Rating: 
Summary: Amazing Achievement
Review: This book won the Pulitzer. Now I find that a lot of Pulitzer prize winners are a bit too artsy or heady for an idiot like myself. However this baby held my interest from beginning to end.
I genuinely cared about the characters, felt for them, and missed them minutes after reading the last page.
Chabon's use of metaphor is a revelation. His sentence/paragraph structure creative and impeccable. Very clever, witty and refreshing.
My only critique is that there about 250 words in the book that the average Magna Cum Laude college graduate will have no idea what they mean. Big words, short words, weird words that I did not want to look up in the dictionary while I was in the bathtub reading. Saying that, maybe the author, being employed in the use of words, wants to use his undeniable gifts to enlighten the less educated in the beauty of words. If so, then I for one would appreciate an addendum with definitions of the wacky vernacular Chabon uses.
Highly recommended. Can't wait for the next Chabon.
Rating:
Summary: A serious novel that manages to be full of joy and mirth
Review: This is the first book I've read in a very long time that manages to convey a sense of genuine realism and emotion without descending to the sort of maudlin hand wringing that many authors seem to think is required if their novel is to be taken seriously. Kavalier and Clay are two Jewish cousins, one a refuge from Nazi occupied Prague, the other a kid from Brookland. Together they create one of the first superheroes of the golden age of comics. The plot is original and touching and although the protagonists are put through the ringer, you get the sense when the book is done that things will, ultimately, work out. One of the interesting things about this book is the way that it switches back and forth from being inside the heads of the protagonists and acting as if it was in some ways a scholarly research paper, complete with footnotes. The descriptions of the popularity of Houdini and other "escapists" as well as the loving detail put into the print descriptions of several comic books (surely a first in a pulitzer prize winning book) indicate that a great deal of time and effort has been put into making the book as accurate as possible within the confines of the story.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Novel
Review: This was a fantastic novel with huge character development, stunning descriptions and a wonderful, truthful look at an exciting time in the comic book industry.
Chabon really hits the mark when referencing the begging days of the comic book industry. His characters seem to have come straight out of the memories of Lee, Kirby and other comic book greats. He has nailed the fustrations of a young Jew having just escaped Prague before the Nazi's moved all of his family into concentration camps.
The love story between Kavalier and Rosa, Rosa and Clay and Clay and Bacon really come to life. It describes the emotions of a man going through a crisis to determine if he is in fact a "fairy" and the lenghts and sacrafices that he will make to hide his true identity.
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