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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

13:14 / 02.03.02

Anyone read this? Wanna discuss it? I just got it today and am eager to begin reading it, as it sounds positively fascinating and I've heard nothing but good things.

I'm gonna be pretty erratic on the 'lith next week but I'd love to discuss it if anyone is up for it...

13:42 / 02.03.02

Considering I'd read Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Wonderboys each twice, I was so looking forward to this book. Went to the bookstore for the signing, got the first edition hardcover, the works....

But you know... I found it very put-down-able. I must have stopped and started it like five times while reading it. Some of the writing is amazing, just so beautiful, and I like the characters and the idea, but I found he went down too many dead ends plotwise, some from which I don't think he ever recovered from. I won't say more than that since you haven't read it yet, but I'd definitely be up for talking about it.

05:50 / 03.03.02

I loved this book. It was grippy and interesting. It's huge and it took me about five days to read (normally, I'd read a 50,000 word novel in an afternoon), but I liked it, more than I liked wonderboys.
I think towards the end it died a bit, and possibly it could have finished off earlier.

SPOILER

And, it got a bit social conscience with Clay being gay and all, almost makes you forget it was still set in the 50s, but aqll in all, a solid eight out of ten.

[ 04-03-2002: Message edited by: Kit-Cat Club ]

06:53 / 04.03.02

We had a brief discussion about this earlier (here) but it didn't really get anywhere (possible SPOILERS in that link, btw). I enjoyed it, though (as did many other people) I had reservations about the last part of the book. Still thought it bloody good though. mike [bro], I'm editing your post to add big hairy SPOILERS.

10:42 / 04.03.02

Apparently, the new issue of McSweeney'shas a short story by Chabon that was originally part of Kavalier and Klay. Comics geeks should also note that it includes a cover drawn by Chris Ware.

22:41 / 04.03.02

whoops. sorry about that, I'm still hell bent on learning stuff the hard way.

03:41 / 05.03.02

quote:In a article in today’s Variety, detailing the various current projects of Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Michael Chabon, the Hollywood trade reports Chabon is “in talks to develop an actual comicbook based on a comic book depicted in ‘K and C’.

From Newsrama.

11:42 / 17.12.04

Well this thread didn't seem to get very far despite many references by Barberloids elsewhere about how much they liked this book ...

And since a couple of people have been discussing it in the What Are You Reading thread, I thought I'd dig this up.

I read it a year or two ago and enjoyed it, especially since I don't really get comics, I enjoyed learning a lot about how they are put together and why people are drawn to them.

But ... the antarctita bit. I thought it was overblown and tacked on. It was fine on its own, but it threw the book out of proportion for me. Even though I wanted to know what happened to the characters, perhaps it would have been neater to end the book before that bit.

Thoughts?

21:39 / 17.12.04

POSSIBLE SPOILERS

I really liked it. To me it fitted into the whole idea that the structure of our heroes stories were developing like comic books around that time, and the sense that there was something dark and horrific (the whole skinned dogs thing) like the EC comics of the day encroching on something that starts fairly innocently. I found the heavy handed references to how big companies ripped off the real creators a bit much, yes it happened, but to keep going on about it seemed a bit ill at ease for me, not sure how to say why, it just didn't fit with the tone of doomed altruism that ran through the book. Along with the antarctica stuff I really loved the origin of the Escapist and how it came out of the gutters and into our heroes lives.

09:34 / 18.12.04

I remember biting my thumb in frustration all the way through the first half; I didn't think it really got good until Joe ran off to the Army. I thought Chabon's 1930s New York was utterly unconvincing--that it was like watching a bunch of actors in modern clothes, on modern streets, pretend to be in the 1930s.

The second half, though, cleared that all right up, and I thought it was a magnificent book that should be read by everyone.

17:14 / 18.12.04

SPOILERS AGAIN I'LL WARRANT

I liked the Antartica section of it, because it seemed to build on how fantastic parts of the book could be -I'm thinking particularly of the Luna Moth story that was told at the start of one of the chapters -but that chapter wasn't part of a comic book he was writing, it was something that actually stopped him from going back to Rosa and Sam. So between that, and the parts of the book that were 'actually' fiction, there was a time at the start of the final chapter where I wasn't sure whether Sam and Rosa were really married and bringing up Joe's son, or whether that was just something Joe was fretting about while he was in Antartica.

I'm also generally a fan of Michael Chabon's wild diversions from plot (even if they do, at times, remind me of that line in The Wonder Boys which is something like, "I just don't see what knowing the genealogy of the family's racehorses added...")

Will try to come back to this later, don't feel like I'm expressing this very well here...