Michael Chabon is a freakishly awesome writer. And Kavalier and Clay is kinda cool too.

It took me about ten years to get around to reading this book. Mainly because when it was published I was twelve years old and not very sophisti-ma-cated in my reading taste. So it feels slightly redundant to only just now be reviewing the Pulitzer Prize winning novel of epic proportions.

And epic doesn’t only apply to the nearly 700 pages containing said Amazing Adventures. The story itself spans decades, from the moment cousin Joe makes his great Prague-ian escape to New York, with his cousin Sam Clayman, to post-war New York, long after Joe and Sam have gone their separate ways and forged new lives.

I love that it’s about two cousins who take on the world with their Nazi-busting comic creation, The Escapist. I love that it’s based on the guys that created Superman. And I love that it’s tragic and full of metaphors concerning Joe Kavalier’s obsession with magicianship and escape artistry. Joe is enigmatic and distant: Despite the tragedies that befall him one relentlessly, he is difficult to sympathise with. Perhaps due to his stoicism.

People rave about this book, but to be honest *hides behind desk*, I just don’t get it. I mean, it’s a marvellous story, and it injects a little humour into those dark days of Hitler and it’s heartbreaking. Maybe it’s because other than them being cousins, I couldn’t really see a relationship between Joe and Sam. They fit together in as much as Joe was a fantastic artist, and Sam was a master storyteller, and together the comics they made were just what the young boys of their generation needed. But that was it. Maybe it’s a male thing – close bonds are defined by what’s not said, rather than what’s said. Also, there was an impression of Sam’s marrying Rosa that felt a little like he was keeping the seat warm, so to speak.

Joe and Sam’s eventual reunion should have been all the more sweeter considering all the years that passed of Joe’s most triumphant disappearing act since he left Prague. But it all felt so matter of fact. Chabon’s beautifully constructed sentences render his writing a separate entity to the story itself. The best writing is the writing that becomes part of the story.

Sentences/paragraphs that sounded pretty impressive:

“His eyes were pink and glittering from the dope, he was thickly covered in a reddish pelt of reindeer fur from his sleeping bag, and he stand more than any human Joe had ever smelled (though there would come worse), as if he had been dipped in some ungodly confection of Camembert and rancid gasoline brewed up in a spit-filled cuspidor.” (p458-9)

Or

“Boyfriend. The word flew into Sammy’s mind and careened blindly around it like a moth while Sammy chased after it with a broom in one hand and a handbook of lepidoptery in the other. It sounded like a wise-crack, acidulous, hard-bitten, italicised.” (p572)

I didn’t hate the book. Far from it. Maybe it was just hyped up too much and I was expecting to be moved by the story. No, it was more like appreciating a party from the outside: You smile along and get that it’s really awesome, but you’re not in there celebrating with everyone. I dunno, that’s a dumb analogy.

There are people out there who love this book: Show yourselves, defend it, tell me how off the mark I was. ^_^