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A review by ponch22
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
5.0
Really trying to focus on my 2018 Reading Challenge because I still have 5 more books left to read and only 4 months left to do it!
[b:The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay|3985|The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay|Michael Chabon|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1503806495s/3985.jpg|2693329] is my 7th Resolution book this year—a book recommended by someone with great taste, my friend Tony. [a:Michael Chabon|2715|Michael Chabon|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1515875672p2/2715.jpg] is one of those authors I'd always known about but never read. I really enjoyed the film adaptation of his novel, [b:Wonder Boys|16707|Wonder Boys|Michael Chabon|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1380670205s/16707.jpg|2045395] but I probably couldn’t have named any other books he’d written. I definitely hadn't ever heard of Kavalier & Clay—I remember actually (incorrectly) believing that this was a graphic novel when I first added it to my Resolution list earlier this year...
But no, it's a novel—or, more correctly, at over 600 pages—an opus that focuses on two Jewish cousins at the beginning of the Golden Age of comics. Josef Kavalier is a Czech emigrant who travels across Asia to escape Europe several years before WWII breaks out. He lands on the doorstep of Sammy Klayman, a young writer in Brooklyn. The two soon become Sam Clay & Joe Kavalier, the writer and artist of The Escapist—a fictional title from the early days of comics.
The two slowly take their creation and expand it into dozens of titles and their own publishing company. The bulk of the novel is about these early years of creating a comic empire & the struggles they each have in life and love. Joe is focused on helping his younger brother (and the rest of his family) escape Europe after the war begins and Sammy struggles with finding his place in a world that looks down on his lifestyle and (eventually) blames his livelihood for juvenile delinquency.
The final third of the novel separates our heroes, as Joe joins the Army to get revenge on some Nazis (the way The Escapist had for years) but is stationed in Antarctica & Sam moves to the suburbs with a family of his own (of sorts). The two reunite through the most amazing of feats on the Empire State Building but soon take leave of one another again in the end.
According to the Author’s Note, Chabon had done a lot of research (e.g. six books about Houdini & magic for a subplot I didn’t even mention!) and it really shows. The attention to detail is outstanding. The characters are all beautifully drawn & the story is quite inventive, but still feels like it could be real. There are footnotes throughout which almost makes you forget this is fiction, and the Escapist didn't actually exist alongside Superman in the 1940s. It doesn’t hurt that Chabon peppers his story with real-life people such as Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Salvador Dali, and Orson Welles (among others) to confuse matters.
But Tony was right—I did really enjoy this book. I had to borrow the ebook from my library three times to finish it (a 2-week, followed by a 3-week, and then another 2-week loan with it usually being on hold in between) but it came with some nice bonuses at the end: two cut chapters—“Breakfast at the Wreck” and “The Return of the Amazing Cavalieri”—along with two other connected short stories—“The Crossover” and “Fifty Dollars Takes it Home.” The mix of comic book, American, & Jewish history is amazing... as are the adventures of Kavalier & Clay.
[b:The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay|3985|The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay|Michael Chabon|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1503806495s/3985.jpg|2693329] is my 7th Resolution book this year—a book recommended by someone with great taste, my friend Tony. [a:Michael Chabon|2715|Michael Chabon|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1515875672p2/2715.jpg] is one of those authors I'd always known about but never read. I really enjoyed the film adaptation of his novel, [b:Wonder Boys|16707|Wonder Boys|Michael Chabon|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1380670205s/16707.jpg|2045395] but I probably couldn’t have named any other books he’d written. I definitely hadn't ever heard of Kavalier & Clay—I remember actually (incorrectly) believing that this was a graphic novel when I first added it to my Resolution list earlier this year...
But no, it's a novel—or, more correctly, at over 600 pages—an opus that focuses on two Jewish cousins at the beginning of the Golden Age of comics. Josef Kavalier is a Czech emigrant who travels across Asia to escape Europe several years before WWII breaks out. He lands on the doorstep of Sammy Klayman, a young writer in Brooklyn. The two soon become Sam Clay & Joe Kavalier, the writer and artist of The Escapist—a fictional title from the early days of comics.
The two slowly take their creation and expand it into dozens of titles and their own publishing company. The bulk of the novel is about these early years of creating a comic empire & the struggles they each have in life and love. Joe is focused on helping his younger brother (and the rest of his family) escape Europe after the war begins and Sammy struggles with finding his place in a world that looks down on his lifestyle and (eventually) blames his livelihood for juvenile delinquency.
The final third of the novel separates our heroes, as Joe joins the Army to get revenge on some Nazis (the way The Escapist had for years) but is stationed in Antarctica & Sam moves to the suburbs with a family of his own (of sorts). The two reunite through the most amazing of feats on the Empire State Building but soon take leave of one another again in the end.
According to the Author’s Note, Chabon had done a lot of research (e.g. six books about Houdini & magic for a subplot I didn’t even mention!) and it really shows. The attention to detail is outstanding. The characters are all beautifully drawn & the story is quite inventive, but still feels like it could be real. There are footnotes throughout which almost makes you forget this is fiction, and the Escapist didn't actually exist alongside Superman in the 1940s. It doesn’t hurt that Chabon peppers his story with real-life people such as Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Salvador Dali, and Orson Welles (among others) to confuse matters.
But Tony was right—I did really enjoy this book. I had to borrow the ebook from my library three times to finish it (a 2-week, followed by a 3-week, and then another 2-week loan with it usually being on hold in between) but it came with some nice bonuses at the end: two cut chapters—“Breakfast at the Wreck” and “The Return of the Amazing Cavalieri”—along with two other connected short stories—“The Crossover” and “Fifty Dollars Takes it Home.” The mix of comic book, American, & Jewish history is amazing... as are the adventures of Kavalier & Clay.