Nelson Galaxy

I have just finished reading Michael Chabon’s ‘The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay’. This was a birthday gift from Bronte. I had never read any Chabon, but I was aware of his ‘Wonder Boys’ due to the film version of the book. I have to thank Bronte for introducing me to an excellent author, who really knows how to write. His characters, plot and use of language are what writing is all about.

This is an historical World War II era novel, concerning two Jewish cousins who create a popular series of comic books in the early 1940s; the ‘Golden Age’ of the comics industry. Kavalier is a Czech refugee who comes to New York to live with his cousin Clay, both are fans of Harry Houdini and have a shared interest in drawing and story telling.

The cousins come up with the extremely popular character of The Escapist, an anti-fascist superhero. However, they are being exploited by their publisher and receive little of the success they deserve. Kavalier is determined to help his family escape from Nazi-occupied Prague and falls in love with a beautiful bohemian girl, while Clay has difficulty coming to terms with his homosexuality. The story takes in the war and the Kefauver Senate hearings.

The novel attempts to promote the role of Jewish writers and artists, in comic books and all popular American culture. The actions of the two main characters are dictated by the idea of escape, both physically and metaphorically.

The book became a New York Times best seller and won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Chabon:
“I discovered strengths I had hoped that I possessed - the ability to pull off multiple points of view, historical settings, the passage of years - but which had never been tested before.”