Book Review: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

I have to admit, I had somewhat low expectations for this book. It had been recommended to me with rave reviews, but it seemed, based on the description, to be a dry read. I had expected a story about how two kids came up with a comic book and ran with it, but what I got was a page turner that took me from Prague to New York, to Antarctica, and places in between. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay didn’t only chronicle the lives of two Jewish cousins and how they achieved success in the comic book industry (although success for whom is certainly a question raised) but also the motivation behind their enterprise.

I don’t even know if I should start by discussing the story, which begins with the unlikely and unimaginable attempt to rescue the Jewish idol Golem out of Prague, which is soon to become an Nazi ghetto, or on the psychological motivators that made a one time magic/escape artist student a comic book artist. Josef Kavalier grows from a young man aspiring to be an escape artist to a troubled man who fights Nazis in the pages of comic books and gets in fights with Germans where ever he can find them. He changes throughout the book, but not necessarily for the better. His goals are to rescue his family, but after a tragic accident he leaves the family he has created in New York with his cousin Sam and girlfriend/would-be-fiancé Rosa to join the military.

His partner in crime started out as a young man with a dream of being an illustrator. He had a portfolio full of his own drawings and introduced Joe to his first Superman comic book the day after his cousin arrived. Together they pitched their idea and got started in the comic book industry. Sam discovered that he was better at coming up with the stories than drawing. Sam realized that for a superhero to “work” the reader had to know “why” they were fighting crime (much like “why” the reader of the book must know “why” Joe and Sam were so insistant that their character fight the Nazis). His story isn’t as complex out right as his cousin’s, but he deals with other tender issues of the time. Not only is he Jewish but also gay, and later he deals with that and having to take on the responsibility that Joe left behind.

The story highlights some very interesting psychological issues like Joe’s survivor’s guilt and Sam’s insecurity with his sexuality during a time that was much less tolerant towards anything different. Joe and Sam pose their main character, The Escapist, fighting the Nazis as a surrogate for Joe’s need to save his family from the ghettos of Prague. Joe takes his aggression out on anyone who even seems like an enemy, rather than actually get to know anyone. When his one chance to save his brother is met with a tragic accident, he leaves Sam and a pregnant Rosa behind.

The main theme though is escapism, not just in the overt aspects: Joe being trained as an escape artist or their main character being “The Escapist”, escaping with the Golem out of Prague. It’s in the less obvious aspects also that this theme is prevalent. Sam’s need to escape the mediocrity his life is doomed to become, to escape from reality into the world of comic books, and an escape from his feelings for men. Joe wanted to escape from the preconceived notions of what comic books could be and wanted to make it art, he wanted to escape from responsibility, and from his feelings of loss and remorse.

By the end I was so emotionally invested in the characters that I didn’t want to stop reading. At points in the middle I wanted to take one or two of them and shake them to their senses. This is a living, breathing book, and at its core, it is an escape to be sure. The story has a lot of heart, and while the characters are far from perfect they are relatable; as a reader you understand their feelings and motivations even if you’ve never experienced them yourself. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is a modern classic, let there be no doubt about it. If all of that fails to win you over, like any good comic book story, it has a cameo appearance by Stan Lee.

“It was a caterpillar scheme–a dream of fabulous escape–that had ultimately carried Josef Kavalier across Asia and the Pacific to his cousin’s narrow bed on Ocean Avenue.”

Kelly Melcher