From the Bookshelf of Reading List Completists…

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Michael Chabon

Start date: November 1, 2019

Finish date: November 30, 2019

Discussion: Group Reads

Why we're reading this: November 2019 Completist Poll Winner
[close] November 2019 Completist Poll Winner

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What Members Thought

Oct 17, 2016 Michael Finocchiaro rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, pulitzer-winning-fiction, pulitzer-fiction, american-21st-c, novels

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 ...more

120 likes · Like · see review

Jan 02, 2015 Caroline rated it liked it · review of another edition

WELL I definitely enjoyed this book. It was good but not necessarily great. The story explores a form of the American Dream- taking an idea and using it to build yourself a life. Two boys use their love of comic books and early life experience to create stories which are magnetic. They build a beautiful career out of it, highlighting that one can build a successful life for them self with hard work.

Escapism is constantly addressed and the perfect life the two have created is questioned by both ...more

2 likes · Like · see review