The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
I’ve heard tons about Chabon and this week at the library I just happened to see this book and picked it up. I’m not sure how I feel about it though. I kind of feel like this book had multiple personalities or something.
First of all, my summary. Kavalier and Clay are cousins living in New York City. Josef Kavalier has newly escaped from Prague where he had to smuggle himself out of the country. (He’s Jewish and it’s 1939.) His cousin Sammy Clay happens to see some of his drawings and immediately decides that they are going to draw/write a comic book together. And that’s pretty much what it’s about.
I loved the first half of this book. The imagery was amazing. I could see the pages they were drawing and I felt totally immersed in the comic book world or superheros and secret identities. It was so fun! And the story was entertaining and flowing well. But then something happened. The whole story changed. And I just realized something as I was typing that sentence… The world changed (and with it the comic book world) and that’s when the whole feel of the story changed too. So, although I still didn’t like it after that, I guess I can respect what he did and why. It makes so much sense now!
Anyway, the story was really long and although I enjoyed it, it wasn’t a book that I couldn’t put down. I sometimes even had to make myself pick it up again. I felt that it was almost a tedious read at times. (The book is over 600 pages of tiny print – there’s a lot of material there!) And the ending was kind of disappointing. The way the story was told I was expecting a nice tidy ending to bring everything together but it wasn’t that kind of ending. And although I can enjoy a book like that, I just wasn’t expecting it here and it kind of threw me off. The whole book I got the sense that something big was going to happen at the end and then nothing did. I’m not sure what gave me this idea and I think I would have enjoyed the book more if I hadn’t been expecting some big ending.
I definitely will try reading another book by Chabon because I loved the writing. And I would recommend this book but just with a warning about the kind of book it actually is!
Tags: Michael Chabon