The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon

If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. One of you yesterday said you were waiting for me to write about something I didn't like. I think that would be a refreshing change of pace, too. Today is not the day, but perhaps tomorrow we can talk about Madame Bovary.

Oh, I saw The Blind Side last night with my aunt, uncle, cousin, and her fiance. Sandra Bullock still doesn't suck at acting, in-movie football games are still kind of boring, and I'm still a way too affected by feel-good stories for my sense of postmodern irony's comfort. Hurrah for the status quo! But one surprise was the noticeable acting talent of Tim McGraw. I'm sure not going to write about football, but if you want to read some stuff about the playoffs, you can go to Andy Watkins' blog. He writes about that kind of thing.

Today's post is about The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, a novel by Michael Chabon. The Kavalier of the title is a Jew escaping from Prague (leaving his poor family behind) directly before the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Nazis; Clay is his streetwise cousin from New York. The novel interweaves questions of Jewish identity, sexual identity, and the duties of nationalism against the rather quirky, but oddly appropriate, history of American super-hero comic books.

Here I'm going to take a side note to repeat an observation I'm hearing a lot lately, which is that superheroes really seem to be an American phenomenon, especially pitted against the backdrop of Europe. Sherlock Holmes is probably about as close as Britain gets to a native superhero, and he sure isn't leaping any tall buildings in a single bound.

The novel is really too long to succinctly summarize, I'm afraid. It's quite fast-paced, however, and includes one of my favorite aspects, which is an immersive experience in a time and place that I'll never experience. The New York of Joe, Sammy, Rosa, and Tracy (who bears the appellation "Bacon"; an amusing image of the forbidden for a Jew's homosexual lover.) is a vibrant, growing place, even in the midst of the crippling depression. Times are tough, but American optimism still rules the day.

One of the more interesting elements of Kavalier and Clay is its recurring imagery of escapism. The two heroes of the novel draw a character called The Escapist, who in an early cover of his comic book run is depicted punching Hitler in the jaw after escaping from being chained into impossible bonds. Kavalier is a trained performing escape artist and escapes from oppression under the Nazis. Later, after seeing Citizen Kane, Kavalier escapes from the limitations of the medium that he works in to create new panel arrangements that explode the genre. Paradoxically, Clay escapes into the confines of heteronormative marriage after a gay party that he's attending is raided by the government. And across the country, both in the world of the novel and in the real world, thousands escape from mundanity and dullness into the bright, paneled world of comic books and Michael Chabon novels.

Chabon's style is pretty good, although there's nothing I'd really call distinctive about it. But his real strength is in his characterization. The characters at the center of the book are well-realized, and even the one-off characters are people you want to know, and some of the peripheral characters are delights. The dry wit of Sheldon Anapol is a particular highlight. And they've all got just a touch of the spectacular about them, a little nod to the comic books that the novel draws upon.

This book was one of the more interesting ones I've read recently, and is one of a small handful that I've re-read. Especially if you want an insightful look into the history of comic books (the hearings about the Code are particularly interesting!), I'd highly suggest a read.

And, as always, if you want to buy a sweet copy, your friends at Amazon can help you with that here.