAEL CHABON: 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 reviews, and author interviews, go to BookBanter.(less)

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Sep 27, 2007 Samantha rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: don-t-understand-the-fuss, novels-novellas

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.

16 likes · like · see review

Feb 05, 2013 Kelly rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: my-favorites

[Spoilers]

This is the best book I have read of 2012.

Before I go into details about why, though, I'll introduce a little of the book itself.

Joseph Kavalier has always been able to escape, even if it meant smuggling himself out of war-torn prague in a coffin. He's fascinated by magic, particularly the magic of his own imaginative, which is the ultimate escape from the horrors of leaving his family behind. His skill and partnership with his cousin, Sam Clay, leads him into his first career as a c...more

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Aug 23, 2011 Chris rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary

Bloated with historical detail, it reminded me why I never liked reading history textbooks: no matter how salient the facts, external detail just can't move me in the way that empathetic, developed internal detail can. I think Chabon should have either written a creative non-fiction work about the comic book heyday (for which he obviously has a strong passion) or focused more on writing a gripping novel. I imagine that if you're as enthralled with comic books and their place in American history...more

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Dec 17, 2008 H L rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

An odd thing about Chabon - when I'm immersed in the middle of one of his books, I'm as fully engaged as with just about any work by anyone else I've ever read. But, inevitably, as I near the end of his novels, I sense a growing distance, and somehow, upon reaching the end, I'm disengaged, and no longer have that compelling urge and desire to want to know more, as you might in a book you don't wish to end; nor do I find the sense of completion that works its way into being at the completion of o...more

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Apr 11, 2008 Nathan rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this book mostly because I had heard that Chabon has mad writing skillz (when someone has skills with a "z" it's pretty impressive). Chabon certainly has a way with words. This book only earned two stars from me for two reasons. The first being that the book was altogether too long. I felt several parts could have been stricken from the book and the story would not have suffered for it.

The second, and more controversial reason, is that I did not care for the graphic, in my opinion anyway,...more

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Jan 18, 2008 Kate rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed, alltimefavourites

Book Review: Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, (Harper Perennial, London, 2005)

When I chose to study my Twentieth Century American Literature module, I did so in spite of this book, rather than because of it. The idea of a book about comic books did not exactly enamour me. I'm not a fan of the genre (the main reason being the amount of time it would take to go back and become up to speed with it all).

At 636 pages of rather small (although very easy on the eye) print, t...more
Book Review: Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, (Harper Perennial, London, 2005)

When I chose to study my Twentieth Century American Literature module, I did so in spite of this book, rather than because of it. The idea of a book about comic books did not exactly enamour me. I'm not a fan of the genre (the main reason being the amount of time it would take to go back and become up to speed with it all).

At 636 pages of rather small (although very easy on the eye) print, this book is not one for a lazy summer afternoon.

I think you're beginning to understand all of the reasons that I wasn't clamoring to begin reading.

However, as soon as I did begin reading the novel I was enthralled. I loved everything about it. Everything.

I loved the writing, the structure, the style. I loved the main characters, the peripheral characters, the themes, everything.

The core of the novel is the relationship between the title characters, cousins Josef Kavalier (Joe) and Samuel Klayman (Sammy Clay). It is the two of them, and their wish to escape, to effect escape that really holds you until the final page. Joe's desperation to free his family from war torn Prague, Sammy's denial of his true self, and their love and friendship for one another run throughout the novel. We go with the two of them as they move from the ages of 19 and 17 to 34 and 32 (respectively).

I must mention the female lead of the novel, Rosa Saks, is exceptional. She is strong, ambitious, creative, but also extremely feminine. Her relationship with both of the main characters just fits, it works so so well.

Emotionally, the novel is a rollercoaster ride, allowing us what much literary fiction does not, to spend times of happiness with our characters. These people become successful. There's even a section of the novel titled 'The Golden Age'.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is a beautiful and bittersweet piece. It is one of those books that refuses to leave you even after you've turned the final page. I hope to re-read it again when I can, and I look forward to seeing the movie if it ever does get made.(less)

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Jul 11, 2007 Amanda Davidson rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: tired people on the train after work

i couldn't help it! one day i went down to the fiction floor of the library when i was supposed to be doing something industrious and boring and ended up with this in my hand. we'll see...

(LATER THAT MONTH) sitting in the car on monday night, i had a long discussion with my novel dealer and confidante the Frog about michael chabon's writing. here was my experience with this book. i felt informed, interested and edified about the world of pre-wwii prague that chabon vivified, about the process of...more i couldn't help it! one day i went down to the fiction floor of the library when i was supposed to be doing something industrious and boring and ended up with this in my hand. we'll see...

(LATER THAT MONTH) sitting in the car on monday night, i had a long discussion with my novel dealer and confidante the Frog about michael chabon's writing. here was my experience with this book. i felt informed, interested and edified about the world of pre-wwii prague that chabon vivified, about the process of making comics, about the excitement of collaboratively making stories. i couldn't put the book down, and read addictively, but was haunted all the while by a nastily compulsive feeling, faintly akin to being glued to a television screen without being able to pull myself away, and so, at 3 a.m., in the interest of freeing my consciousness to move on to other fictions which i anticipate will damage me in a more vital way, i skim read to the end. what stuck: the depiction of the platonic, collaborative marraige of sammy, a writer and gay man, and rosa, a comic book artist.

(side note: according to the Frog, chabon had gay relationships prior to meeting, marrying and producing three children with his wife, the writer ayelet waldman. (well, he was married and divorced one time before a.w. so who knows.) i can't find confirmation of the queer rumor, but i mention it to interrogate my own increased interest in his work upon discovering this biographical vaguary. where does my judgement about a book's sensibility come from? what makes a text queer? i won't linger here right now.

another part of my interest in this point is simply that on a level of identification, i am interested in changelings and those of fluid inclinations in the desire department, but i have no idea what his schtick is on the issue. it feels beside the point especially with regards to this book. i do think, however, about characters as avatars, in some sense, living out all kinds of possible or parallel lives to an author's own.)

Frog and i talked about how we envied and were interested in the great amout of historical research that went into the novels, and then Frog made the astute point that in a way, the detailed facticity masks a deeper sense of hollowness in the work, underscored by the hollywood happy endings.

i did find darker and stickier terrain in his short novella the final solution: a novel of dectection, which i highly recommend.(less)

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Jul 04, 2007 Jennifer de Guzman rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

I recently heard an interview in which Michael Chabon compared his plotting skills to Bob Dylan's singing skills -- Chabon feels he is not a naturally gifted plotter, but he enjoys a good plot so much that he is willing to work hard to find his own voice, so to speak. What most struck me about the plot of Kavalier and Clay are the risks Chabon is willing to take -- moving the action to truly unexpected places. Some of the routes he takes to get to his destination feel a bit circuitous, with the...more

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Jul 11, 2008 Nick rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: insomniacs

Shelves: fiction

TAAOKAC is, in my mind, lumped in with Eugenide's Middlesex, in that they were both hugely hyped and awarded books that were published at the beginning of this century, and in that they were both middling affairs at best and undeserving of acclaim.

Both novels had virtuosic prose, huge winding, nuanced plots and subplots, but both were ultimately boring (I felt).

TAAOKAC the physical book is designed to look like a rip-roaring adventure through the golden-era of New York City, with brilliant ideas...more

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Mar 05, 2012 Tuckova rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: pulitzer

This is the slowest take-off I've ever endured and not given up. Prague, gay Jews, World War II, and ...I don't care about any of them. How did this get a Pulitzer?
Maybe 5 paragraphs that sang; the rest of it was, ehn, okay, but I really don't get how this can be anybody's favorite book. A lot of "I have a thesaurus and I'm not afraid to use it." A lot of "refreshing adjective" descriptions that really didn't add anything ("the color of cold coffee" is.... what color? How different from "strong"...more

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Oct 16, 2008 Jeffrey rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

michael chabon has co-opted the rich history of comicdom's golden age to produce his signature melodrama. in choosing to totally squander the potential of said history to tell a trite, glitzy story of successful Jewish boys torn apart by war and their love for a woman, he's making light of his superior source materials in a way that's frustrating for anyone who has grown up with serious appreciation for comics. it's clear chabon has read comics and that he likes them, but i'm not altogether sure...more

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Aug 15, 2012 Mike (the Paladin) rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a compromise rating. This book will appeal to different readers in different ways. There were times this was (to me) a 4 star book while at other times I found it a 2 star read.

Now why each? The story here involves an interesting take on human nature. We look at the reaction of two young men to the situations of their lives (one a Jew who fled the growing threat of Nazism in Europe having had to leave his family behind. The other is an American Jew who is straining, planning and working...more

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topics	posts	views	last activity
The Filipino Group: * June 2013: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon \| Moderator: Tricia	14	47	7 hours, 54 min ago
Worcester Public ...: Great Discussion and More Books to Check Out	1	5	Jan 23, 2013 07:44am
Worcester Public ...: The Golem in the Novel and in Jewish Folklore	1	12	Jan 07, 2013 06:53am
Worcester Public ...: The Golden Age of Comic Books	1	7	Jan 04, 2013 11:56am
Worcester Public ...: See What the Critics Had to Say - Book Reviews	1	6	Dec 26, 2012 11:44am
Goodreads Librari...: alternate covers > the same	2	37	Nov 02, 2012 05:05am
better shorter	19	269	Oct 13, 2012 04:51am

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About Michael Chabon

Michael Chabon (b. 1963) is an acclaimed and bestselling author whose works include the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000). Chabon achieved literary fame at age twenty-four with his first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (1988), which was a major critical and commercial success. He then published Wonder Boys (1995), another bestseller, which was mad...more

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“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.” — 73 people liked it

“In the immemorial style of young men under pressure, they decided to lie down for a while and waste time.” — 72 people liked it

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