Book Review
The first time I read the book I’ve chosen for this month’s Book Club Pick, my children, then 12 and 9, were out of school for Christmas vacation. I had taken the week off from work to be with them, but that didn’t stop me from being secretly thrilled when they left one day to play at their friends’ houses.
One glorious day to myself!
I had errands to run, a house to clean, an endless to-do list. Oh, what I couldn’t get done with a whole day stretching ahead of me!
They kissed me goodbye as I lingered in bed. Then, eight hours later, as the sky darkened outside my window, I heard them come barreling back into the house, wondering aloud, “Where’s Mom?”
Where indeed.
Mom was in the middle of the 1940s. She was in Manhattan and Prague and the icy snow dunes of Antarctica. She was thrilling to the exploits of superheroes and star-crossed lovers across continents and chasms … Oh, yeah, did I also mention that Mom was still in her pajamas, in bed?
I had made the fatal error of picking up Michael Chabon’s novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (Picador, $15) after the kids had left, and by nightfall, I was so far into the story that even the sounds of those two rabble-rousers barely pulled me out of my reverie.
You never forget a book that sucks you in that completely, which is why I’m recommending Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning story for this month’s pick. I read it over a few winter days many years ago, but in truth, I think it’s the perfect summer read: What could be better, as the heat begins to slow the days down to a crawl, than a completely engrossing saga of epic sweep, all built around a topic only a baby boomer could love: the heyday of pulp comic books?
Grab a spot in the shade and lay in provisions. You won’t be moving for hours.
The story revolves around two cousins, Sammy Clay and Josef Kavalier. Sammy is a short Jewish kid with spindly legs crippled by polio. He has grown up with his mother, Ethel, in a humble flat in Brooklyn, spinning a million grandiose scenarios of success for himself.
Meanwhile, cousin Josef has come of age in Prague, a serious teen of a sophisticated background. He has studied classical art as well as Houdini-esque escape techniques from a master illusionist.
As it turns out, those aren’t bad skills for a kid to have as the Nazi threat slowly closes in on Prague and, with his family’s blessing and the last of their money to bribe Czech officials, Josef sets out for America to live with Ethel and Sammy. Despite the bribe money, Josef is forced to smuggle himself out of the country. He eventually arrives at his aunt’s door and starts a life that will forever be haunted by the memory of the family he left behind.
This subplot makes for supreme heartache as the story evolves. But in the meantime, there is much fun to be had as Chabon throws the two cousins together – Sammy with his wild enthusiasm for spinning tales and Joseph with his fine artistic skills. Soon enough, the two have paired up to create a comic book hero. Dressed in midnight blue, a skeleton key emblem on his chest, The Escapist is a superhuman escape artist. “No cuffs can hold him,” explains Sammy. “No lock is secure” as he comes to the aid “of those who languish in
tyranny’s chains!”
The Escapist unlocks the hearts of comic-book readers and sells in the millions. Meanwhile, it’s no small irony that Sammy and Joseph find themselves chained to the man who funded the venture and who owns all the rights to their creation.
Like the muscles on The Incredible Hulk, the story bulges with exquisite details of the era. Chabon seems to have learned and gloried in everything from this period of American history, and you get the distinct sense that he has a trunk or two stashed away, filled to the brim with well-thumbed comic books from his youth. On the flip side, his human characters are anything but superheroes. They are living, breathing souls, each dealing with their own flaws in utterly believable ways. It’s the perfect marriage of fantasy and reality, all wrapped in prose so highly polished that it gleams.
That said, I admit – but only reluctantly – that Kavalier & Clay won’t be for everyone. Chabon can’t seem to resist going off on tangents (splendid tangents, if you ask me!), and the Internet is filled with readers whining that the author is too wordy. Well, sure. I guess it’s fair to say that a book of 600-plus pages is wordy. But come on, Amazon reviewers, get a grip! Those are some words! This is a master craftsman at the height of his powers. I can get wordy myself just thinking about it. And the words that come to my mind are: Whammo! Zowie! Zounds!
I urge you to give this book a try. If nothing else, it’s a great excuse to stay in bed all day. Draw the drapes, cough a little to feign illness and tell the kids you’ll see them when their father has dinner on the table.
Hey, even superhero moms deserve a book break now and then.
Discussion questions:
What do you feel was the significance of the Golem? How did it play into the superhero theme?
How does Chabon handle the idea of history and the tension between what actually happens and how it’s recorded?
What does the book have to say about the creative process when it intersects with commercialism? Discuss Sammy and Josef’s frustrations and the ways in which their lives mirror and/or inspire their art.
Discuss how the theme of escape runs throughout the novel. What is each of Chabon’s characters hoping to escape? Is this generally a healthy impulse or destructive?
Whom do you side with more, Sammy and Josef or their employer, Sheldon Aanapol? Why?
Is the ending satisfying? How do you imagine these lives as they play out in the future?
Do you feel Chabon should have trimmed his story? Or did you revel in his word prowess the way I did?