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The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Audiobook26 hours

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Written by Michael Chabon

Narrated by David Colacci

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

4.5/5

()

About this audiobook

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE

The beloved, award-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, a Michael Chabon masterwork, is the American epic of two boy geniuses named Joe Kavalier and Sammy Clay. Now with special bonus material by Michael Chabon.

A “towering, swash-buckling thrill of a book” (Newsweek), hailed as Chabon’s “magnum opus” (The New York Review of Books), The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a triumph of originality, imagination, and storytelling, an exuberant, irresistible novel that begins in New York City in 1939. 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.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize

Winner of the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award and the New York Society Library Book Award

Named one of the 10 Best Books of the Decade by Entertainment Weekly

Editor's Note

Modern classic…

Chabon’s magnum opus blends comics, Jewish lore, and American history to create a page-turning, smart, and deeply enjoyable novel that's been hailed by critics and readers as a modern classic.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateJun 12, 2012
ISBN9781469216423
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Author

Michael Chabon

Michael Chabon is the bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Moonglow and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, among many others. He lives in Berkeley, California with his wife, the novelist Ayelet Waldman, and their children.

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Reviews for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Rating: 4.403553299492386 out of 5 stars
4.5/5

394 ratings242 reviews

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Masterful use of language. The outstanding narration. Factual historic foundation. This novel is coherently rambling through about a decade of time, from life of Jews in Germany through WWII, to the Kefauver witch hunt of the supposedly corrupting influence of youth morals in the hands of the comic book creators.

    The narrator is amazingly adept at creating distinct voices; I never wondered which character was speaking.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Incredible, like it's fantastic characters, it felt fresh and deep, full of 'action', full of fabulous adventure and drama, but also full of depth, comedy and history.
    Excellent!!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    tried reading this two separate times over the years - because of its awards, because the era and story seemed intriguing. Couldn't get very far either time. Finally I got it as an audio book and was able to listen to the whole thing. Still, it never "grabbed" me. But at least I heard the whole story.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A fun read that evokes comic books stories well with brightly colored descriptions, heroes, evil-doers, and phenomenal adventures, also mixed with real-world problems such as racism, homophobia, corporate greed, and personal failure. It was a fun book, but I think it needed a bit of editing because it felt too long at times. A great book will never *feel* too long.

    Another complaint I had was that you need a dictionary to read this book because the author uses some crazy obscure vocabulary sometimes. And I'm talking words I've never seen in all my years of reading elite/classic literary works. Maybe it was intentional, to make the novel more colorful and alien to the reader, but there were times it felt forced.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This fantastic book of Chabon is a historic tableau and the coming to age of story of two cousins in New York. Bu first and foremost it's a love letter to the comics and its American golden age. It's a must for everyone!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Great, liked it a lot, and it had loads of great story asides that I liked! It was an amazing world to be in and very accurate!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I started over on the book. This time it flowed. I think I had to work up to Chabon (I read Yiddish Policemen's Union between tries on K&C). But how can you write this many pages about comic books without a picture or two? Huh, how could you? I guess if you think you are that good a writer, you can.

    Now for the old review written after my first aborted start.
    Sometimes a book can be too clever. I was hit over the head so many times by page two hundred I had to take a break.

    Words never slowed from this guy. I felt myself drowning when the flow got too strong. I wanted to go on, but grabbed for the side of the book and climbed out to catch my breath.

    Furthemore, he wrote yet another Nazi book. I thought that no more were possible. But it will be the year 3000 before we get them out of our system.

    I keep hoping that someone will focus on post-WW2 and maybe even post-Vietnam, or better yet post Wall, and focus on the world as it is screwed up today. But I only find the current event books. And worse yet, the ghost bios of wanabe leaders and pundits. I'll keep looking.

    If you see anything, let me know.

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Wonderful, dense writing, efficient use of language. A captivating and fanciful story set in the thirties centering on two best friends obsessed with the idea of super-hero comics.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    When you read a novel by Michael Chabon, you feel all the astounded awe of a new attraction to someone: the stirrings of possibility and excitement, and the appreciation that you, amazingly enough, can still experience such an elevation of your senses.“The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,” a story by Michael Chabon set in the golden age of comic books, is dedicated to the author’s father. And in many ways, this Pulitzer Prize winning novel is all about fathers and sons.But paternity is only one ingredient of this Jewish cholent, an irresistible slow-cooking stew in which whatever you have is thrown into the pot. Imagine opening the lid to this stew and having your senses assailed by Chabon’s rhapsodic symphony of New York life in the 30’s: clarinet wails of war and loss, glissandos from hope to resignation and back, the warm intonations of family and love, and “the trumpeting of foghorns and melancholy steamships” under a sky that is “a bright superman blue” and “cloudless but for one lost lamb overhead.”You could also think of this book as the adult’s “In the Night Kitchen” - the magical escape fantasy for children - drawn in chiaroscuro with a Gershwin soundtrack and a libretto that harkens back to Henry Roth and James Joyce. And the film credits? Orson Welles, of course, who inspires Sammy and Joe to think outside the confines of the comic strip box, and to let the free-falling flight of their dreams guide the expression of their talent.It is a story about pupas with caterpillar dreams trapped in cocoons; of metamorphosis and escape; of comic books – that “marketplace of ten-cent dreams” by which boys could transfigure their insecurities, deformities, and weaknesses; of magicians and illusions; of golems (a Hebrew concept of men of clay who perform like men of steel when the world needs saving); of the impotency of real men in the face of evil; and above all, of the redemptive and liberating power of love.In 1939, 19-year-old Josef Kavalier arrived from Prague at the New York home of his cousin, Sammy Klayman (note the sly reference to the clay man or golem), age 17. Joe’s family sacrificed everything to get just one member out from under the Nazi juggernaut. But Joe lived with survivor’s guilt, which hung like a dense heavy cloud over his life and threatened an outburst whenever he felt a spark of life or love.Thus Joe, “remote and dreamy,” spends his life trying to find “atonement, retribution, or deliverance.” Joe and Sam set out to vanquish the Nazis in the only way they can, by summoning their own golem “formed of black lines and the four-color dots of the lithographer.” Thus is borne the comic superhero “The Escapist.”Simultaneously, Joe begins a relationship with Rosa Luxemburg Saks, whom he meets while demonstrating his own escapist skills he learned as an apprentice to an apprentice of Houdini back in Prague.Sammy takes up with the aptly named Tracy Bacon – a tall, beautiful blond male who plays The Escapist on the radio and who is “the world’s largest piece of trayf” (a word meaning “not kosher”). The lyricism of Chabon is always lying in wait for a chance at love. When Sammy and Tracy are exploring the inside of the defunct and abandoned Perisphere (part of the 1939 New York World’s Fair), which housed the gears and pulleys that controlled the motion, sound, and lighting of the futuristic exhibits, Sammy burned his fingers on the lighter he used to light the darkness. “They lay there for a few seconds, in the dark, in the future, with Sammy’s sore fingertips in Tracy Bacon’s mouth, listening to the fabulous clockwork of their hearts and lungs, and loving each other.”Sammy and Joe go to work in the Empire State Building, which is also a recurring symbol in the book. It embodies transformation itself, from a gigantic shard of limestone to an engineering triumph that then becomes an enduring representation of progress, hopes, and dreams. It serves as the focus of the fictional icons of popular culture: it is from the top of its spire that King Kong reached his apotheosis before his doom; it is from its lofty heights that diverse superheros spotted evil and took off to save Gotham or Metropolis, and in the book, it is from its rooftop that Joe is poised and ready to “fly” to save his soul (while onlookers shout, in Chabon’s parody of Superman, “It’s a stunt! It’s a gimmick! It’s a great big pain in the ass!”) [Chabon is also referencing in multiple ways the old rumor that Jerry Siegel, disenfranchised co-creator of Superman, was going to jump off the Empire State Building.]As the boys grow into men, they find they must eschew their old “caterpillar dreams.” Sammy “allowed the world to wind him in the final set of chains, and climbed, once and for all, into the cabinet of mysteries that was the life of an ordinary man.” Joe sought to hide from the world, “immured, by fear and its majordomo, habit.”Sammy’s marriage, the result of his attempt to escape from his own homosexuality, has a “locked cabinet at the heart of things.” His relationship with his wife was “…a modest structure, never intended for extended habitation, long since buried under heavy brambles of indebtedness and choked in the ivy of frustration and blame.”Joe tries once again to fashion a golem. But it is only love that can spring him from the chains he had wrapped around his life. And love he does find, embodied in soft skin that “invited the touch of his fingers as painfully as the nap of velvet or the shimmer of a piece of watered silk.”Chabon begins this book with an exuberant outpouring of the “wild tufts in his mind.” By the end, these disparate plot lines are “comb(ed) out into regular plaits” and we can see glittering markers leading to his tour de force “The Yiddish Policeman’s Union.”I read the end of this book on an airplane. As I taxied to the floodgates of the story, I forced myself to stop reading and defer the ending to a quieter moment, when perhaps I could enjoy “a cup of tea from an elaborate plummeting tea service,” as The Escapist imagined that he did, while flying through the air.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    [Kavalier and Clay] would have rated Five Stars if it was not for that hideous and unneeded scene where Kavalier allows his loyal dog to be shotfor no reason: if the dog had not existed, another solution would have been found. This makes unbearable reading and shows a betrayal of the character's heart and ethics.The otherwise strong, if way too lengthy backstories, plot veers into a caricature of a comic strip with Tommy's letter, Joe's Jump, the silly investigation, and Sammy's departure.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is a stunning achievement. The plot and diction are worthy of Dickens but the sensibility is entirely that of the 21st century. After two readings, this novel is firmly placed in my top five list (along with Tom Jones, Bleak House, The French Lieutenant's Woman and 100 Years of Solitude). Like much of Chabon's work it has a strong gay theme, so be warned. The kiss is a moment of sheer magic.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Fantastic. Worthy of every award received. ??. My faves: phenomenal writing, UNIQUE storyline (so rare these days), Chabon NAILS human nature and capturing it in writing. I listened to audiobook….EXCELLENT voice actor.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I admit I wasn't aware of the existence of a Pulitzer Price for Fiction. I also admit that I am one of those stubborn people that refuse to read/listen to best sellers, just because you know: "This world sucks. This world likes this book. Therefore, this book might as well suck". And to be honest, this strategy of mine has protected my eyes and ears of various junk through the years. But sometimes...I was attracted to Michael Chabon and more specifically The Yiddish Policemen's Union due to its chess theme and the nice reviews it got from members of librarything. Then, those same people - even in this forgotten thread of mine - gave the thumbs up for this magnus-opus of Chabon's, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay .Chabon weaves an amazing story which starts with an escape from the nazi-striken Prague of a talented jewish kid destined to become one of the most important artist of American's golden superhero comic age, takes us through the World War II and this youngster's vain attempts to take revenge for his lost family - a mother held in the concentration camps and a brother at the bottom of the Atlantic, his "boat of hope" torpedoed by one of Third Reich's submarines - and ends with this man's return to normal life and New York, a hermit unable to find the proper way to reapproach his son, his son's mother and his cousin and ex-partner who live under the same roof in the suburbs.Entrepreneurship, mass-media, surrealism, a country which is about to transform from a Depression-stricken mess to world's number one superpower, the paradox of two military camps in Antarctica which on the verge of destruction by the cruel polar nature are obliged to exterminate one another, homosexuality and comics. While leafing through this 600-page-plus masterpiece world-changing events took place. A lethal earthquake that hit one of world's most advanced societies, the Arab World rising against its tormentors, the world's most frighting military machine bombing a country to "liberate" it from a dictator. One wonders if a Chabon of the future will ever be able to write a story about these events. A story with such a touch of genius.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Moderately entertaining but not the masterpiece you'd think from reading the reviews on Amazon. I was expecting rather more in the way of a cultural analysis of early US comic books.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    An impressive and epic. The thing about this story is how the main characters, in spite of being just regular flawed human beings, become the super heroes they spend a major part of their lives creating.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A breathtaking story of two young Jewish boys who create a famous comic book hero, not unlike the story of Siegel and Shuster.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Sam Clayman is a bit annoyed when his cousin from the old country, Josef Kavalier, shows up one night unannounced (at least to him). However, when he sees Joe's talent as an artist, his apprehension disappears and an idea sparks in Sam's head. Finally, he can make the comic books he's dreamed of. So begins the adventures of Kavalier and Clay and the Escapist...This was a fantastic book. It really sucks you in right from the start. Chabon's talent as a writer is immense. Every sentence is gorgeous but subtly so. I didn't feel hit over the head like you sometimes can with authors ("look at my sentences, aren't they glorious???") - everything just flowed nicely and fit together well and was wonderfully written. The characters are brilliant as well. There was not a one that I felt was lacking. They were all interesting and well-developed and vivid. I think my favorite thing about the book was how seamlessly the story of Kavalier and Clay fit into actual history. I love when authors are able to insert real people and events without making it feel hokey or like a ploy. That ability is something I greatly admire. Chabon clearly did his research prior to writing this novel because every juxtaposition of fact and fiction seems effortless. I will definitely read more by Chabon. A book incredibly deserving of its Pulitzer.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Fantastic, imaginative, compelling!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I am always fascinated by the accomplishments of the Jewish people. I knew that they have achieved much in the fields of science, business, finance, the film world. As a boy I was a great fan of Marvel comic books. Through this work of fiction I learnt that here too, in the world of comics, Jewish creative genius has been the driving force. A great story.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This marvelous novel by Michael Chabon tells the story of two Jewish city boys, one from Prague, the other from New York, whose lives are intertwined by the catastrophe of the Second World War and the holocaust. Their teenage angst, helplessness and alienation is channeled into drawing mighty superheroes who fight the Nazis in their place in comic books (eagerly bought by teenagers seeking to escape from their dull lives). The odd pair, somewhat modelled on the inventors of Superman, have to escape from their inner and outer demons. Kavalier and Clay are allocated space in proportion of the length of their name. I wish Clay's story were more fleshed out beyond his sidekick status (One could discuss the symbolic value of his droping the -mann/man part of his name). The two love interests are also not fully developed.The strength of the novel is its layered exposition of the themes of confinement and escape, the voluntary and involuntary bonds that link, enable, preserve and constrict the social connections of modern man. Breaking free of the "iron cage" (a favorite terminus in sociology) liberates and isolates. The superhero in his or her otherness is often an admired loner (sitting in a fortress of solitude without a soulmate) who pays a price for his or her escape from common man. The limiting and constraining bonds of life constitute an all too comfortable prison (Kant: "Through laziness and cowardice a large part of mankind, even after nature has freed them from alien guidance, gladly remain immature."). The joys of being Clark Kent!These individual struggles are set in convincing portraits of Jewish family life in Prague and New York (very few non-Jewish characters); the slow, lethal constriction and extinction of Jewish life in Europe matched by US hostility and bureaucratic restriction to Jewish immigration; an introduction to magic and escape artists; a history of the evolution of comic books, superheroes and their writers; as well as a convincing and fair account of the 1940s (late Great Depression, WWII) to the 1960s (McCarthy).Extremely recommended. To learn more about the creators of the Man of Steel read also "Men Of Tomorrow".
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    According to my records, I received this book as a Christmas present back in 2008. I’d read Chabon’s multi-award-winning The Yiddish Policemen’s Union that year, and thought it good. So I’m a little surprised it’s taken me nearly nine years to get around to The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. Maybe I was put off by its size – 643 pages in this paperback edition. And, to be honest, the history of comics, or fiction about early comics history, doesn’t really interest me. Which is a shame, because The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is actually really good, much better in fact than The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. The eponymous duo are not comicbook superheroes but the creators of a comicbook superhero, The Escapist, who is as successful as Superman during the 1930s and 1940s. But The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is also about Jews in New York – particularly when Europe was fighting WWII – and American Nazis, and Kavalier’s family back in Prague after the country was invaded by Germany… It’s also about stage magic – Kavalier is an amateur magician and escapologist – and real magic – the story opens with a plot to move the Golem from Prague – and broken dreams – Clay’s great love is the actor who plays The Escapist first on radio then in a film serial, but Clay chooses a “normal” life instead. I’m not entirely convinced by Chabon’s prose. There are occasions when it seems over-egged – actually, most of the time it seems over-egged. Although it’s always very readable. A prose stylist, he is not. But the story he tells is completely engrossing (okay, the whole Golem plot-thread was completely unnecessary). Such as Kavalier’s war service in Antarctica – a completely bizarre detour, but entertaining and interesting. I don’t get the comicbook history elements – or rather, while they come across as convincing, they don’t seem like plausible precursors of the comics I read as a child in the 1970s. But then, back then, I read US comics infrequently, and UK comics followed the anthology model – either WWII-set, or comical (as in Beano and Dandy). Do you know how weird it was for a British kid of the 1970s to read a comic that contained only a single strip and it wasn’t even complete? Which I guess seems like an odd aspect to notice, given the other elements in the novel. But I have no equivalent experience in those areas and am more than willing to accept the authority of Chabon’s narrative. Which all sounds a bit like cavilling, when I don’t mean it to. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay was really very good indeed, and any infelicities in the prose style were offset by the novel’s breadth and depth. Recommended.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    What a lovely ride. Fascinating from start to finish, even if you don't read comic books!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I have to admit I came to this book from an odd recommendation... I was watching an interview with an actor I follow, they asked him if he had a blank check what would he make a movie of, he said this book. As he is a highly intelligent actor, I became curious, what was in this book that could make that good of a movie?

    There are minor spoilers below:
    Well, wow. Mr. Chabon didn't set himself a small task with this book at all. To tell the story of a young man who'd lost everything to the Nazi Occupation, because he was a Jew. And the story of the birth of Super hero comics and how they grew and became popular before and during the war... OH yes, and how about throw in to tell the story of what it's like to be a homosexual man during the 40's trying to come to grips with who you are...

    This book has almost *too* much going on, but somehow you never lose track of the humanity of the people within it. They are all so very, very real. Completely fleshed out. Somehow, even the "Escapist" character that is created for the comics by the two cousins is very real--despite being a creation of the author's creations.

    A very excellent and thought provoking book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    One of the few books I bought as a direct result of all-the-hype and still really enjoyed reading it. Really an excellent read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A bit to get through in the beginning but well worth it - a fantastic story - I wish there was an actual comic of the characters though.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    If I got to use decimal points, I'd probably put this at a 3.75 but I don't so it's a four. Chabon has a amazing ability to set a story in a world that no one else would think to. And his characters are always so well written.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I'm not really sure what to say about this one. I liked it. I can see maybe why it won the Pulitzer Prize. I really never have liked Pulitzer Prize winners much. Chabon's writing is engaging and stimulating and way over my head. The characters were enchanting and charming and slipped right through my fingers like a good magician. The historical side of the comic book industry was fascinating and alluring. And surely there must have been a point to including it that I somehow missed. The writing style was complex, swift, confusing at times, and quite witty. And I'm still not sure what was based on fact and what was pure drivel. I loved it, hated it, wanted to stop reading it, fell back in love with it, and am glad I read it -- and am relieved to be done!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    If you can only read one book out of this list, this is the one. It clearly demonstrates that Pulitzer Prizes aren't just little CrackerJack(tm) prizes handed out willy nilly. It is deeply touching, wonderfully written, and has characters you really really care about. Just a fantastic book all around.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Wow, I've never read a book which contained characters who were so dedicated to being miserable.Kavalier and Clay are two young visionaries who create a comic book together during the golden age of comics during World War 2. I won't go into detail but both of them seem to take every opportunity to make themselves miserable. I have no problem with sad books or flawed characters, but I quickly lost patience with the seemingly unreasoning decisions of the central actors.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    An amazing book: tender, true, funny, profound.