The Epic Journey of Kavalier & Clay: A Tale of Friendship and Triumph

Phred: Bottom Line First: Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (Paperback, Picador edition) is one of the best books I have read in years. That statement and the 5 stars insure that many review readers will never see this review. Then again the mere fact that it is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel will keep some folks from considering it. Their loss. Chabon has grasped what it is about the comic book and the pre-World War II era when the industry emblazoned its men in tights into the culture of America. The publishers tended to be a shady bunch and the artists and writers were as obscure as any collection of the nerdy, edge of society types drawn from American depression families and European political refugees. One may reasonably argue that the comic book and Jazz are coequal American Art forms. Chabon gets this notion and enrobes it in a complex, human and magical story. The Amazing Adventures is relatively discrete in it use of language, violence and sex, but the more sensitive reader may want to consider that all of these topics, plus politics are part of the story telling.

At whatever risk there are two major thoughts that will come back and drive this...

United States on Apr 08, 2017

Andrew White: I waited a little while before writing this review so I could let my thoughts and opinions on is settle a little. I will say that overall, the books was excellent. Chabon's writing is, for the most part, awesome, and the story mostly deserves all the acclaim it has received. However, the 3rd act of the book was terrible. You will no doubt notice what I'm talking about when it happens. I don't know if Chabon just had all these ideas and made the mistake of trying to cram them all in or what, but the story is progressing along and is very engrossing, and the characters and their relationships are building to the point that you not only care for them, but also begin to have a emotional interest in their personal journeys, feelings, and relationships between each other, and then BAM! It abruptly changes and goes onto a section that was not only incredibly boring, but also shifted entirely from what made the book so engaging. Also, in this particular section the actions of one of the characters that you have come to care for throughout the book seems a complete departure from what you have come to expect from him. I was all set to add my voice to the chorus of praise for this book...

United States on Aug 05, 2015

The Outsider: This is a wonderful read, a top notch yarn about escape and people bound by their chains. Joe Kavalier escapes from the Nazis in the coffin of the Prague Golem, and winds up in Brooklyn. He befriends his cousin Sam, and the two of them create a comic book character, the Escapist to fight the Nazis for them.

Having read it over a decade ago, I did not recall all the plot points, so it was very enjoyable throughout. You can read it as a ripping yarn, an analogy for the plight of Jews during and after the war, and not worry too much about how deep it is. For me. this is Chabon's second best book, behind the recent Telegraph Avenue - which is better written, and just as entertaining.

Chabon's three early books have a homosexual character and storyline, and the one is K&C is central to the plot. I am not sure why he does this, but I am glad he doesn't do it anymore. It does not detract in any way from the tale, but it is peculiar that he felt compelled to include this 'twist.' Here, it makes sense.

For my money, this would make an amazing film, but it would be a long and bumpy one. Perhaps not, better as a book. If you haven't read it, you won't be...

United Kingdom on May 20, 2015

FictionFan: This is the story of two young men in New York, from the 1930s through to the post-war period, who team up to create a comic-book superhero, The Escapist. Sammy Klayman is a second-generation American Jew, street-smart and full of big ideas. His cousin Josef Kavalier has just escaped from his hometown of Prague, now under the control of the Nazis, and where the Jewish population is beginning to feel the weight of the jackboot. Sammy's head is buzzing with comic-book stories and Joe can draw. When Sammy talks his boss into giving them a chance, The Escapist is created and the partnership of Kavalier and Clay is born.

This book won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001 and has been touted as a Great American Novel. I must say both those things baffle me. There's some good stuff in here - Chabon can write, there's no doubt about that. But the book is at least a third too long, perhaps as much as half, and I felt much as I did about Telegraph Avenue, that underneath the wordy dazzle there isn't much depth. And, unlike Telegraph Avenue, the quality of writing in this one varies from sublime to extremely dull, and just occasionally all the way to ridiculous ("with skin the color...

United Kingdom on Mar 24, 2015

Mr. James Haythornthwaite: I was cautious when I bought this book, as I'm a huge fan of Gerard Jones' factual book about this period (Men of Tomorrow) and I didn't think that anything could stand up against that book in terms of capturing the essence of the time - I've also never been a huge fan of historical fiction as a genre. Having googled the author, I was expecting something a bit long-worded and 'good for me' - I bought it to tick it off my list, rather than as pure escapism. Not long into the book I realised that I was totally engrossed - the more I read, the more I was blown away by what a great story it is.

There's a lot of 'historical fiction' stuff going on, and to be fair the writing style is very 'literary', but it's also really exciting. It's written as a small, interpersonal drama, but all of the vivid characterisation and complex emotion is played out against this absolutely riveting, fast-paced, swashbuckling and unique story that is packed full of action and intrigue from start to finish.

This was a great book - good enough to re-read.

United Kingdom on Nov 07, 2013

Barmee: I'd heard this book was different - life changing even - so I thought I'd give it a whirl.

Sad to say that while it certainly was different, it was not the book I'd expected from the positive reviews ("Dazzling" The Independant, "Perfection" The Telegraph etc).

The book is set over a couple of decades, primarily in New York City just before and during WW2. The (well researched) historical details are a novelty to someone such as myself too young to have been alive during that period - also some of the references are so American as to be lost on a British reader - though they do give the book a romantic 'other world' sort of appeal. In that regard, speaking as a non-Jew, the book was packed with so many Jewish (and indeed Czech Jewish) references that I had to spend a good deal of time referring to Google to understand the story. You'd also do well also to do some revision on what a Golem is before starting the book! At first this was interesting and even educational but after while became a wearing distraction. As Sam says to Joe about a book that he is writing "it's very Jewish". Not a criticism as such, more an observation that things can get a little...

United Kingdom on Jan 08, 2012

Eileen Shaw: Joe Kavalier and his partner Sammy Clay, are comic-book creatives in New York just before America joined WWII. The novel opens with the story of Joe's journey to America which is full of danger. From the very beginning Joe is a young man who flirts with catastrophe. He almost fails to get to America in the first place, when he is stranded in Prague. Joe is shipped out on an illegal transport, hidden in the coffin of the Golem of Prague. It means a long and perilous journey, but he makes it and turns up at the house of his aunt in New York, where he meets his cousin Sammy Klaymann, who later shortens his name to Clay.

This story spans the war years and a little beyond. It is often heart-breaking, often exciting, and full of wonderful insight, especially about the place of comic books in American fiction. The stories are always about human beings, however, and this is no one-theme book. The adventures of these two admirable, though very different, men, touch on the themes of war (with a breath-taking struggle for survival in the Arctic for Joe who joins the Navy as soon as America enters the war), the striving of the boys to get improvements in their pay as all their work is...

United Kingdom on Oct 10, 2011

Roger Brunyate: What a brilliant idea to use a Houdini-like escape artist as a wish-metaphor for escaping the encroaching Holocaust! And when Josef Kavalier escapes from Prague and arrives in the US, how inspired to have him and his cousin Sam Clay become leaders in the new comic book industry! Their fantasy stories featuring the Escapist become an increasingly ironic counterpoint to the inescapable situation in Europe, leaving the authors increasingly frustrated even as they are finding success. Even without the Holocaust references, this novel would be an exuberant paean to American creativity in its pop-culture heyday, much in the manner of Doctorow's  RAGTIME . But the wartime context of hope, despair, and slow recovery gives the book a personal dimension as poignant as it is enthralling.

One of the delights in Chabon's book is the ease with which he passes between fantasy and reality. Kavalier and Clay are talented but still ordinary people, hard-working schmucks prey to exploitation by various fat cats. The action takes place in real time, most of it in the edgy period before Pearl Harbor. Salvador Dali, Orson Welles, and numerous other celebrities make cameo appearances, their...

United States on Jan 23, 2009