just read: “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay”
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
Published 2000
My Rating: 9/10
Paperback cover design
In a word: EPIC. This novel is epic and comes with the good and bad of being an epic story. It is long: over 600 pages (in the paperback version) with not-very-large font…sometimes it was a struggle.
Anyway, the title characters are two Jewish youths: Sammy Klayman (“Clay” to sound more “American”) is a twenty-something avid comic book reader who lives with his single mother and grandmother in Brooklyn. Josef Kavalier, Sammy’s cousin, arrives in Sammy’s life suddenly as a Jewish refugee from Czechoslovakia after its takeover by the Germans before World War II. Sammy’s flair for the dramatic is a perfect match for Joe’s artistic abilities, and the two form a partnership to create a new comic book following the exploits of “The Escapist,” which will propel them through the rise and tragic fall of the comic book industry from the 1940s to 1950s.
Along the way, Chabon incorporates SO MUCH STUFF, it’s crazy: familial loss and familial bonds, views on homosexuality in the 50s, WWII combat, references to the art world (cameos by Salvador Dali and Max Ernst), and of course, insight into the world of comic books at their inception in New York City. The book feels well-researched, and many of the characters are inspired by actual persons and events (i.e. the “United States Subcommittee on Juvenile Deliquency” (Kefauver hearings) of 1954) . Chabon himself is a comic book enthusiast (he wrote an early draft of “Spider-man 2″ that was only partially used), and his enthusiam shows through his careful construction of the characters in this novel and their parallel worlds.
I didn’t find it as funny or gripping as The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, but it fascinating in the way Chabon weaves the true story of the birth of comic books with the personal histories of the characters. It’s such an ambitious project, but Chabon makes it look so easy! I highly recommend this novel if you have spare time and are even mildly interested in comics.
