1 member(s) found this review helpful.
7/8/08 I find myself surrounded by heroes: on television, in the movies and the heroes that Chabon invents are in every way super. Josef Kavalier is a Czech 19 year old trained as a magician and escape artist who in October of 1938 comes to live with his cousin in Brooklyn Sammy Clay. Sammy, raised on optimism and comic books convinces his bosses at a novelty toy company to let he and Joe and his friends draw the comic book hero the Escapist.
“A costumed hero whose power would be that of impossible and perpetual escape… He offers the hope of liberation and the promise of freedom.”
In the Escapist, Joe and Sammy create a character who they and their audience believe could change the world. In drawing and writing him they transform themselves. Joe falls in love with Rosa, Sam falls in love guiltily with Bacon, the first actor to play the Escapist on radio. And they have various other adventures, as befits comic book heroes.
“Having lost his mother, father, brother, and grandfather, the friends and foes of his youth, his beloved teacher Bernard Kornblum, his city, his history -- his home-- the usual charge leveled against comic book, that they offered merely an easy escape from reality, seemed to Joe actually a powerful argument on their behalf. He had escaped, in his life, from ropes, chains, boxes, bags, and crates, from handcuffs and shackles, from countries and regimes, from the arms of a woman who loved him, from crashed airplanes and an opiate addiction and from an entire continent intent on causing his death. The escape from reality was, he felt -- especially right after the war -- a worthy challenge.”
“A costumed hero whose power would be that of impossible and perpetual escape… He offers the hope of liberation and the promise of freedom.”
In the Escapist, Joe and Sammy create a character who they and their audience believe could change the world. In drawing and writing him they transform themselves. Joe falls in love with Rosa, Sam falls in love guiltily with Bacon, the first actor to play the Escapist on radio. And they have various other adventures, as befits comic book heroes.
“Having lost his mother, father, brother, and grandfather, the friends and foes of his youth, his beloved teacher Bernard Kornblum, his city, his history -- his home-- the usual charge leveled against comic book, that they offered merely an easy escape from reality, seemed to Joe actually a powerful argument on their behalf. He had escaped, in his life, from ropes, chains, boxes, bags, and crates, from handcuffs and shackles, from countries and regimes, from the arms of a woman who loved him, from crashed airplanes and an opiate addiction and from an entire continent intent on causing his death. The escape from reality was, he felt -- especially right after the war -- a worthy challenge.”
1 member(s) found this review helpful.
Multi-layered story involving the birth of comic books, the comic book wars, and two cousins (one who escaped from Prague) during WW II, in NYC. I'm looking forward to his next book.
1 member(s) found this review helpful.
This is one of my top ten favorite books ...
what a fantastic storyteller Mr. Chabon is!
You will especially love it if you are from NYC
and enjoy World War II era novels.
what a fantastic storyteller Mr. Chabon is!
You will especially love it if you are from NYC
and enjoy World War II era novels.