Total Number of Ratings: 5
Book Club Discussion for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Tuesday, July 20, 2010 8:00 AM
You all did your homework and read the book, right?
For the book club discussion, we'll be using the same format we have for the four previous book clubs. Since the other threads (clicky-click for book club discussions of Beat the Reaper, The Magicians, Lost City of Z and Horns) fostered tons of comments and articles, I'm hoping we'll have the same for Kavalier and Clay, a prize-winning book that was a re-read for much of the community.
To recap; the discussion of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay will be built around the comment system and "write a response" feature of the site. Most of the discussion of the book will happen in the comments on this article. Everyone that read the book can post their SPOILER-filled comments, reviews, and questions for discussion. I'll also post a few book club questions in the comments, and everyone who wants to can reply to the questions. If you have a lot to say about the book - or if you want to post a collaborative article or video - you can click on the "write a response" button and dedicate a whole article to the book. More discussion will happen on these articles, though most will probably be taking place here.
I haven't had a chance to discuss it with the powers-that-be yet, but I think I'll be guesting on the Murmur podcast for a discussion of the book. Since Murmur is such a community-driven site, we would all love to be able to talk on the podcast about the thoughts and reviews from you, the readers. So, of course, the more people can put in their responses to the book the better.
Per usual, if you have any suggestions for a change in format, shoot me an email or let me know in the comments.
Also, if you have a suggestion for a future book pick, feel free to e-mail me or send me a message on Twitter. Next in line for the club is another work of non-fiction, which I'll announce on the site in the next week or two. I've got a few ideas for further books, but suggestions are always welcome.
So... discuss! What'd you think of Michael Chabon's "great American novel" and love letter to comic books, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay?
This article has responses:
I think the love scenes in this book are remakably well written. Sensual and erotic and triumphantly explcit. In a book about patrnerships, sex and intimacy shinek. Sex is almost always associated with the art of creation too. Rosa as a hastily sketced pin up and Luna Moth. Tracy as The Escapist himself, And yet, while the secondary characters have roles as muses, they aren't merely muses. Everyone is devolped
And who wouldn't want to get frdky in the wee morning hours amonst the artifacts of the World's Fair? That's hot any way you slicw it
Throughout the book, Chabon has a tendency to pull back from the narrative at key moments and switch to another character's point of view or plotline. I'm thinking specifically of Joe's decision to enlist, or Sammy and Rosa's marriage and early life together, though there are many more examples. In these cases, we usually only learn details of the important events well after the fact, through letters or outsider perspectives or other mediated narrative devices. What do you think of this stylistic choice? Does it perhaps reflect the characters' roles as comic book creators, used to telling a story after the fact rather than living in the moment?
I know how much I missed Joe while he was gone. I think in that case it was really effective because it helped me understand how Sammy and Rosa felt, and it also made me that much more eager to find out what happened to him.
I think this is a device authors can use effectively IF all the parts of the book are interesting. It can be a killer if there's only one or two sections a particular reader cares about, but I think Chabon has a gift for taking his readers along with him wherever he goes.
I think the decice as pacing mechanism, too. Whenever I wanted more Joe/Sammy I got it second hand or after a chapter of Kornblum. It keept me reading
I ask because I read a terrible early 90s YA novel recently in which the author seemed to skip all the most important scenes and only talk about them later, which in that case just felt lazy and made everything about the book anti-climactic -- the author was shying away from the biggest emotional moments. But Chabon is the kind of writer who can break every rule of writing and still create fabulous work, and I think the fact that he did the same thing as that terrible YA author and pulled it off is a testament to that.
Dammit. If I hadn't been sick for the last month I would've finished this in time. I've enjoyed it a great deal, so far (I'm on page 414). Thank you for suggesting it.
Did you try He'Brew Messiah Bold, the beer I paired with Kav and Clay? How did the kosher brew match up with the story?
I did enjoy caramel undertones of the Messiah Bold, though I found myself craving a sharp pilsner in honor of Joe's Czech roots. Actually, I found myself craving nicotine while reading this book...and I don't even smoke! As Joe and Sammy tear through carton after carton the romance of the time period -- as expressed through Chabon's wonderful imagery, particularly in his appeal to the sense of smell -- had me wanting to light up a cigar, which I did from time to time.
Chabon does an admirable job squeezing interactions with real historical figures (Salvador Dali, Orson Welles, Stan Lee) into the fictional lives of Sammy and Joe. What did you think of The Escapist being placed in a realistic alternate history of comics in the US?
Kavalier and Clay is split into six separate parts (The Escape Artist, A Couple of Boy Geniuses, The Funny-Book War, The Golden Age, Radioman and The League of the Golden Key). Which section did you think was the strongest, or was your favorite? Which did you think was weakest?
The theme of escape runs throughout the novel. What are Sammy and Joe escaping from? What are they escaping to?
Have you read any of the ancillary material that has come out based on the characters in the book, like Brian K Vaughan's THE ESCAPISTS or the Dark Horse Escapist comic collections? Do you think they add to or detract from the Chabon's original work?
I suppose "detract" isn't quite the right word. I just remember being deeply disappointed by the Dark Horse collections. While it'd be nearly impossible for any actual comic to be as good as the Platonic one Chabon created, I just thought the issues they made for the Dark Horse books were sub-par comic booking.
It's funny you mention this. I just finished Chabon's essay collection Maps and Legends and he talks about people coming up to him, thinking the Escapist was real. And now I find out, he is! Even as an afterthought, that's pretty darn cool.
@JChristie -- you're not wrong. Many of the stories in the collections (I read most if not all of them) were either sub-par or just kind of... typical. In many cases, comics writers were given an implanted golden age character, and they just ended up using that to tell fairly stereotypical stories.
BKV's The Escapists is the rare jewel of the bunch. Chabon also wrote one longer story for the anthology, and it was pretty decent, if I recall. But again, it's JUST the Escapist, and part of the majesty of the Escapist in the novel is that you're seeing him as a product of K&C, reflecting their lives.
I really love the 'Escapists' series (it was actually one of the first comic book series I read, and it helped to frame my understanding of how the industry works -- as my sister, who doesn't usually read comics, said after I got her to read it, "It never occurred to me somebody has to make the letters!") I also love the little short story, by Chabon, that's included in the collected edition.
As for the attempts to create the actual Escapist comic, I can understand why it was done but I've never had the desire to read it. I think it would be neat if, say, Chabon were to commission an illustrator for the 20th anniversary of the book, or something, but as it is I'm happy with what's internal to the story.
I'm about 2/3 of the way through the first Dark Horse collection right now, and I'm not even sure I'm going to finish. While there's definitely some neat art, the stories (beyond the origin by Chabon, taken straight from the pages of the novel and illustrated) are lackluster, boring, and in many ways actively offensive. It troubles me that no women were involved in this project beyond a coloring capacity -- not even as artists on the stories "drawn" by Rosa -- and the racial implications of the secondary characters in the Escapist stories are problematic at best. In the novel, the stereotypes read as a product of the time in which they were "created," but when the characters have living, breathing roles, I expect a bit less in the way of stereotypical accents and actions, since, whatever the conceit may be, they were all written in the 21st century.
And then there's the manga-style story that purports to be the "Japanese Escapist," secretly penned by Sammy Clay, about a kamikaze pilot slaughtering Chinese "monsters" to "protect Japan." Even the faux-WWII context doesn't excuse that.
Was this your first time reading Kav and Clay, or was this a re-read? If you had read the book before, how did your perception differ the second time through?
This was my first time reading the novel, but I started it a long time ago -- December of '08, I believe. I read it in fits and starts over the course of the next year, loving every page but frequently exhausted by Chabon's dense, intricate prose. I got to about the 400 page mark when the Book Club was announced, and then suddenly I breezed through the last 250 pages in less than two weeks.
What's interesting, though, is that I didn't forget a single moment of the book, despite dragging it out for so long. Moments from the first few chapters are still as fresh in my mind as those last 250 pages. I wonder, then, how rereaders approach the novel, because it seems like such a hard book to forget. Is there room for surprising new reactions, when the book is so deeply memorable?
Ahem. I read this book in --2003, I think? I've reread parts of it since (the beginning and the Antarctica section) but I haven't quite geared up for a full reread. One day. So I'll mostly be observing the discussion but it still brings back memories. (I'm not sure I find everything about the book as memorable as TTB did, mostly because I have a terrible memory for plots, but certain things stuck with me.)
This is what I called on my blog a continuous read. Similar to throughtthebrush, it took me months to get past the first half. I would pick it up, put it down, and pick it up again. Once I got to a certain section, I was wrapped up in the story. However, Chabon's voice was so present, and as you say the language so dense, that it detracted from the overall experience.
The story ended up really resonating with me, but it felt like a lot of effort at times.
Respond
Is there going to be a podcast?