Product Description

Winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction from the author 'Wonder Boys'. 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay' is a heart-wrenching story of escape, love and comic-book heroes set in Prague, New York and the Arctic. One night in 1939, Josef Kavalier shuffles into his cousin Sam Clay's cramped New York bedroom, his nerve-racking escape from Prague finally achieved. Little does he realise that this is the beginning of an extraordinary friendship and even more fruitful business partnership. Together, they create a comic strip called 'The Escapist', its superhero a Nazi-busting saviour who liberates the oppressed around the world. 'The Escapist' makes their fortune, but Joe can think of only one thing: how can he effect a real-life escape, and free his family from the tyranny of Hitler? Michael Chabon's exceptional novel is a thrilling tight-rope walk between high comedy and bitter tragedy, and confirms his position as one of the most inventive and daring of contemporary American writers. In Joe Kavalier and Sam Clay, he has created two unforgettable characters bound together by love, family and cartoons.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6901 in Books
• Published on: 2001-07-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 656 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Like the comic books that animate and inspire it, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is both larger than life and of it too. Complete with golems and magic and miraculous escapes and evil nemeses, even hand-to-hand Antarctic battle, it pursues the most important questions of love and war, dreams and art, across pages lurid with longing and hope. Samuel Klayman--self-described little man, city boy and Jew--first meets Josef Kavalier when his mother shoves him aside in his own bed, telling him to make room for their cousin, a refugee from Nazi-occupied Prague. It's the beginning, however unlikely, of a beautiful friendship. In short order, Sam's talent for pulp plotting meets Joe's faultless, academy-trained line, and a comic-book superhero is born. A sort of lantern-jawed equaliser clad in dark blue long underwear, the Escapist "roams the globe, performing amazing feats and coming to the aid of those who languish in tyranny's chains". Before they know it, Kavalier and Clay (as Sam Klayman has come to be known) find themselves at the epicentre of comics' golden age.

Suffice to say, Michael Chabon writes novels like the Escapist busts locks. Previous books such as The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Wonder Boys have prose of equal shimmer and wit, and yet here he seems to have finally found a canvas big enough for his gifts. The whole enterprise seems animated by love: for his alternately deluded, damaged and painfully sincere characters; for the quirks and curious innocence of tough-talking wartime New York; and, above all, for comics themselves, "the inspirations and lucubrations of five hundred ageing boys dreaming as hard as they could". Far from negating such pleasures, the Holocaust's presence in the novel only makes them more pressing. Art, if not capable of actually fighting evil, can at least offer a gesture of defiance and hope--a way out of a world gone completely mad. --Mary Park, Amazon.com

Review
'Dazzling. Chabon has not so much attempted the great American novel as brought to life the idea that it had already been written -- week by week, in the humble heroism of the comic book.' Independent 'An adventure story that keeps you up until 4am with the bedside lamp on, eager to learn if the Escapist, and Chabon himself, can free the enslaved and lead them home.' Observer 'This is one of those books that makes the reader want to race through to the find out what happens, while at the same time wishing it will never end.' Simon Shaw, Mail on Sunday 'Proof of the abiding power of complex, serious, engaged, but above all entertaining story-telling.' Times Literary Supplement 'A page-turning epic, sketching World War II as seen through the eyes of two comic book writers.' Time Out 'A novel of towering achievement.' New York Times 'Absolutely gosh-wow, super-colossal.' Washington Post 'An exciting, emotional, exuberant delight. Read it.' Chicago Tribune 'Full of the kind of exquisitely figurative language and gorgeous sentences for which Chabon is deservedly celebrated.' The Inquirer

Josef Kavalier's teenage years in Prague are spent under the guidance of his beloved magic teacher who teaches him the art of escapology. But Hitler's takeover of Czechoslovakia spells doom for Josef, although he escapes to America to stay with his Jewish cousin Sammy Clay. They venture into the world of comic books: Sam the writer, and anglicized Joe the artist. Joe engages in the struggle of Americanizing his roots, transferring himself from Prague to New York, from chains to the American Dream as success opens its doors. But his desire for escape, to liberate his loved ones runs deeper than the physical distance of an ocean between countries. Chabon's novel is nothing but remarkable. A social history of the war, of the golden age of the comic book and America, of the refugee, animated into startling, breath taking exuberance in the lives of Kavalier and Clay. This is a book that illuminates the mind and awakens the heart. Joe's magic, illusions and escapist acts are laden with the poignancy of what he is escaping from, as Chabon shows us that the real magic lies in belonging, as the bonds of history, family, identity and friendship are the ones that there is no escape from, as Sammy and Joe thrillingly, rebelliously, tragically and soulfully take on the bonds metaphorical and physical of oppression and prejudice. (Kirkus UK)

Independent
'Dazzling. Chabon has not so much attempted the great American novel as brought to life the idea that it had already been written - week by week, in the humble heroism of the comic book.'

Customer Reviews

All Tell and no Show
Perhaps the Amazing in the title gave me false expectations but I didn't find anything amazing about this book at all. It never connected with either of the main characters enough for us to care deeply about them - we are expected to understand Clay's struggle with homosexuality but we are never shown any of this - we are told that Joe is mourning for his brother but he doesn't give any convincing evidence of this. And literally nothing Amazing happens - unless you count the implausible method of Joe's escape from Prague in the first place.

The only thing I found interesting was the insight into the comic book world, but even that failed to convince.

Decent enough, but hardly lives up to the Amazing hype.

(3.5 *) Anyway, a worth and entertaining reading
Casualties of II WW and tragic events back in the late 30's, places escapism arts apprentice, Joe Kavalier in a troubled but successful trip directly from Praga to Brooklyn, to the home of an unknown and distant cousin, the young and ambitious cartoon artist Sam Clay. It doesn't take too long for the two boys to know each other and their own creative talents and the accidental encounter between them, not only is the beginning of a deep and lasting friendship but also a popular and successful future team of innumerous stories and characters in the world of the classical comic books.

Michael Chabon creates a very intimate, magical and imaginative world largely due to the perfect portrait of Clay and Kavalier as individuals; this are really two well crafted characters with a very complex personality that the reader absolutely indentifies with, having the particularity to allow him/her to "feel" and understand their most profound and recondite emotions, differences, frustrations, etc.
The novel is also very original and appealing concerning to the way it cross "serious" and dramatic themes and issues, such as the nazi holocaust and war, sexual orientation, religion, corporate greed and putting them through the perspective of a graphic novel and the eyes of the comic heroes as well from those he sets free from the iniquities of "evil". In fact this battle between the "good" and the "bad", where justice is the final goal, where for every super hero there's a super villain, told by the simple and redeeming language of a comic, is the most exciting and distinguish accomplish of the novel; Chabon masters this two universes (reality and the imaginary world of the Escapist) so well, in such a sublime and terrific way, that in my opinion this is one of the main reasons that the novel as a whole, seems to end up being a little disappointed.

Since the beginning till the "golden age" part, the narrative is absolutely flawless, a real page turner, a vivid and colorful writing of the amazing adventures of Kavalier, Clay, Rose, the Escapist, the real villains of the world and also the imaginary ones, but after that, so suddenly as the break of sales of the comic books in the end of the 40's, also the life of our heroes loses the flair, joy and charisma of the youth, turning towards to a sad predictability that at the beginning seemed to be exactly what Chabon wanted to avoid and struggle against to, decided to make a subtle (and artistic) but powerful statement of all the dark forces and inhuman actions that still haunt and blind the human spirit. But maybe after all there is some point in this "adult" transformation, as something being part of the growing process and the loss of innocence, the conclusion that in real life there aren't omnipresent heroes with all the super powers, only average people trying to struggle the best they can against the adversities of life...but for any reason that doesn't seems to fit so well the positive, fresh and always coherent description of character's truthful nature, at least towards their friendship, one of the most important ideas as a concept of the all novel.

if you only have the chance to read one book this year make it this one, you wont be disappointed.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay was an instant popular and critical success when it came out in 2000 being nominated for a raft of awards. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001 and Hollywood has been sniffing around it ever since. Michael Chabon the author wrote the only known screenplay, which struggled to reduce a 635-page book to a 2-hour film. At one point, the cast was Toby Maguire (Peter in Spiderman) to play Sam Clay, Natalie Portman (V for Vendetta) to play Rosa Saks and Jude Law to play Joe Kavalier.

The difficulties for the film is what makes the book a joy as it starts in 1938 as Superman bursts on the scene and ends in 1954 as the Kefauver Senate hearings delivers the death blow to a declining comic book industry. A central theme is the roles of the Jews in the comic book industry: it explored the mythology of comic hero and its impact Joe and Sam own struggles and personal journeys form the stories of the Escapist which in turn shape their lives. Sam struggling to come to terms with being Gay and Joe trying to rescue his family stuck in an increasingly bleak Nazi run Prague. It also explores the historical rip off the artists and writers of the period. Superman's creators did not come into the real money until the blockbuster Superman movies and a court case prised the money out of Hollywood's coffers. Historical characters from the period from the comic industry and the movie, art and political world some in and out of the story. The Escapist also draws on Joe Kavalier's training and experience of magic and Houdini type tricks and the impact this has on his life.

The writing is a tour deforce so that you hear, touch and smell the period. Each character has their own voice and even minor characters when they enter the story in a few paragraphs you have their back-story and motives seamlessly woven in so they become real characters. The point of view moves from character to character and no easy option or resolution is allowed as the story builds to the magic trick ending. Scenes are comic one minute and bitterly tragic the next as you join in the roller coaster of their lives. Yes I am going say it...if you only have the chance to read one book this year make it this one, you wont be disappointed.