Scooter Chronicles

Sometime last week I finished reading “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” by Michael Chabon. It was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2001. It was the 6th Pulitzer winner I have read.

I actually had two copies of this book. I read THIS edition, though originally bought THIS edition first. While in Michigan for the holidays I went to a used book store and found the copy that I read. It’s a popular book and since it was cheap, I figured I could offered on PaperBackSwap, the book trading site where I am a member. (Before this post was finished and posted, I got the request for it and sent it off to the member that asked for it.)

From Booklist via Amazon.Com, here is most of Donna Seaman’s review for a description:

… revels in the crass yet inventive and comforting world of comic-book superheroes, those masked men with mysterious powers who were born in the wake of the Great Depression and who carried their fans through the horrors of war with the guarantee that good always triumphs over evil. In a luxuriant narrative that is jubilant and purposeful, graceful and complex, hilarious and enrapturing, Chabon chronicles the fantastic adventures of two Jewish cousins, one American, one Czech. It’s 1939 and Brooklynite Sammy Klayman dreams of making it big in the nascent world of comic books. Joseph Kavalier has never seen a comic book, but he is an accomplished artist versed in the “autoliberation” techniques of his hero, Harry Houdini. He effects a great (and surreal) escape from the Nazis, arrives in New York, and joins forces with Sammy. They rapidly create the Escapist, the first of many superheroes emblematic of their temperaments and predicaments, and attain phenomenal success. But Joe, tormented by guilt and grief for his lost family, abruptly joins the navy, abandoning Sammy, their work, and his lover, the marvelous artist and free spirit Rosa, who, unbeknownst to him, is carrying his child.

I honestly didn’t really know much at all about the going into it. I just knew that Kavalier and Clay has something to do with the comic book industry and that the Empire State Building played a part in the story. Chabon’s reputation and the awards the book won (other then the Pulitzer), I just couldn’t pass up the idea of reading it.

One of the blurbs on the back of the edition I read was from Newsweek which finished by saying, “… characters so tightly developed they could walk off the page.” My brother-in-law David said pretty much the same thing when talking to me about it at one point. (Not sure if he has read it or not.) Now, it seems like a grand statement to make. And you know what? It’s pretty darn close. All of the characters, even the minor ones, are very realistic. They make mistakes, they don’t think things through, the have deep seeded emotions and some are built through the book due to events that happen to them. And most important of all, they are endearing, even through their faults.

This is a long book. The edition I read was 636 pages, with small typeface. If I had a job, I would probably only be halfway through this sucker. I would say that this comes across like a big time sweeping epic. What is great is that it doesn’t read like one. It’s fast paced. It really is! Other big epic novels I have read, even though they are just breathtaking reads have times when things flounder a bit and get slow. There is much to be built for the characters to be loved as much as they are and to fill in the blanks needed as the story goes on. But Chabon does here with such deftness it is camouflaged into something that reads more like a comedic-drama.

Michael Chabon

Maybe it’s because of the comic book aspect, it adds a playfulness to the proceedings. Along with this and other humor, it takes away the pretentiousness it could have had. Even when the book turns to the grim world of the Holocaust, it’s not preaching. It’s telling the story that needs to be told. It’s easy to be lost in Joe’s pain and the uncertainty that people faced at that time. It’s also easy to see how he loses himself in his work and how it becomes the outlet to this pain.

I think the reader gets to see more of the inside of the stereotype that is too often heard about those of the Jewish faith. Especially those within the business world. Even though this story plays out between 1938 and 1954, these issues are still poignant. I may have missed much in the commentary too, not knowing any better. But there is so much to this novel that you may miss bits as you go through it. And yet, like I said, it really moves in speed and moves emotionally.

There is also much going on within Sammy, and the stereotypes it could pose. I don’t want to give it away since it would probably be more considered a spoiler. It unfolds over a long period of time. Joe’s pain of escaping and dealing with his parents and brother left in the grip of Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia is up front. But Sammy is much more complex then Joe, and that’s not to say that Joe isn’t either.

Chabon’s storytelling skills are top notch. This is the first book of Chabon’s that I have read, and have a few others sitting on the pile to be read. His prose is thick at times. His descriptions are very meticulous at times, too. How it works as his story plays out though give it more room to breathe. At times it did seem stuffy, with never ending sentences every once in a while, with a host of commas that, at times, made you forget the original point at the start of the sentence. However, it still flowed very well and helped things move along very smoothly and quickly.

I have admired all the Pulitzer Prize winning novels I have read in some way or another. “The Road” affected me probably more then any of them due to the two lead characters and my position and feelings about life. But when it comes to the total package of social commentary, family drama, life’s humorous moments, the inner turmoil we all experience, and other attributes that I either don’t wish to put here, can’t think of at the moment, or missed within the pages, “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” tops them all.