Pulitzer Project: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay: A Novel

I had a mixed reaction to this particular novel. My initial reaction was, wow, finally found a Pulitzer winner that might hit the high end of my rating scale.  Michael Chabon can write, every sentence is beautifully crafted, the various bits of trivia that the novel is salted with are intriguing, but, holy wah, Chabon could have used a better copy editor.

Remember me saying that a fat Pulitzer winner is never a good sign? That's definitely true for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. It would be a much better book if it was considerably shorter, like maybe 200 or so pages shorter. The copy I had was a trade paperback and did not look like it was potential doorstop material, but it turned out to be 640+ pages filled with a font small enough that it came close to me reaching for the magnifying glass I use when doing counted cross stitch. Admittedly the first two-thirds of the book flowed sufficiently well that the tiny font didn't bother me much, but then I hit Antarctica. 

Why Chabon decided to stick one of his protagonists at a remote station in Antarctica during World War II is baffling. The Antarctica section was admittedly a slog. A reader should not be thinking "What is the fucking point?!" Maybe Chabon decided that he really needed to detail every second of Josef Kavalier's experience but it honestly did not seem to add anything to the book overall, at least not for me.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay follows the lives of two cousins, Josef Kavalier and Samuel Clayman. Both are in their late teens when Joe arrives in the United States as a refugee from Prague. The Kavalier and Clayman families are Jewish, it's the 1930s, Nazis are now in control in Czechoslovakia, and life is getting scarier for anyone Jewish. The Kavaliers decide Josef should go to America to stay with relatives there. 

After Joe arrives in New York, it turns out he and his cousin share a love of comic books. It's a time when comics are just taking off, the whole phenomenon of Superman has every would-be commercial artist excited and trying to figure out how to get in on the action. Joe is an extremely talented artist, Sam not quite as good at drawing but great at plot lines. Together they push the idea of a new superhero, the Escapist, persuade a publisher to develop the concept, and do quite well for a couple years. Joe has been stashing money in the bank to eventually pay for his family back in Prague to get out of Europe. Then the world changes. On the same day Joe learns that his younger brother died enroute to the U.S. the Japanese government bombs Pearl Harbor. Joe's response to hearing that his brother drowned when a German U-boat torpedoed the ship carrying refugees is to immediately enlist in the Navy. He is determined to kill Germans. His burning desire for revenge is thwarted, though, by the Navy's decision to train him as a radio operator and ship him to a tiny station in Antarctica. 

Back in New York Sam is slowly coming to terms with being homosexual. He does what many (most) gay men did in the U.S. in the 1940s: he works hard at staying thoroughly closeted. He marries his cousin Joe's pregnant girlfriend Rosa and presents as the stereotypical suburban dad. He has occasional discrete meetings with other young closeted men while being quietly conflicted and miserable. He had been given the opportunity to go to Hollywood with his first lover, an actor, in December 1941 but had panicked at the last minute. He stayed in New York and then steps up to marry Rosa when Joe enlists without knowing fatherhood is imminent. Time moves on, twelve years pass, and Joe returns. And that's when Chabon decides to wrap things up quickly. After almost 600 pages of meandering, chatty, and, to be totally honest, engaging text Joe, Sam, and Rosa manage to tie up all the loose ends in remarkably few pages. 

So, general conclusions about this book? Definitely a mixed reaction. On the one hand, Chabon is really good with words. Reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay was not work. The book flows. I came really close to telling myself I'd finally hit a 10 on my rating scale. And then I hit the Antarctica section. Okay. As that narrative bit advanced it got weirder and weirder. Reacting to a book by muttering "What the fuck. . .?" a lot is never a good sign. 

So would I recommend it to other readers? Maybe. Chabon can write. If a person has read anything else by him (The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Wonder Boys, Telegraph Avenue) that reader is going to expect Chabon's discursive style. If the prospective reader has never read anything by Chabon The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay might be a bit much. Still, even with the odd Antarctica section the book is way more readable than most of the previous Pulitzer fiction winners. Does it qualify as a beach book? I'd say yes. The discursive style can make it hard to put the book down, which means it's perfect for long hours on a chaise lounge or beach towel while slathered in Coppertone. Just remember to hydrate. 

Next up if I keep moving up the list chronologically is Empire Falls by Richard Russo, another book and author I know nothing about. Unless, of course, American Pastoral falls from the skies (or from Thrift books) and I get to do a step backwards.