The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Ratings237
Average rating4.2
Pulitzer Prize Winner, 2001
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.
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This is a lovely (not an adjective I use, but most appropriate I can think of), satisfying book. There are parts I didn't like as much (I was uninterested in the narration of comics stories, but there wasn't too much of that), but to not give this 5 stars just feels disingenuous.
Loved the first half, but it gradually became a little too far fetched, domestic, and reflective. Some of the themes were also quite tired, but the comic-related content evoked a wonderful nostalgia.
I know, I know, it won the Pulitzer. And there were parts of the book I absolutely adored. HOWEVER, I think it could have been a hundred pages shorter with some incisive editing, and that would have kept me turning pages like mad, instead of what actually happened, which was that I'd get really into it for a couple chapters, and then get lost in a comic book tangent. But that's just me. Overall, entertaining.
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