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| Saturday, October 4, 2008 01:29 PM |
| Book Report - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay |
 by Fëanor |
For a while now, as I was going about my life, this book just kept coming up. It would get mentioned, or recommended to me. And I even ended up with a volume of the comic book that's based on the fictional comics imagined within the book. What with its comic book connection, and its constant appearances in my life, it became clear that I had to read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. So I started working my way through it a number of months ago, and recently finally finished.
The book starts out in the late 1930s, and takes its time explaining how Josef Kavalier, a Jew from Prague, managed to escape Europe and come to live with his cousin Sammy Klayman in America. In Prague, Joe studied art at a prestigious art school, and escapism with a famous practitioner of the art. The old magician helped secure Joe's escape by packing him in a box with a Golem and shipping him across Europe. It's a surreal, magical, and beautiful story, fraught with meaning and metaphor, and the book will continue in that vein throughout.
Joe is a gifted artist, his cousin Sam less so, but Sam does have a knack with words and story ideas. He's also a huge fan of an increasingly popular piece of popular culture: the comic book. Always on the lookout for the crazy scheme that will help him make it big, Sam sees a big opportunity here: with Joe's artistic skills, Sam's writing, and both their imaginations, they can put together the next Superman, produce the comic book for the novelty company Sam works for, and become rich men. They convince Sam's boss it's an idea worth taking a chance on, pull together a group of other neighborhood kids with the right talents, and work their asses off putting out their first book, Amazing Midget Radio Comics, featuring the adventures of Sam and Joe's very own Superman, the Escapist. The Escapist is the master of elusion, keeper of the golden key, and champion of liberty across the world. He is also the special enemy of the Nazis, and Joe is able to fight back against those terrible villains by drawing the Escapist defeating them.
The Escapist is a huge and immediate hit. The book rockets to stardom, and although Joe and Sam don't make as much money off of it as they could have, as they signed their ownership of the idea away early on for very little money, they still manage to pull in a pretty impressive amount of cash. But Joe is increasingly unhappy with his imaginary war against the Germans, and longs to strike some real blows against the people who have imprisoned his family across the sea. He begins a pointless and foolish war against the Germans of New York, picking a fight with anybody he meets who speaks the language. Luckily, before things get totally out of hand, he meets someone who turns him around: a beautiful, smart, unique, artistic young woman named Rosa Saks. Things seem to be going well. Except that Joe's family, including his little brother, is still trapped over in Europe, and the Nazis have begun their rampage. But Rosa's father is paying to have children shipped out of Europe and taken to safety in America, so Joe arranges for his brother to be included on the voyage. Meanwhile, Sam is coming to realize he's homosexual, after having met and fallen for Tracy Bacon, the actor playing the Escapist in the radio program. Everything seems to be going the right way for both of them when, on the eve of America's entrance into WWII, it all goes horribly wrong. A tragic incident convinces Joe to enlist in the armed forces in a vain quest for revenge, and a shameful incident splits Sam from Tracy, and from the truth about himself. They walk away from their happiness and from what's right for them, and spend years in misery. But finally they all come back together, realize where their true happiness lies, and set off to seek it.
When I first heard about the book, it sounded to me like Kavalier & Clay were going to be stand-ins for Shuster and Siegel, the creators of Superman. But Shuster, Siegel, and their creation, as well as many other real historical personalities, actually appear as themselves in the story. So Kavalier & Clay aren't really stand-ins for anybody in particular, although their story does resemble in many ways the stories of other comic book creators, including Shuster and Siegel. In fact, through them and their lives, Chabon is telling the history of the Golden Age of comics, starting shortly after the creation of Superman and going all the way through to the Kefauver comic book hearings. Their work changes with the times, reflecting what was going on in comic books throughout history.
It's no mistake, either, that their original and most popular creation is The Escapist. The book is all about the concept of escape in all its forms. Sometimes those escapes are negative - as when Joe runs from his life and his love and his happiness to chase after an impossible revenge fantasy - but other times they are good. In fact, Joe himself offers an impassioned defense of comic books and escapist literature in general near the end of the novel, pointing out that anything that can give us respite for a few moments from the bad things in life is worth its weight in gold.
I really enjoyed the references to comic books, comic book history, and comic book personalities throughout the book. But you don't have to be a comic book nerd to enjoy the novel. It's very much about the things that all great novels are about: art and love and war and life and people. It's a beautifully written book - Chabon has an incredible skill with words and metaphor. He can blow your mind with a sudden, throwaway phrase that perfectly nails some true fact of life you've perhaps never even thought about until that moment.
In short, it's a fantastic novel, and I highly recommend it. |
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