Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. This book is unanimously considered, by critics and fans alike, to be Michael Chabon’s best work to this day. Seemingly daunting – with 636 pages – the book is surprisingly an easy and delightful read. Poring over this tome, the reader cannot lift his attention away from the mysticism of golems, the magic of Harry Houdini, the mania of comic books and the marvel of true art. Chapter after chapter, the author treats the readers with action worthy of a pulp fiction movie and a plethora of richly drawn characters—from larger-than-life protagonists to one-of-a-kind comic book superheroes. 

“The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” is a historical novel, sweeping in scale and monumental in proportions. The author sets his novel in the year 1939, at a time when America was in the grips of the Great Depression and when comic books emerged in American pop culture. The book follows the fantastic and amazing adventures of two cousins, Samuel Klayman—an American and a self-described little man, city boy, and Jew—and Josef Kavalier, a Czech trained in the autoliberation techniques of Harry Houdini.

The adventures start in Prague where young Josef Kavalier smuggles himself out of his country in a coffin with a golem. He travels half way across the globe until he reaches his aunt’s home in Brooklyn, New York. Joe meets Sam in his cousin’s cramped bedroom. The fortuitous meeting of this unlikely pair blossoms into a beautiful friendship. So, too, begins a commercial enterprise that is to span several decades. With Sam’s nonpareil genius in plotting and Joe’s training in fine arts, they create The Escapist.

“To all those who toil in the bonds of slavery and the shackles of oppression, he offers the hope of liberation and the promise of freedom! Armed with superb physical and mental training, a crack team of assistants, and ancient wisdom, he roams the globe, performing amazing feats and coming to the aid of those who languish in tyranny’s chains!”

Sam dreams about making it big in the comic book industry. Joe’s motivations, on the other hand, run deeper. Joe wants to bring to America the family that he left in Nazi-ridden Prague. With the real war escalating in his country, Joe fights the violence of war with brush stroke upon forceful brush stroke of his pencil on paper.

For Joe, who sketches panels of feat upon incredible feat of The Escapist against the power-hungry and evil dictator Attila Haxoff, his “hatred is gratified, his cringing fear transmuted into smashing retribution.” Eventually, this only serves as a temporary reprieve for the angsty Joe. He later on effects another great escape. This time, he enlists in the army to relieve the guilt he feels for not saving his family.  

This indomitable pair, Sam and Josef, achieves phenomenal success in the “funny-book” war. The Escapist’s dark blue fabric costume outshines even the luster of Superman’s recognizable red cape. The duo creates an impressive army of superheroes which include The Monitor, Luna Moth and Mighty Molecule.

The book is dotted with pages of prose depicting what we would otherwise see and better appreciate in comic strips. Particularly when the protagonists Sam and Josef, in a bout of creativity, come up with new comic book characters, we see the pages come alive which is attributable to the author’s wit and genius. “‘It’s a bat!’ says a thief. ‘It’s a bird!’ says another. ‘It’s a lady!’ says a third, no fool, starting to run for the door.’“

It is not enough for Chabon to rely on larger-than-life Sam and Josef, who are interesting and talented beyond compare, to provide shimmer to his novel. Chabon populates his novel with comic book icons and luminaries which give it an all-the-more luxuriant feel. Some of these icons are Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Stan Lee, Orson Welles, Eleanor Roosevelt, Roy Lichtenstein, and Salvador Dali. Most of them are good friends of Sam and Josef.

Chabon’s style is truly his own. In some moments, verbose Chabon chalks up sentences in a manner unique, ostentatious and recognizably his. Like an artist whose canvass is but a piece of paper, he writes vividly to project to the readers the world that he creates. And he never runs out of words for it. At once the writer describes the sky as “blue as the ribbon on a prize-winning lamb,” and “blue as a gas flame, with a flickering hint of carbon in the east.” In one instance, Chabon writes this about The Escapist’s arch nemesis, “He runs a damp comb through his thinning colorless hair and shaves his babyish pink face.”

With a background that is familiar as comic books and a plot that is imaginative beyond comprehension, Chabon explores the “themes of escapism, self-discovery and the meaning of art, while simultaneously plumbing the depths of love and magic.” In the end, it is the characters, Sam and Josef, that the readers will fall in love with. And it is through their amazing adventures that the readers will realize it is Sam and Joe, and not their comic book creations, who are the real super-heroes in the novel.