The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

It dawned on me that I haven't written anything about books for a while now. The reasons range from preoccupied to lazy but mainly because I've been reading the same book for a shocking three weeks now and still haven't even reached the middle. Don't get me wrong, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is a great book but for some reason I'm just never in the mood to read. I'm slipping I know, unemployment is starting to get to me.

Anyway, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is Michael Chabon's magnum opus for which he received the Pulitzer Prize in 2000. It's a historical novel about the golden age of comic books being the 1930s and 1940s. It's a captivating and funny tale about two cousins who create the latest craze in comic land namely The Escapist, the anti-fascist superhero. Their fascinating story is inspired by the lives of real comic book creators like Stan Lee, Will Eisner and Jerry Siegel to name a few. Other important historical characters like Salvador Dali and Orson Welles make cameo appearances adding multiple angles to an already vast and colorful landscape.

Chabon's Jewish heritage is also an important issue in the book. He recently wrote the wonderful The Yiddish Policemen's Union about a fictional Jewish settlement in Alaska during the second world war. As Kavalier and Clay roughly takes place during the same period, the issue once again becomes relevant. On multiple occasions Chabon also tries to make us aware of the impact of Jewish artists and writers in American popular culture.

I have to say I'm definitely not a comic buff but I've heard a lot of great things about this novel and after reading The Yiddish Policemen I was utterly in awe of Chabon's talent, originality and wit. Kavalier and Clay isn't only fun and freakishly informative but exudes a certain nostalgia that makes you want to delve into the inner realms of comic history which I'm planning to do and by the rate I'm going now, I'm probably take my damn sweet time doing it.

Due to the success of his novel and Kavalier and Clay's creation The Escapist, Chabon followed it up with an actual comic and vintage inspired series entitled The Amazing Adventures of The Escapist which I'm actually dying to read. Who would have thought? Maybe they'll make a believer out of me yet?