Il sogno è una prigione da cui scappare.

A Chabon piace giocare con il lessico. L'uso delle parole è brillante: neologismi, italianismi, gallicismi, Yiddish. La struttura delle frasi è proustiana: lunghe digressioni, lunghe frasi incapsulate l'una nell'altra. Leggere il romanzo in inglese, per un lettore non madrelingua, è una faticaccia ma è fattibile: la scrittura di Chabon è razionale. Ovvero, le frasi possono essere complesse, ma la chiave interpretativa è a portata di mano, aa differenza di quello che accade nei romanzi di Pynchon. La chiave per capire i periodi di Pynchon non è a portata di mano e chissà dove sia, sempre che esista).
Dopo aver finito il libro, ero sorpreso e pensieroso. Avevo letto di almeno due sogni americani. Il primo è la conquista del successo, impersonato da Joe Kavalier, il geniale disegnatore. Il secondo è farsi una famiglia e vivere in una casa confortevole, in una condizione di comfort e serenità, impersonato da Sammy Clay.
Il problema è che Chabon ama fare brutti scherzi ai suoi personaggi e non lascia che si realizzino i loro sogni facilmente (quante volte è citato Citizen Kane?). Prevedibilmente (per coloro che hanno già letto Chabon) l'autore li mette nella posizione di non essere in grado di godere della realizzazione dei loro sogni. I loro sogni diventano prigioni da cui fuggire, incubi.
Ma questa è una terribile semplificazione, il romanzo è un tomo da 800 pagine e non insiste troppo a lungo sui dolori dei giovani Kavalier e Clay. Tanta roba, tante storie. Inevitabilmente dispersivo, un po' fuori fuoco rispetto a "L'unione dei poliziotti Yiddish".

“The true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of the things it contained to vanish, to become so thoroughly lost, that they might never have existed in the first place”.

It’s taken me over fifteen years to finally getting around to reading this book, considered by friends of mine as a modern classic.

Ambitious in scope, intimate in its small, minute details- it is indeed a very good book that really pours its heart in good old fashioned storytelling and episodes between Joe Kavalier, Sammy Clay and Rosa Saks.

Beginning in Prague, then ending up in 1940s New York, the story of Joe and Sammy’s relationship spans across time and setting where the love of comic books, music, pop culture often shift and become magical allusions themselves.

The spirit of the book rests on its striving to be not only a great American novel, but a great Jewish one. I was tickled that there were passages dedicated to Oscar nominated actor Franchot Tone, best known as one of actress Joan Crawford’s husbands, and as Bette Davis’ co star in the Oscar winning picture, “Dangerous”.

I have read that this book was often compared to that other great classic of comic books and famous allusion to Superman, Jonathan Lethem’s “The Fortress of Solitude”, which had been published in a similar timeframe. Yes both books have lonely young men who are sensitive and longing to be seen and heard, and both have characters that are often finding themselves escaping their anxieties and depression through music and pop art.

I do find that this book was even more ambitious in its intentions than Lethem’s, but for me ambition isn’t everything. I found this book often indulged itself in self parody where Chabon writes sentences in an exaggerated overly showy manner. Also since the novel jumps around various settings and years, it became difficult to keep track of the plot where I had to reread several times to understand its context. I felt Lethem’s novel was more specific in its intent of connecting the intersectionality of gentrification and loneliness.

This one because of its grander scope, left me feeling slightly chilled because I didn’t connect with it as much as others who deem this a true masterpiece. For me, it’s a sprawling almost masterpiece that I suspect, will keep attracting readers.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is one of the more entertaining adventure novels I've read. It is distinctively American, and it is understandable that in attempts to find "the Great American novel", this tends to be a strong contender.

It's a very well researched portrait of New York during the 40s and 50s. It seems in Chabon's work, that in the sprawling metropolis of New York, all of America exists; all of its impulses and instincts and its pathologies and, optimisms and pessimisms. A city that for a large period of time was isolated away from the second world war, yet was deeply entangled in it.

Michael Chabon's pen walks the fine line between over-romanticization of an historical era and cynical deconstruction. What remains is an incredibly sincere but honest portrayal of America and of the war and of the people existing at the time.

★½ Read this novel in 2008. This was my original review:
"As I was reading it, I discovered that I can’t stand Michael Chabon. I cringed at his use of French expressions thrown in here and there to make himself seem wordly—some of them out of context, I might add. The story had all the elements of a great saga but I was too caught up with hating Chabon to enjoy any of it."

*

I don't need to describe the story here nor talk about the literary merits of this novel or lack thereof, since over ten thousand GR reviewers have done so before me. Instead, I'll say why this book didn't work for me and why over a decade later and countless books and novels since in my reading life, it still left a bad impression on me. What prompted this commentary is that someone made a comment today on my much more recent review of Gary Shteyngart's n  Lake Successn, in which I went on quite at length, but to keep it short here, I'll summarize by saying I characterized Shteyngart as a schmuck. It's safe to say I didn't like that book very much either. My commenter added that he's not just a schmuck but a hipster elitist schmuck, which I wholeheartedly agree with, and which prompted me to answer more or less as follows—I've added a few bits for the purpose of this commentary which really can't be called a review, but more of a critique of the author's approach which coloured my whole experience while reading this book:

Hipster Elitists are the worst. I put Michael Chabon in the same category as Gary Shteyngart. I basically hate-read Lake Success towards the end of 2018 the same way I did n  The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clayn. Objectively speaking, Kavalier & Clay was a great story, and I suppose my rating ought to reflect that, but I found the author so pompous that I just. couldn't. stand it. One thing that stood out as a strong indicator of the author's arrogance was his (mis)use of French expressions. To the average American reader, this would have gone completely unnoticed, and that is precisely why I'm so upset with Chabon. He used certain expressions out of context, and I can't see why he'd have done that other than to pepper his text with French to make himself seem more sophisticated, and the sheer fact that he didn't bother to check the accuracy of the context he was using them in, I think, showed a contempt for his readers, whom I suppose he assumed didn't have enough of a grasp of the French language to know the difference.

That is simply the only concrete example I can give, because I felt this arrogance throughout the novel but could not pin it down any other way. Essentially, as I was reading, I was repeatedly offended by Chabon's conceit showing through. For some reason I have this image of a great and very popular opera singer who hasn't learned to hold in her farts. And so she expects her audience to overlook (oversmell?) her stinky farts during her performances because her voice is of such exquisite quality, besides which most people are seated too far from her to notice. And of course such artists will always have hordes of adoring fans, because they are excellent at what they do, and most people do not have a great sense of smell. Or a grasp on foreign languages for that matter. Or particularly care that an intelligent and creative author takes them for fools about details they're not likely to notice anyway. But I care very much. Apart from having been raised in both English and French from the cradle onwards as a typical bilingual Montrealer with mixed heritage.

I didn't make up my mind about Shteyngart with just one book, and so I have every intention of reading another Chabon book... eventually, though admittedly it hasn't exactly been a priority. I'll give him another chance, eventually with The Yiddish Policemen's Union which has long languished on my shelves, and see if I can let my dislike of the author take a backseat to his storytelling abilities. Of course I can't claim I dislike a person I don't know the first thing about, but what I dislike is when their giant egos get so much in the way of the stories they are telling. Here's a Jewish author from a privileged background I love reading any day: Stefan Zweig. Now there's an author who understood the human condition. There is a man of Culture. Of course there's the matter of him being long dead now, but that's a mere detail. I don't know what he would have made of the hipster Jewish authors who probably read him and think of him as a giant of literature nowadays. Shaken his head probably. And killed himself all over again.

Clay meets his cousin Kavalier on an October night in 1939, awakened by his mother with a rap on his head. Make room for your cousin. He has traveled many miles. Both are barely nineteen, when exuberance is matched only by the talk of dreams. Sammy Clay awakes to the reality of Sky City, his comic strip drawing of unreality, swarmed by evil forces of flying demonic baboons and other sinister forces, the added creation of one Josef Kavalier bent over Sammy's table and best pen in hand. ”Sorry, but don't worry. I am an an artist too.”, remarks Joe as he begins to tell Sammy of his escape from Prague and the closing Nazi regime in Europe, leaving his Jewish family behind.


My opening feels inadequate compared to the the richness of description that Chabon puts into this book, from its character personality, to flavor of writing, sorrow, and even humor. So many of the chapters would unexpectedly open as if it were a new book and original direction making me wonder the words, “where could this be going?”, only to make complete sense by its closing pages. These two cousins who become men together are probably the most well-drawn, and thus engaging that I've met since I can't remember when. You'd think that a book about artistry and success, or lack of, would seek to divide them by terms of greed and fame, but that could not be who they are. I suppose that gives something away, but I found the belief in human nature refreshing. It's a long book, but as I neared the end time suddenly felt short. I knew I would miss Kavalier & Clay for some time to come.

The first thing I urge you to do is look beyond the kitchy cover (which actually does have relatability to the book, but cannot be appreciated as such until the book has been read) and the title (which immediately called to mind Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure...and turned me off). Buried within the pages is a story of two WWII era Jewish cousins, one American and one Czech, who become a part of the rising comic book industry with their creation of a superhero The Escapist.

The story is very complicated and takes several unexpected turns. At times, Chabon digresses into other stories, stories written for the imaginary comic books being created by his characters. At times, the story itself takes a left hand turn when you are expecting a right and it throws you across the car seat and makes you wish you had buckled your safety belt. For the most part, it is fun and interesting.

I wanted to feel more personally connected to the characters than I did, but they often seemed to be cutouts from a cartoon strip themselves. I did feel for the overall situation in which Josef found himself. Who would not feel a genuine sadness for anyone who might find himself separated from family, helpless to save those left behind, and waiting to hear the most horrible details of their fate. How does one celebrate life or success, knowing that everyone you knew and loved has been stripped of everything that they have achieved or loved in their own lives? For the reader, knowing what happened in reality to the Jews of Prague, it did not take much imagination to know what fate awaited Josef’s family or how miraculous his own escape was.

The book might be a little long. There are probably 100 words that could be cut and never missed. I didn’t object, though, because the story was fast-paced and active for the most part, and without any feeling of being bogged down. I would read Chabon again. He exceeded my expectations.

Good, but I did not love it. Nice theming with creating life from clay, and escaping, but I did not find the characters engaging enough. Good payload on early days of comics. .

Whenever I mentioned the name of this book to a friend, a huge grin broke out of their face. This was a universal reaction. As were the words: "I LOVE that book. That book is GREAT." Not just how good it was, or skilled writing (though those things are also very true), but just how in love with it they were. You can't fake that. And now I know why!

I read it in two short spurts, covering about three days each, and I was done. Once you pick it up, its hard to put it down for around another hundred pages. There are some sentences that are just so absorbing and beautiful, passages that are just built up so well that I found myself going back to read them over and over. Parts of it were just so exhilarating to read, I had to stop and just bask in how good it made me feel to read. (Similar to the feeling I got from Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.)

The only complaints I had about it (which is why it gets four stars and not five) is that my attention wandered during Joe's travels in the middle. I thought that was a bit much and it didn't make sense to me except as a metaphor so heavy handed I will hit the author if that's what he meant. I also didn't like the way that so much time passed, and yet 12 years later everything could be tied up with a little shiny bow as "best for everyone," like so little had changed. I just didn't think Chabon gave enough credit to what twelve years does to people. He sort of dealt with it, but very quickly, and it felt like after hundreds of pages of careful development he was rushing to bring it to a close. Then again, that could be me just wanting more of the characters, who knows?

Still fantastic. If you have ever loved comic books, this book is necessary to your life. It's a love letter to escapism in general, but to the comic book industry and superheroes in general.

The notion of guilty pleasures is one that is explored both tacitly and explicitly in Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which had been on my shelf for a long time marked, metaphorically speaking, “to be read . . . sometime.” I read Chabon’s first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, when I was in college and liked it a lot. It was one of a number of books given to me as a thank-you by one of my classmates in return for escorting her to the Trinity Ball, which was no chore. (She also gave me Looking for Rachel Wallace, which was my introduction to the novels of Robert B. Parker.)

Kavalier & Clay is set in the world of comic books during and after the Second World War — the first golden age of comics, if you will. It also functions as a passionate defense of the idea of escapist fiction, and the fact that the hero of the comic book created by the title characters is called “The Escapist” is no coincidence. The final pages contain a lovely defense of escapism, taking as its starting point the myth of the golem, the defender of Prague’s Jews created from clay, which is worth quoting here:

"The shaping of a golem, to him, was a gesture of hope, offered against hope, in a time of desperation. It was the expression of a yearning that a few magic words and an artful hand might produce something — one poor, dumb, powerful thing — exempt from the crushing strictures, from the ills, cruelties, and inevitable failures of the greater Creation. It was the voicing of a vain wish, when you got down to it, to escape. To slip, like the Escapist, free of the entangling chain of reality and the straitjacket of physical laws . . . The newspaper articles that Joe had read about the upcoming Senate investigation into comic books always cited 'escapism' among the litany of injurious consequences of their reading, and dwelled on the pernicious effect, on young minds, of satisfying the desire to escape. As if there could be any more noble or necessary service in life."

Lovely, isn’t it? If, as a reader or, indeed, a writer, you ever feel called upon to defend your choice of reading or subject matter respectively, it would be worth learning that section so you can quote it back in full in the face of your critics.

Това е птица… Шейбон описва войната и комикс културата през призмата на едно семейство: http://knigolandia.info/book-review/n...

”Невероятните приключения на Кавалиър и Клей” следва историята на две талантливи хлапета, които в духа на толкова истории на успеха, за които сме чели, започват само с едни празни ръце и чисти умове. Във времето, когато Супермен и подобни на него герои са започнали да опияняват американските деца и младежи, Джо и Сами са готови да им дадат нови и нови герои, чиито приключения да четат седмица след седмица. Джо идва от далечната Прага, семейството му е направило всичко, за да го измъкне от нацистката заплаха, и истинската мотивация за него е да спаси на свой ред близките си и да ги доведе в Америка на всяка цена. Тази му обсесия ще го отведе и до най-големия му триумф, и до най-голямото му падение.

Издателство "Еднорог"
http://knigolandia.info/book-review/n...

This book took me more than two weeks to finish, not because it dragged or I did not like it, but because it’s been an insanely busy time in my life, and also because there is so much happening in this story. I adored the writing, so vividly descriptive that I could see, smell, hear and feel every scene described. This is an epic novel covering so many things that it almost sounds insane when I try and list some of them: the start of comic books, WWII, magic, the Prague Golem, Antarctica, all things Jewish, love, loss, friendship, and the author somehow manages to connect all these together into an overarching theme of escapism.

If you enjoy reading unique, interesting and incredibly well written novels you should definitely add this to your list to read soon.

The Story: The novel follows the lives of two Jewish cousins, Czech artist Joe Kavalier and Brooklyn-born writer Sammy Clay, before, during, and after World War II.

The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier & Clay is a great American novel about two cousins whose talents, fevered dreams and crazy obsessions make them legends during the Golden Era of comic books.

Magician-in-training Josef Kavalier escapes Czechoslovakia in 1939 and is taken in by his aunt and his scrappy cousin Sammy Klayman, who live in Brooklyn. Joe hopes his parents and younger brother Thomas will eventually join him, but as the Nazis gain power, the noose, of course, tightens on Europe’s Jews.

Sammy, meanwhile, has his own issues, including the bitter memory of his estranged dad – a former vaudevillian strong man – and his burgeoning sexuality.

Both boys find emotional and artistic escape through creating a comic book superhero called The Escapist, who comes to the rescue of people in need around the world. (One controversial cover shows him slugging Hitler.)

Those are just some of the themes and narrative strands of this big, bold, exuberant novel, which spans decades and continents and lasts some 650 pages. (Don’t worry: it’s a page-turner.)

The book’s not without its shortcomings. The third figure in the book’s triangle – a woman named Rosa Saks – isn't as carefully etched as the other two. And the occasional use of real-life figures (Salvador Dalí, Orson Welles, Eleanor Roosevelt) isn't as gracefully done as it is in, say, E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime, the obvious comparison.

But Chabon’s prose, befitting his colourful subject and era, is entertaining and visceral. It simply soars. There’s also lots of information about the history of comic books. Chabon’s done his research and obviously loves the genre. And there are several memorable scenes: the elaborate moving of a coffin (with someone inside it!); an attempted bombing of a bar mitzvah; a very moving look at immigrants arriving at Ellis Island.

This is a book whose world is so expansive and imaginatively realized that I can't give it anything but five great big gleaming stars.