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The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

by Michael Chabon

Other authors: See the other authors section.

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingConversations / Mentions
18,468409247 (4.21)1 / 761
Fiction. Thriller. Historical Fiction. Humor (Fiction.) HTML:WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE ? NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ? The epic, beloved novel of two boy geniuses dreaming up superheroes in New York??s Golden Age of comics, now with special bonus material by the author??soon to be a Showtime limited series
 
??It's absolutely gosh-wow, super-colossal??smart, funny, and a continual pleasure to read.???The Washington Post Book World
 
Named one of the 10 Best Books of the Decade by Entertainment Weekly ? Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize

A ??towering, swash-buckling thrill of a book? (Newsweek), hailed as Chabon??s ??magnum opus? (The New York Review of Books), The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a triumph of originality, imagination, and storytelling, an exuberant, irresistible novel that begins in New York City in 1939.
 
A young escape artist and budding magician named Joe Kavalier arrives on the doorstep of his cousin, Sammy Clay. While the long shadow of Hitler falls across Europe, America is happily in thrall to the Golden Age of comic books, and in a distant corner of Brooklyn, Sammy is looking for a way to cash in on the craze. He finds the ideal partner in the aloof, artistically gifted Joe, and together they embark on an adventure that takes them deep into the heart of Manhattan, and the heart of old-fashioned American ambition. From the shared fears, dreams, and desires of two teenage boys, they spin comic book tales of the heroic, fascist-fighting Escapist and the beautiful, mysterious Luna Moth, otherworldly mistress of the night. Climbing from the streets of Brooklyn to the top of the Empire State Building, Joe and Sammy carve out lives, and careers, as vivid as cyan and magenta ink.
 
Spanning continents and eras, this superb book by one of America??s finest writers remains one of the defining novels of our modern American age.
 
Winner of the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award and… (more)
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  1. 184
    The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon (Pagemistress)
  2. 122
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  3. 71
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  4. 71
    The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America by David Hajdu (legxleg, questionablepotato)
    legxleg: The Ten-Cent Plague is a nonfiction book about the crackdown on the morality of comics that the characters of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay are so affected by.
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  6. 31
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  7. 31
    The Escapists by Michael Chabon (WomensSeqArtLibrary)
    WomensSeqArtLibrary: Companion book about group of young artistic friends trying to re-imagine the Escapist for the 21st century, by one of the hottest comic book writers of our age.
  8. 20
    Lily Renée, Escape Artist: From Holocaust Survivor to Comic Book Pioneer by Trina Robbins (WomensSeqArtLibrary)
    WomensSeqArtLibrary: A graphic biography for younger readers about a real-life Kavalier; the true story of a young Jewish woman who escaped Nazi-occupied Vienna and became a legendary comic book artist
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  16. 45
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▾Member reviews
English (399)  Spanish (4)  German (2)  Dutch (2)  French (2)  Swedish (1)  All languages (410)
date ▼ | votes
Showing 1-5 of 399 (next | show all)
I'm more than twenty years late to the party for Michael Chabon's hefty novel about the origins and heyday of comic books. THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY won him the Pulitzer, and well-deserved for such a dense, ambitious project about two dissimilar friends (and cousins) who created a memorial superhero for the comics in "The Escapist." They are Jewish, of course, as Chabon's characters usually are, and this is especially important as the story begins before the U.S. enters WWII, and continues through the war years and into the post-war Eisenhower years. So the tragedy of the Holocaust looms large in the background. It is also very much about male friendships and homophobia, another frequent theme in Chabon's fiction. (This is my fourth Chanon.) The book has already been read and reviewed thousands of times, so I will pretty much stop here, although I should probably confess that I almost gave up on it a few times in the first three hundred pages, as it seemed to drag here and there. But once I passed that halfway point (in its six hundred-plus pages), it suddenly picked up speed and began rolling downhill like a runway train. Enuf said. Good book, Mr Chabon. Very highly recommended.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER ( )
  TimBazzett | Sep 20, 2023 |
I keep thinking that a five star review is supposed to be reserved for a 'perfect' book. I wanted Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize-winning "Kavalier and Clay" to be such a thing. And for a while I thought it might be. Alas, there is no such thing as a perfect book. This might not be the 'Great American Novel'. But it still deserves five stars.

It deserves five stars for its rich prose, distinct characters, vivid settings, and strong story. That's not to say that we haven't seen similar characters and settings and themes before. But Chabon weaves them together in a way that sweeps up the reader and carries them along such that the pages simply fly by (most of the time). There's not only the pair of journeys from boy to man, including the classic loss of innocence. There are also the journeys from urban to suburban, from child to parent, and peace to war to peace.

It's not a perfect book. There are quite a few spots where the narrative loses focus and seems to get off track. It sags a bit in the middle. It's also lacking in universal appeal. It is definitely a male book, about manly pursuits and male bonding. There are few women and they are only there to illuminate the men in the story. But these are only minor quibbles.

This is a great book and highly recommended. ( )
  zot79 | Aug 20, 2023 |
This book creeped up on me. It started slow and I kept dropping it to read something else. Then it gradually became mind-blowingly terrific. Chabon uses language in a way that is approachable, witty and literate. It's rare to find a book that is both fun and as full of imagery and symbolism as Kavalier and Clay. The 630 pages are filled with Chabon's unique voice on reality, escapism, narrative, imagination and family.

Of course, my typical Chabon comments still stand -- after reading a Chabon novel, I always feel as if it was written just for me to address things uniquely about my life. And I feel like Chabon is one of my closest friends, whom I know better than anyone else in the world. The universal popularity of Kavalier and Clay should disabuse me of these notions, but this is truly Chabon's unique gift.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is an unparalleled work. ( )
  settingshadow | Aug 19, 2023 |
You might need to read it with a dictionary, Yiddish dictionary, and Wikipedia in order to get everything - I know I did.

( )
  blueskygreentrees | Jul 30, 2023 |
I've both read some heard amazing things about The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier And Clay and it turns out they were true. It's an amazing book. I was tempted to give it 5 stars but it did suffer from a pretty slow start. But once things got rolling it was quite a ride ! ( )
  kevinkevbo | Jul 14, 2023 |
date ▼ | votes
Showing 1-5 of 399 (next | show all)
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▾Published reviews
It's like a graphic novel inked in words and starring the author himself in the lead role: Wonder Boy.
added by ty1997 | editEntertainment Weekly, Troy Patterson (Sep 29, 2000)
 
This is definitely New York, the old-school version. In the fusion of dashing young men in fresh new $12 suits, the smell of newsprint and burned coffee and laundry, and the courage to face unrelenting evil with pluck and humor, Chabon has created an important work, a version of the 20th century both thrillingly recognizable and all his own.
added by ty1997 | editsalon.com, Amy Benfer (Sep 28, 2000)
 
Although suffused with tragedy, ''The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay'' proves to be a comic epic, generously optimistic about the human struggle for personal liberation.
added by Shortride | editThe New York Times Book Review, Ken Kalfus (Sep 24, 2000)
 
With ''The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,'' Mr. Chabon has fashioned a big, ripe, excitingly imaginative novel and set it in the world of his grandfather, a New York City typographer at a plant where comics were printed... In loving if sometimes windy detail, since his great book is buried inside a larger and more meandering one, the prodigiously talented author of ''Wonder Boys'' leads readers into the world of Sam and Joe's pop collaboration.
added by Shortride | editThe New York Times, Janet Maslin (Sep 21, 2000)
 
Chabon is a genius --- there is no other way to describe his ability to blend Hitler, comic books, brotherhood, first love, fame and the pitfalls of celebrity, Brooklyn Jewish home life, the European struggle against the Third Reich, America's growing prosperity, and good-looking women who use their smarts and their curves to get ahead in the world together in such a cohesive, complete story.
added by ty1997 | editbookreporter.com, Jana Siciliano
 
▾Other authors

» Add other authors (21 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Chabon, Michael—primary authorall editionsconfirmed
Baardman, GerdaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Colacci, DavidNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
▾Series and work relationships
▾Awards and Honors

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▾Common Knowledge
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Canonical title
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Original title
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Alternative titles
Original publication date
2000-09-19
People/Characters
Joe Kavalier (Josef Kavalier)
Sam Clay (Sammy Klayman)
Rosa Saks (Rose Saxon)
Tracy Bacon
Sheldon P. Anapol
Important places
New York, New York, USA
Antarctica
Prague, Czech Republic
Empire State Building, New York, New York, USA
Brooklyn, New York, New York, USA
Important events
World War II (1939 | 1945)
Holocaust (1939 | 1945)
Kefauver Senate Hearings (1950 | 1951)
Related movies
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (in-development | IMDb)
Awards and honors
Pulitzer Prize (2001.1 | Fiction, 2001)
New York Times bestseller (Fiction, 2001)
Gaylactic Spectrum Shortlist (Novel, 2001)
Pajiba's Best Books of the Generation (2007, No 02)
National Book Critics Circle Award finalist (Fiction, 2000)
Epigraph
We have this history of impossible solutions for insoluble problems
--Will Eisner, in conversation
Wonderful escape!
--Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Wakefield"
Dedication
To my father
The Gabrielov Family
First words
In later years, holding forth to an interviewer or to an audience of aging fans at a comic book convention, Sam Clay liked to declare, apropos of his and Joe Kavalier's greatest creation, that back when he was a boy, sealed and hog-tied inside the airtight vessel known as Brooklyn, New York, he had been haunted by dreams of Harry Houdini.
Quotations
"We have the idea that our hearts, once broken, scar over with an indestructible tissue that prevents their ever breaking again in quite the same place."
"The true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of the things it contained to vanish, to become so thoroughly lost that they might never have existed in the first place."
It was a mark of how fucked-up and broken was the world - the reality - that had swallowed his home and his family that such a feat of escape, by no means easy to pull off, should remain so universally despised.
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
Full title (2000): The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay : a novel / Michael Chabon.
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Original language
English
Canonical DDC/MDS
813.54
Canonical LCC
PS3553.H15
▾References

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (1)

▾Book descriptions
Fiction. Thriller. Historical Fiction. Humor (Fiction.) HTML:WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE ? NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ? The epic, beloved novel of two boy geniuses dreaming up superheroes in New York??s Golden Age of comics, now with special bonus material by the author??soon to be a Showtime limited series
 
??It's absolutely gosh-wow, super-colossal??smart, funny, and a continual pleasure to read.???The Washington Post Book World
 
Named one of the 10 Best Books of the Decade by Entertainment Weekly ? Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize

A ??towering, swash-buckling thrill of a book? (Newsweek), hailed as Chabon??s ??magnum opus? (The New York Review of Books), The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a triumph of originality, imagination, and storytelling, an exuberant, irresistible novel that begins in New York City in 1939.
 
A young escape artist and budding magician named Joe Kavalier arrives on the doorstep of his cousin, Sammy Clay. While the long shadow of Hitler falls across Europe, America is happily in thrall to the Golden Age of comic books, and in a distant corner of Brooklyn, Sammy is looking for a way to cash in on the craze. He finds the ideal partner in the aloof, artistically gifted Joe, and together they embark on an adventure that takes them deep into the heart of Manhattan, and the heart of old-fashioned American ambition. From the shared fears, dreams, and desires of two teenage boys, they spin comic book tales of the heroic, fascist-fighting Escapist and the beautiful, mysterious Luna Moth, otherworldly mistress of the night. Climbing from the streets of Brooklyn to the top of the Empire State Building, Joe and Sammy carve out lives, and careers, as vivid as cyan and magenta ink.
 
Spanning continents and eras, this superb book by one of America??s finest writers remains one of the defining novels of our modern American age.
 
Winner of the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award and
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Book description
The novel follows the lives of the title characters, a Czech artist named Joe Kavalier and a Brooklyn-born writer named Sam Clay—both Jewish—before, during, and after World War II. Kavalier and Clay become major figures in the nascent comics industry during its "Golden Age."
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Genres

Melvil Decimal System (DDC)

813.54Literature › English (North America) › American fiction › 20th Century › 1945-1999

LC Classification

PS3553.H15Language and Literature › American literature › American literature › Individual authors › 1961-

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