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Amazon.co.uk Review
Suffice to say, Michael Chabon writes novels like the Escapist busts locks. Previous books such as The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Wonder Boys have prose of equal shimmer and wit, and yet here he seems to have finally found a canvas big enough for his gifts. The whole enterprise seems animated by love: for his alternately deluded, damaged and painfully sincere characters; for the quirks and curious innocence of tough-talking wartime New York; and, above all, for comics themselves, "the inspirations and lucubrations of five hundred ageing boys dreaming as hard as they could". Far from negating such pleasures, the Holocaust's presence in the novel only makes them more pressing. Art, if not capable of actually fighting evil, can at least offer a gesture of defiance and hope--a way out of a world gone completely mad. --Mary Park, Amazon.com
Review
‘Dazzling. Chabon has not so much attempted the great American novel as brought to life the idea that it had already been written – week by week, in the humble heroism of the comic book.' Independent
‘An adventure story that keeps you up until 4am with the bedside lamp on, eager to learn if the Escapist, and Chabon himself, can free the enslaved and lead them home.' Observer
‘This is one of those books that makes the reader want to race through to the find out what happens, while at the same time wishing it will never end.’ Simon Shaw, Mail on Sunday
‘Proof of the abiding power of complex, serious, engaged, but above all entertaining story-telling.' Times Literary Supplement
'A page-turning epic, sketching World War II as seen through the eyes of two comic book writers.' Time Out
'A novel of towering achievement.' New York Times
'Absolutely gosh-wow, super-colossal.' Washington Post
'An exciting, emotional, exuberant delight. Read it.' Chicago Tribune
'Full of the kind of exquisitely figurative language and gorgeous sentences for which Chabon is deservedly celebrated.' The Inquirer
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IN LATER YEARS, holding forth to an interviewer or to an audience of aging fans at a comic book convention, Sam Clay liked to declare, apropos of his and Joe Kavalier's greatest creation, that back when he was a boy, sealed and hog-tied inside the airtight vessel known as Brooklyn, New York, he had been haunted by dreams of Harry Houdini. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt
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Customer Reviews
What differentiates this from other historical american novelists such as Bellow or Roth is it's magical, child-like merging of the fantasy world of the comic book with the real horrors of the holocaust. Whereas for someone like Bellow this is always there but often unsaid or unspeakable, popping up in the cracks of modern relationships (think of Herzog), here it is more explicitly dealt with, the comic book world becoming a less than subtly metaphor for world events overtaking them.
I relished the way pre-war America was evoked via comic books - the half-stolen, half original plots and superheroes, the tawdry relationship between sponsorship and 'art' etc . . . I also enjoyed the sheer scope of the novel's abmitions - covering the horrors of anti-semitism, exile, warfare, suppressed homesexuality and what makes a 'family'. This shows great breadth of research, and my only complaint is that at times this can be worn a little heavily - the potted histories of the comic book industry did however make me hungry to find out more about this archetypical slice of 20th Century American history. Furthermore, this historical and geographical leaping about can lead to the narrative being over-reliant on the fantastic coincidence to tie things together. For the most part however Chabron pulls this off, perhaps because he makes us fundamentally care about the characters in the first place.
Finally, this book did what all my favourite books have done - that is to have left me caring enough about the characters to miss them when they were gone and wanting to know that, after all they have been through, Sammy, Joe and Rosa (and little Tommy) will live the happy, somewhat less eventful but contented lives they deserve.
There are great bits in amongst it all, but searching out those special sentences that make you look away from the page, is - and the gardening metaphor ends here - like searching for blooms in a thicket. The first half tries hard to set the pace, but is hampered by conversations between friends and associates that slow it down, being mundane and neither particularly interesting nor especially amusing. In places, you could skip pages and have missed nothing. Armistead Maupin dialogue it is not; if it was music, you might call it note-spinning.
There is a curious middle section that sticks out like a sore thumb: the bit about Antarctica that feels like a completely different piece, re-worked to make it fit but really a chunk of stand-alone writing that would have made a decent novella or long short story. When we get back to the characters after the War, some of the drive has gone. The Escapist has escaped yet again, but by that time it has perhaps happened once too often and even the author has tired of telling us how it was done. To my mind, the set piece of the-bungee-jump-that-wasn't is robbed of drama by the lengthy reminiscence that interrupts it. If this had been the theatre the audience would have been going, "Get on with it!".
The reconciliation between Sammy, Rosa and Joe is touching, but perhaps a little too pat. The conversations are designedly workaday, but then a lot of the conversations in the novel have been like that. I wanted the author finally to roll up his sleeves and reach into the guts of his characters. Another reviewer comments on the lack of authenticity in Joe's loss of his brother, and the same is true for Sammy's marriage to Rosa - we are told that it never worked, and we know why, but we are never really and truly made to feel the hollowness. We anticipate that Joe will stage a come-back but his re-appearance does not startle - it does not grip. I am sure another reviewer has said - probably about another of Michael Chabon's books (and I paraphrase) - "He never uses one word when several will do," and I know what he means.
All in all, despite my churlish criticisms, this is a valiant effort with plenty of engaging characters and a great main idea. But I can't get away from it: "Kavalier and Clay" with a red pen - shorter, punchier, and just that little bit deeper; now there would be a great book.
No brief summary of the action, however, can begin to convey the depth and scope of this imaginative and original novel. Chabon manages never to lose sight of the Nazi menace while putting it into completely new contexts, including magic, superheroes, Houdini-like escapes, golems, and comic book characters, and ranging from Prague to New York and Antarctica (a section that could have used some pruning). It is a novel of huge scope--and it is hugely entertaining! Mary Whipple
Sad to say that while it certainly was different, it was not the book I'd... Read more
My problem with it is the pace, which just crawls along at long intervals, eventually I gave... Read more
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