The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Rating:
Summary: A Story Of Comings And Goings....
Review: And what an amazing book it is. I was looking up Pulitzer prize winners one day and stumbled across this book, put it on my christmas list, and recieved it from my parents. A week or so later I began to read it, and despite the lack of your "normal" plot-grippers in both comics and novels (deaths, love stories, mysteries) in the beginning, the book immediately drew me in.

It follows the lives of two jewish cousins from about the age of 19 till around 32 or so, and the adventures that they come across...normally, not fantastically as their created superheros experience. Joe Kavalier is Sammy Clay's cousin from Prague, escaping right before world war ii really exploded around the world. His goal being to earn money to get his family over to the USA, Joe agrees to team up with Sammy to create a comic book. An empire is established, the boys go through relationships, extremely tough lessons, and radical changes until the end when the real magic act of the book is preformed slowly through the final chapters.

Chabon should be praised greatly for his character development, as the thing that kept me desperate to read more is the wondering of what should happen, good or bad, to Sammy and Joe (and Rosa). You feel like you know them, can picture certain aspects of every single character in the book, as whenever one is introduced, their history and physical description is a deliberate afterthought. Sammy has thin weak legs, Joe has dark curly black hair, and Rosa has a sharp nose. Chabon also keeps it interesting by changing perspectives, letting you into the lives of many characters, and providing some fictional relief through the development of the comic book characters.

The book itself could really be a comic book, split into dramatic issues of the most exciting parts of the novel. It combines friendship, romance, trust, adventure, crime, hold-your-breath life threats, cheating, heartbreak, and togetherness in such a discreet way you'll simply sail through the 600+ pages. A definate knockout, I look forward to hearing more from Chabon (although in some ways I don't know if he can ever top this 'crown jewel' in his writing empire ;) )

Rating:
Summary: The Big, Big Book About The Comics
Review: Let's start with the cover - something most reviewers skip. I am a somewhat visual person. When I was waiting on table during college I learned that "people eat first with their eyes." If something doesn't look right on the plate your tip will suffer. I picked up my copy of "The Amazing Adventures . . ." at The San Francisco airport. The cover art caught my eye from about 50 feet away. I was intrigued - what kind of book looks for all the world like an aging comic book? It brought me back to Saturday afternoons in my room with my collection of suprehero stories - especially The Metal Men. And the collection secreted in the cupbord of the altarboy room that helped pass the few minutes before 6 AM mass - The Green Lantern, Superman, Batman. At 636 pages, this is not a quick read. At one level, this is a buddy-story. Two cousins, one an under-schooled but gifted writer and the other a gifted academy-trained artist - are thrown together and become a dynamic duo. Then there are several themes and characters that weave in and out of the story line - a golem (!), Harry Houdini, magic, and especially escapes. Joe Kavalier's dramatic escapes run through the book, but everybody in this book seems to be trying to escape from something - some from situatiions, some from people, some from life. Big issues - war, the nature of life, what constitutes art - are all intertwingled with the more mundane issues of evryday life - how to find a job, make a living, stay alive. Longing, hope and love battle with fear, self-loathing and dark desires. The charcters are real with real, everyday concerns. Their motives as complex and conflicting as a body could have. But, at the same time, their lives are larger than ours. The story could easily have degenerated into a mass of raw emotion or gone all clinical and cold on us. But the author has crafted a great story with believable charcters that held me in it's grip until the last page. Now I am really looking forward to reading more of Michael Chabon's work.

Rating:
Summary: I couldn't put it down.
Review: This book is a gem. One of the best I have ever read. Here's some example of what I mean by one of the best:

1. I was emotionally involved in the characters. By the end of the book, I felt sympathy for them, cried with them, and was happy for them.

2. I couldn't put the book down. I am a slow reader, but flew through this book in record time. All of my spare time I wanted to spend reading this book.

3. It won the Pulitzer!

4. Chabon came up with an amazing way of weaving a tale that incorporates both fantasy and reality. This story may be about a seemingly lighthearted topic on the cover synopsis (comics), but in reality, it's a story about human relationships and life. I was deeply moved by the story.

5. The book had an underlying theme of escape. It's a profound statement for times such as those we live in. Escape is noble goal. This book helped me escape, but provoked some good thinking as well.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys good literature.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding novel about WW2, comic books, and New York
Review: This is a wonderful book that I'll read again and again. Kavalier and Clay's adventures begin in New York 1939, the dawn of comic books and superheroes. The reader doesn't need any knowledge of comics to love this book--indeed, even Joe Kavalier has no knowledge of them when he arrives as a Jewish refugee and settles in with his American cousin, Sammy Clay. The pair become a success with their superhero character, The Escapist, modelled after Houdini and Kavalier himself--lucky enough to escape Nazi Europe, but struggling to bring his younger brother over to America. Chabon does a brilliant job of tying together the events in comic books to other political and cultural events in American life. Along a journey that spans the period from 1939 to the early 1950s, Joe Kavalier meets Salvador Dali and Orson Wells, and serves the war effort in Antartica. It's a bittersweet journey, filled with love, loss, greedy comic book publishers, and the need for revenge. Samuel Clay's tale and journey is more introspective, as he struggles with his place in the world as a man. This has to be my favorite fiction book of 2000! I don't think you'll be disappointed in Kavalier & Clay.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant and moving
Review: Who would have ever thought that the combination of the Holocaust and the great American era of comic books would be the perfect match. But it is in the prodigious and talented hands of Michael Chabon. The mish-mash works wonderfully and there's so much life going on (insight, humanness, hope) in this great read that you'll find yourself wondering why you're just now getting around to it. I'm usually one to stick with obvious bestsellers like "Da Vinci Code" or "Bark of the Dogwood" but came across this and decided to give it a try. Perhaps I'll be trying a different strategy now in picking the books I read!

Rating:
Summary: good, could have been better
Review: I like history (especially WW2) and i like comics, i suppose i was the main audience for this book, but parts of it left me cold. I agree with another review that said the book leaves you mad because they screw around with the best character so much (clay) and Kavalier is a bit of a jerk.
Over all a good book, i especially liked reading about the escapists adventures. In terms of real life (and not comic book life) I question if running away from your problems is considered heroic

Rating:
Summary: This Amazing Adventure Is Highly Recommended!
Review: I have just finished "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" and am experiencing the grief and regret one feels after closing the cover on a truly fantastic novel. Michael Chabon is an extremely talented and thoughtful author who has the ability to breathe life into every character who walks across the pages of his book. I grieve at the thought that I will no longer encounter this colorful cast and regret that I couldn't spend more time with them. Mr. Chabon has woven the experiences of two young Jewish cousins, one American and one Czechoslovakian, during the decades of the nineteen-thirties and the nineteen-fifties; how they evolve from strangers to partners and the best of friends, and support one another through the horrifying changes wrought on their lives due to WWII. This book is wonderful and not to be missed!

Rating:
Summary: Mind-numbingly boring
Review: Chabon has a masterful command of the English language. Either that, or he has a masterful command of a thesaurus. I've never seen such unnecessary vocabulary used anywhere. It was excessive, confusing and at times, it looked like he only wrote these words to show off.
Mr. Chabon - Tell a story. Tell it well. Stop writing.
Unless you have a lot of time to flip the pages of this directionless and frustrating book, skip it. Read something more interesting and exciting. There's plenty out there.

Rating:
Summary: AMAZING ADVENTURES
Review: This book was recommended to me by my coworker and I'm glad I read it. This book albeit heavy but with a light touch has so much going on, yet it is told with ease. Here were are introduced to Sam Clay a Jewish boy in Brooklyn and Joe Kavalier, Sam's cousin, just in from Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia and a Jew who escaped.
In America Joe and Sam share the same fascination of Comic books and decide to create their own character called the Escapist. A crime fighter who gets out of difficult situations and saves the less fortunate, but the symbol of this character is so significant in that the escapist is a alter ego of Joe, who is throughout the novel trying to find and get his family trapped behind enemy lines out to America.
We are taken through the years of these two cousins, starting a Americana institution, we are shown, how they got there comic off the ground, mingle with celebrities, crooked publishers, Nazi terrorist and eventually expand into going off to war.
The scene where Joe is in Antarctica is a great story and is very exciting, I like that part the best.
Kavalier and Clay is a wonderful book, and has a lot to offer, it is long and the print is tiny, but it is a good story if you can just be patient.

Rating:
Summary: great, but it leaves you mad
Review: It's a great book, but it leaves you mad because the best character in the book, Clay, gets screwed around so much. I wish he'd have been able to get back with Bacon. And Kavalier was kind of a jerk. Good book though.