Book Reviews of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Now that I've finally read Kavalier & Clay, I'm astonished that it took me three tries to make it past the first few chapters. Press on, dear readers! This book is one of the most rewarding reads of the year for me. The characters are fascinating. And the story is part adventure, part historical fiction, part love story...and every twist and turn made me want to read more. Truly one of those books that I was sad to finish.

This book started out slow for me and was hard to get into, but around page 100 it really took off. I ended up absolutely loving the book!
One of the reviews on the back cover really hit on what I think is the strong point - highly developed characters. Chabon crafts them to the point they seem like people you've known all your life.

Engaging coming of age story that won the Pulitzer. Some of the prose is a little drawn out - Chabon seems to sometimes lose sight of the big picture in my opinion, and writes and writes and writes. Overall the novel is extremely well put together, and things ultimately come full circle. The writing in this book, while often verbose, is still enjoyable and beautiful. Great story about the beginnings of the comic book industry, and about the effects of WWII on a Jewish immigrant from Czechoslovakia. I think that the beginning of the novel is great - it builds you up, but it doesn't exactly deliver in the end. I was very glad to have read this book, but felt a little disappointed when I had finished it - not that it was finished - but the way that he chose to do so.

This book is amazing. Chabon's spellbinding story follows two unique characters throughout the ups and downs of fulfilling the American dream. The characters are unforgettable, the writing phenomenal, and the story one you'll not easily forget. Once you're done, you'll want to start right over.

This is a really beautiful book. It is epic, character-driven, historically fascinating, and generally lovely. The metaphors and language are amazing. It is, like most reviewers have said, hard to get into at first. I'm an English teacher, and frankly, a lot of the vocabulary is difficult and not very "conversational." You might need a dictionary to follow in some places. However, it is totally worth pushing past some of the inaccessible language. The way Chabon weaves character storylines and moves between past and present is quite special.

I've got to say, I was disappointed. In fact, this brings the lifetime total of books that I've simply lost interest in and not finished to about 10. The early chapters were promising (funny and eventful), but about halfway through it just seemed to run out of steam. I liked the basic premise, but about halfway through, simply got bored. Wonder Boys (by the same author) was a much more compelling read for me.

Just an amazing adventure of a book - and so thoroughly smart and touching and strange in addition to being a gripping story that I would recommend it to the most discerning reader.

A great read. The author draws upon the fears of two young men as they draw from the darkness in each of their lives to create adventure through comic books. Adventurous. Great work demonstrating the angst of personal torture, while remaining entertaining at the same time.

"NEWS FLASH:" Korean American female, age 30, reads "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" and now wants to be Kavalier or Clay!! Convinces Polish American female, age 52 with 3 children, to read "The Amazing Adventure of Kavalier and Clay." Now reads comic books.

A copy of this book had been sitting around at work for a while now, so since it had been in my consciousness, I noticed when I saw a copy of it at my brother's house as well. I asked about it, and my brother highly recommended it - and plus it won the Pulitzer prize - so I thought I'd read it too!
It's about two Jewish cousins who meet in New York in the lead-up to WWII, and start in the business of comic books together. Throughout the book, their comics and superhero characters reflect on and illuminate the young men's concerns and dreams - fighting against Nazis and other evils, being father figures, objects of desire, and/or totems of wish-fulfillment.
It's well-done, well-researched, and gives insight into various aspects of life circa 1940's NYC, the Jewish Experience, and all that good literary-type stuff.
It starts very light-heartedly, gets much more serious, and finally, I thought, ended rather abruptly - which was my only complaint with the book.

Very well-written, involving characters, interesting story.

Good story. I like the way Chabon describes things.....he's one of those authors who knows how to use the English language to it's fullest. He also did a lot of research for this story.....much of the sotry that took place in Antarctica is based on fact.

I cannot begin to describe this book. It pulls you in - and you'll never want to leave. You may struggle a bit at the start...but then you'll be hooked.

Brilliant, clever, absorbing tale of two boys who wanted to write comic books....and so much more!

Excellent multi-layered story, holocast bits intertwined.

Solid, some parts were a bit drawn out, others, esp later, seemed
to jump too far ahead too quickly. Overlook these two small glitches and you have an enchanting tale of friendship, superheroes, war, and adventure.

I just could not get into this book even though it was highly recommended by a family friend who usually recommends books I love. I'm sending it off to someone else who will hopefully like it having not finished it myself.

Amazon.com
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 and even hand-to-hand Antarctic battle, it pursues the most important questions of love and war, dreams and art, across pages brimming 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 equalizer 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 epicenter of comics' golden age.

But Joe Kavalier is driven by motives far more complex than your average hack. In fact, his first act as a comic-book artist is to deal Hitler a very literal blow. (The cover of the first issue shows the Escapist delivering "an immortal haymaker" onto the Führer's realistically bloody jaw.) In subsequent years, the Escapist and his superhero allies take on the evil Iron Chain and their leader Attila Haxoff--their battles drawn with an intensity that grows more disturbing as Joe's efforts to rescue his family fail. He's fighting their war with brush and ink, Joe thinks, and the idea sustains him long enough to meet the beautiful Rosa Saks, a surrealist artist and surprisingly retrograde muse. But when even that fiction fails him, Joe performs an escape of his own, leaving Rosa and Sammy to pick up the pieces in some increasingly wrong-headed ways.

More amazing adventures follow--but reader, why spoil the fun? 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 aging 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, in other words, of a world gone completely mad. Comic-book critics, Joe notices, dwell on "the pernicious effect, on young minds, of satisfying the desire to escape. As if there could be any more noble or necessary service in life." Indeed. --Mary Park

Enjoyed the book, I just felt the ending was flat and anti climatic considering the scope of the book's adventures.

This was a good book. It was a very interesting story but I admit it was a little "beyond" me at points and I skipped a few pages here and there. A great read though for anyone that likes comics.

i just read this and really really enjoyed it! i really loved the characters!

Pulitzer prize-winning story of a comic artist and new immigrant to New York City, and his cousin. The two men start a comic book and as the popularity of their comic grows, their lives, romances, and opportunities grow as well.

It has been awhile since I read this one - but I enjoyed the book. It is very quirky - great use of language. An intelligent read.

Really fun and creative.

Pulitzer Prize winning tale that starts with magician Joe Kavalier's harrowing escape from wartime Prague, to his cousin Sammy Klayman's house in New York. The two boys eventually create a comic book hero, "The Escapist". Complex and ambitious. Chabon also wrote "Wonder Boys."

Great read!

This was an assigned novel for my Advanced Placement English class over my Junior summer break. The Amazing Adventures is witty, dark, and insightful. Just like me.

Pulitzer Prize winning novel. Finalist in almost every other prominate book award. Unusual, imaginative, bit fanciful. Story grounded in the days when comics were entertainment for nearly everyone.

Awesome book!

Alas, did not read. Don't know how I acquired it. It's got a Pulitzer from 2000. That's all I know.

An excellent read. The main characters and their comic portraits are brilliantly portrayed.

A young Jewish artist who escapes Nazi-invaded Prague, and his Brooklyn cousin create heroes, stories and art for the latest novelty to hit America--comic books. An unforgettable story about American romance and possibility. A Pulitzer Prize winner.

Ranges widely but never wildly--an engrossing American adventure.

Pulitzer Prize winning book about two cousins in World War II America. Combines elements of magic, loss, comic books, love. Very well written.

<< Back to Book Details of " The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier Clay"