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| The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier Clay | 
 enlarge | Author: Michael Chabon
Publisher: Picador
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy New: $3.98
You Save: $11.02 (73%)
Buy New/Used/Collectible from $3.98
Avg. Customer Rating:  (598 reviews)
Sales Rank: 1468
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 656
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.3
ISBN: 0312282990
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780312282998
ASIN: 0312282990
Publication Date: August 25, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Personal favorite of all time August 25, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I am grateful to the friend who recommended this; it is now my favorite book of all time. It combines subjects of interest to me particularly: Jewish immigrants on the Lower East Side, the Holocaust, family relations, romance,br /and the history of comic books. It is very well written and quite clever. The characters are clearly delineated and are fascinating. Some people complained the words were too long or the book should have been shorter:br /Why? It was great just the way it was.
Shazam - Genius - an Encyclopedia of how men love. August 24, 2007
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
It's been years since I've been as powerfully affected by a novel as I have been by Michael Chabon's Kavalier Clay. Chabon is a virtuoso. The book is full of discrete vignettes, distinct and perfect as cut gemstones. Riveting, humorous, human, and thematically consistent and resonant - these scenes mesh and build and reflect with dazzling skill. When I first picked it up I couldn't understand - "Pulitzer Prize for a book about a couple of kids who write comic books?" Having read it - now I know. Chabon's amazing skill vividly illuminates New York city of the 30s and 40s and evokes the vanished world of immigrant Jews, the birth of comic books, the horror of the holocaust, as well as delineates the aching expanses of the human heart. Chabon's ability to situate you in place and time is astonishing - as his ability to make characters with depth and penetrating realism. Part of this incredible ability to project depth is his eye for detail. Just like "Moby Dick" teaches you tangentially about whaling and nineteenth century nautical technology this book schools you in such diverse subjects as Golems, Antarctic exploration, shortwave radio, magician's culture, locks, escape tricks, Prague, comic book culture lore, surrealist art, New York geography and culture and the 1939 world's fair. It's larger than life - but feels incredibly real. br /br /But far more than detail - this book's heart is about the many different ways men love; from moving mountains to fulfill a promise, all the way to casual rape. We see men loving family, women, men, art, a dog, a son, men loving pieces of equipment (particularly one loving a radio and another an airplane), etc... We see the stupidity and the wisdom - all the human frailty; and incredible resiliency and strength. It's funny - while reading the focus seems more on the pain - but in the end it's the love and connection that breaks your heart. For all its tragic content, this book is incredibly light and hopeful - and funny. There are a bunch of laugh out loud interludes. This is a wise, human, funny and ultimately kind book.br /br /This is, indeed, a story about a couple of kids who create comic books in the late 30s - but it is far more. It is a story of the American dream; a whiz bang novel worthy of the moniker "Great American Novel". Art, fantasy, love, loss, redemption, and life interweave through this story in a distinctly American way that is beautiful, exhilerating, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting. This book makes me want to live - and more than any book in recent memory, this book makes want to write. I only wish I could write with this kind of verve and skill. I give this book my highest recommendation.
 Disappointed in disjointed unemotional novel August 11, 2007
13 out of 24 found this review helpful
I'd read one other book by Chabon, Summerland, and so I came to this book with high expectation. Those expectations were dashed. Though I found the beginning of the book interesting, the story lost steam once Josef reached New York. For me, the trouble with this novel can be summarized as follows: Too much telling, not enough showing. We're constantly told how the characters react and the effect is a bloodless, lifeless novel about characters I wanted to care about but didn't. The overuse of obscure words was not something I felt added anything to the novel other than impresse me with the author's pretensions. br /br /
Fabulous story of two Jewish boys who start their brilliant ... August 7, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
... careers in comic books in the 1940s: an expression of guilt for one who left his family in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. This has it all - humor, history, great characters, golems. Longer review available at my website the Impatient Reader. See My Amazon profile for URL.
Powerful August 2, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Chabon clearly demonstrates that he is one of America's finest novelists to date. There were times when I would set this book down, then be afraid to pick it back up, so all engaging were the characters, the setting and the story. Excellent. And what an ending.
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