Pulitzer-Prize Winner
"I'm going to hate this novel..."
Sometimes I am just plain stupid.
Despite my desire to be open-minded and constantly learn new things,
crazy ideas get stuck in my brain. Wedged like panties in a butt crack, my attitude gets mired in the dark places of silly preconceived notions.
I thought I would hate The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.
Why would I, a mature woman from a family of girls in a conservative Midwestern town, care about comic books? My family was serious about reading "real" books. We went to the library often - just for fun - coming home with armloads of novels and biographies to entertain us for the next two weeks. Never once in my youth did I even see a comic book, much less buy one!
So why would I read a novel about the comic book industry?
Intent on my quest to read all the Pulitzer Prize winners for fiction since 2000, and looking for a way to extend my dwindling Audible credits this month, I decided I'd dutifully "suffer through" the more than 23-hours-long audiobook, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.
Was I ever wrong about hating this novel! Michael Chabon's book, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, was filled with compelling characters and meaningful backstories. Every chapter sheds light on a cultural movement and imbues a historical perspective from a character's point of view. If I enjoyed it - comic book ignoramus that I am - I'm guessing that if you're a serious reader, you'll enjoy it, too.
The Plot
Sammy Klayman is a young Jewish man who lives in Brooklyn with his mother in 1939. Sammy had polio when he was young and is now lame in one leg. His world changes, however, with the arrival of his cousin, Josef Kavalier, who comes to America after a long and harrowing journey from Prague. Josef's family pooled all their resources to get Joe out of Czechoslovakia and to the safety of his aunt in New York while Hitler was coming to power.
What begins when Joe and Sammy meet is a tale of creativity and achievement; of hard work, hard knocks, and the hard-core business of corporate comics. Sammy is an entrepreneur and writer with an amazing imagination who writes under the pen name of Sam Clay. Joe is a phenomenal artist who brings characters to life with line and color.
Yes, this is a novel about the birth of the comic book industry with Sammy, an extraordinary creative mind, and Joe, a phenomenal artist, developing a new kind of art. But The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is so much more!
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Not only did I find myself fascinated by the details of the emerging comic book craze, but I found myself intrigued by another hobby I thought I had little interest in: Magic and the Art of Escaping.
Josef Kavalier's backstory includes studying and performing magic in Prague. He becomes an escape artist, studying Houdini. His knowledge helps him escape to the United States and is a powerful influence on the creation of "The Escapist" comic book series masterminded by Josef and Sammy.
"The Escapist" featured an escape artist (like Joe), a kind of superhero/magician who fights for the weak, (like Sammy) and humiliates Hitler with his strength and brainpower. (The wishful thinking of two Jewish boys,)
(The plot mirrors the reality of the two Jewish boys who escaped to America to avoid the pogroms, Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster. The duo who created the wildly popular character of Superman.)
Pulitzer-Prize Winner for Fiction, 2001
The Pulitzer Prize is awarded for "distinguished fiction published in book form during the year by an American author, preferably dealing with American life."
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is "distinguished" indeed.
It's a rare book that can cover diverse and unique topics of comics, magic, and the art of escaping with bigger, humanitarian issues of identity, grief, and love. The Holocaust and its impact infiltrate the pages of the novel, as do themes of Jewish lore, sexual identity, homophobia, corporate greed, unfair labor practices, and copyright law. It's a love story, a rags-to-riches tale, and an adventure saga.
Readers will travel from Czechoslovakia to New York to Antarctica, to iconic landmarks like the Empire State Building, all the while falling in love with the characters of Sammy, Joe, and Joe's girlfriend, Rosa Saks.
The Best 100 Books of the Century
Last week, July 8, 2024, the New York Times created a list of the 100 best books of the 21st century.
From one literature lover to another, I'll tell you how even though I think I read a lot, I have not read many on that list. It became painfully clear that I am NOT well-read at all, having only read five on the list of 100!
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay came in at 16!
Obviously, I wasn't the only one who liked this amazing novel.
Not Quick or Easy
If you're looking for a fast, lightweight book, this is not the one for you. If you want a "beach read" that doesn't require thought, look elsewhere. But if you want a memorable, interesting, in-depth novel filled with insights on unusual topics - like how the comic book industry got started - don't miss The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.
Believe it or not, I listened to all 23+ hours of the audiobook and was sorry when it ended! (The long listening time made the hard, hot tasks of mowing, weed-eating, cooking, and cleaning evaporate into the air around me. The chores were finished before the story was, and once. I even took an extra lap mowing around the yard so I could listen to the end of a chapter!)
Michael Chabon, the Author
It would be impossible to write a book like this if you didn't LOVE comic books. Michael Chabon does. In fact, after the publication of Kavalier and Clay, Chabon wrote a series of graphic novels titled The Escapist, based on the comic books created by the fictional characters of Kavalier and Clay.
Chabon is a much-acclaimed writer. His first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, started out as his Master's Thesis and ended up a best-seller. His second novel, Wonder Boys, was also a bestseller made into a blockbuster movie starring Michael Douglas and Tobey Maguire. His third novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2001 and many other awards too numerous to mention.
Michael Chabon is also a gifted screenwriter, having worked on movies and series like John Carter and Star Trek: Picard.
My Ignorance Was My Worst Enemy
I knew nothing about comic books and stupidly thought I wouldn't like what I found out.
Don't make the same crazy assumptions that I did. Dive into The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and savor the full-color, "KABOOM" of a great story!
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