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Title: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon ISBN: 0-312-28299-0 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 25 August, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.24 (439 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Ambitious, funny, heartbreaking- this one's a winner
Comment: It's 1939. America begins to stir after the long Depression while Europe stands on the brink of devastating war. Sinister forces descend on Europe's Jews while comic book superheroes capture a generation of American boys. Funny, heartbreaking and delightfully intense, Michael Chabon's inventive eloquence gives voice to a big, broad, tumultuous world.
"The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" opens with a lookback, from the bully pulpit of comic book conventions, of Sam Clay boasting that his boyhood, "sealed and hog-tied inside the airtight vessel known as Brooklyn, New York...had been haunted by dreams of Harry Houdini." This is not quite accurate, Chabon lets us know, and turns to that night in 1939 when the story begins. But these few paragraphs stick in the reader's mind, providing the comfort that Clay, at least, emerges from the turbulence of the novel's events to bask in nostalgic glory at some later date.
That 1939 night, Samuel Klayman's mother wakes him and orders him to make room for his newly arrived Czech cousin Josef Kavalier, a thin young man with a somber air. Josef, an academy trained artist and a magician, schooled in Houdini-style escapes, has escaped his crumbling Czech world in a coffin with the Golem of Prague. The Nazis derailed a more conventional exit, financed by his family's entire savings, and Josef is consumed with worry for those left behind, especially his younger brother, Thomas.
Sammy already thinks of himself as Sam Clay, a non-ethnic, American success. A generous, ambitious soul, hoping to break into the budding mania for comic books, Sam recognizes his cousin's greater artistic talent and presents him to his boss, together with a proposition for a new superhero. Fueled by coffee and cigarettes, and by Sammy's drive to achieve the American dream of riches and fame and Joe's determination to rescue his family, the pair creates a fabulously successful new hero, the Escapist, a Houdiniesque character crusading against Hitler's tyranny.
Sammy has an unexpected genius for comic book plots and characters while Joe's talent and fever to win the war, even if only on paper, lead him to new heights of invention and design, culminating in the daring Luna Moth, a female superhero inspired by Rosa Saks, Joe's love, herself a beautiful and eccentric artist. Fabulous characters and stories arise from their heroic fantasies, striking a chord with the youth of America, making them rich, though not as rich as their employers, who own the characters outright.
There's a lot going on here as the American romance with money and consumerism turns a blind eye to sinister developments in Europe. Chabon explores the ambivalence of American Jews at the war's outset - caught by their own worldly ambitions between American isolationism and the early rumors of Holocaust. The mechanics of Joe's daring escape from the Nazis reveal the sad, helpless docility of the Jews left behind. His life in New York is an exhilarating fantasy and a desperate wasteland. Hope lifts him again and again as new schemes for rescuing his family are set in motion and love expands his outlook and every week he wins the war on the comic pages.
Flashbacks and shifting points of view illuminate Joe's and Sammy's early life and evolution as well as private dreams and fears. Joe discovers that all his money can't pry his family out of Czechoslovakia. Sammy discovers that wealth won't cure loneliness.
As the joys of success give way to personal failures, the cousins deal with seminal crises in their very different ways. Joe chooses escape, Sammy rejects escape. And the story's barely half way through.
Before Chabon ("Wonder Boys," "Werewolves in Their Youth") is done, he explores most of the issues that preoccupied America through the fifties, takes his characters to their emotional limits and beyond, carries his readers from laughter to tears and back again. His writing is strong, lighthearted, brutal and breathtaking and there is much to engage the heart and the imagination in every corner of his broad, vibrant canvas.
Rating: 5
Summary: Amazingly adventurous!
Comment: Like his superheroes, author Michael Chabon has pulled off an amazing feat of his own, challenging the dark forces of intolerance and elevating and empowering the little man in this terrific novel. Set in the late '30's and early '40's, the novel follows Joe Kavalier, a young Jewish refugee from Czechoslovakia, and his cousin Sam Clay, creators of superheroes and producers of comic books which attack the Nazis and inspire those who oppose them. As the reader learns about the comic book industry and the sociological conditions which made comics so popular, s/he also experiences the cousins' personal frustrations as they work to gain freedom for Joe's family, deal with industry "moneymen" who take advantage of them, and search for enduring love.
No brief summary of the action, however, can begin to convey the depth and scope of this imaginative and original novel. Chabon manages never to lose sight of the Nazi menace while putting it into completely new contexts, including magic, superheroes, Houdini-like escapes, golems, and comic book characters, and ranging from Prague to New York and Antarctica. It is a novel of huge scope--and it is hugely entertaining! One of the best novels of the year, it should certainly be a candidate for a major literary award.
Rating: 5
Summary: I couldn't put it down.
Comment: 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.
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Title: Middlesex : A Novel by Jeffrey Eugenides ISBN: 0312422156 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 16 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Empire Falls by Richard Russo ISBN: 0375726403 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Wonder Boys : A Novel by Michael Chabon ISBN: 0312140940 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 15 December, 1995 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri ISBN: 039592720X Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 01 June, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Corrections: A Novel by Jonathan Franzen ISBN: 0312421273 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 27 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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