Rating: 
Summary: All things are not "a matter of opinion".
Review: Opinion may be "amazing"; there is nevertheless such a thing as good taste and such a thing as bad taste. Good taste and good judgement will recognize that however admirable some of its qualities are, this book simply does not come together, does not form a unified aesthetic whole. This does not mean "Amazing adventures" hasn't other faults; it means its failure to cohere is its most significant fault. (Neither will good taste and good judgement consider Hemingway and Tom Robbins comparable, by the bye.)... Never believe ANY hype (or one who urges you to).
Rating: 
Summary: Opinions are amazing things
Review: It surprises me that so many people find this book unworthy of the pulitzer. It's so odd that People's opinions differ so greatly. For me, this is quite simply the best book ever written. I am 22 years old, and have no interest in comics, but this novel completely enthralled me from page 1. I fully recognize the fact that I am a fan of style over substance when it comes to literature. I've read Salinger, Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Dickens and Fitzgerald... And while I would say that some of the books by these men are truly masterpieces, It is definately the more stylistic modern novels that really attract me. Give me Tom Robbins, Michael Chabon and Rick Moody any day. The prose in this book just floats off the page. It is so incredibly well written that I could care less about the seemingly shallow characterizations (while I do agree with others that this may have been an intentional comics inspired choice, as characters in his previous books, specifically Wonder Boys, were MUCH deeper). On more than one occasion, I actually had to stop reading in disbelief that you could actually construct sentences so perfectly. Michael Chabon is a genius. BELIEVE the hype.
Rating: 
Summary: A Pulitzer?
Review: The Pulitzer selection list must have been fairly short. I read this book as a result of the critical reviews and cannot understand why it has been raved about. Critics talk about Chabon's 'style,' characters, and plot structure, but this book is clearly unimpressive on all counts. There is much better contemporary fiction out there, such as Bellow, Coupland, DeLillo, Hemon, Wray, Kidd...even Eggers and Sedaris. However, perhaps Chabon should stick with short fiction--his piece in a recent New Yorker issue was fairly solid.
Rating:
Summary: Inspirational!
Review: I love this novel because Michael Chabon takes the things we have been told are old fashioned (like plot and characters for instance!) and reminds us, as adults, what it was like to read as a child. My feelings for the characters were so strong they took on a life outside the book, I talked about them, their dilemmas, their adventures, to other people! That couldn't have happened if they were not near perfect creations, and if the story was not breathtaking, which it is. Read it!
Rating:
Summary: Irritating
Review: This book actually deserves two stars. But given that it's received such a high rank here, I thought I needed to a little more to counteract those effects. After all, there's so much better literature out there that you could spend your time on. Some people have criticized this book for being too flowery in its language -- on the contrary, I felt that Chabon writes beautifully, and well. I could stand for even more complex language. Others have taken it to task for coming from a perspective only those with a knowledge of Golden Age comic books could appreciate. I disagree. Even though I was a comic book fan in my youth, my experience with comic books is much more up-to-date. I'm in my 20s. In fact, I found Chabon's constant reference to comic book history a little irritating, because half of his references weren't true, but he wrote as if they were, and those of you who didn't know couldn't ever tell. The most disappointing thing about this book though, was that it was written with precisely all the ham-handed skill of an old-fashioned comic book. (Maybe that was his intention?) None of the characters are very complex, some of them go so far as to be cartoons. Josef is literally some Jewish superhero, almost a copy of Batman. Sammy, the closeted gay man. Rosa, the faithful girlfriend. Mr. Saks, the adoring father in law. Anapol, the avaricious but respectful boss. And Carl Ebling, the bumbling Nazi sympathizer. It was as if Chabon himself was avenging the wrongs done to Jews with such simpleminded work as the Jewish cartoonist, like Joe, once did. If that's true, it's a cute technique, but unworthy of a Pultizer, certainly, and probably easier as a simple comic book. (And besides, isn't it time to let the Germans be, and get over it?) There is absolutely no character development as this novel purports to trace the lives of two men over several decades. There is never any dramatic build-up -- we never see the emotion that must go behind life-changing decision. Even when the characters are faced with a challenge, they skip over it with the nonchalance of a garbage man picking up the trash. Josef's family sends him away, having liquidated the family fortune to do so. He runs into visa problems at the border, but he simply gets into a coffin and is sent away as a dead giant. Chabon deals with conflict as simply as that ... which makes me wonder why this thing is 600 pages long.
Rating:
Summary: sprawling, fairly plotless and characterless fluff
Review: If you're a nostalgic guy over forty, as I am, who has a thing about Czechoslovakia and longs to visit Antarctica, as I do, who loved comic books as a kid, as I did, notch this up a star. (In other words, subjectively, for me personally, I'd give it three; objectively, I give it two.) A number of reviewers were surprised a mediocre work such as this could win a Pulitzer prize. Having suffered through such mediocre Pulitzer-prize-winning works as "Ironwood" and "Rabbit is Rich", I was not. (On other hand, "Rabbit, Run", in my opinion, very much deserved its National Book Award.) A number of reviewers (a smaller number) were upset that one of its two protagonists is homosexual. Offhand, I'd call this a silly criticism, except that here the homosexuality seems very arbitrary, as if the author decided to have a major character homosexual for extra-literary reasons, having nothing to do with the story itself, then closed his eyes, spun his novel round, and put his finger down on one. More generally, all the characters are essentially characterless (Sammy, Josef, Rosa) or they're cartoons (Tracy Bacon, Sammy's mother, grandmother, editor, and boss). At worst the prose is precious and overworked, at best it's pedestrian. In 600 pages or so there is only one "just that", but that's one "just that" too many. (Midway through his sentence an author realizes he's given away his predicate. He finds himself about to write something like "The chocolate cake was chocolate". Rather than reworking his sentence -- "The cake was chocolate" -- or attempting to slough-off slop, he decides to pretend his error is no error at all but a very clever rhetorical flourish -- "The chocolate cake was JUST THAT: chocolate". He decides to compound careless writing with odious pretense.)
Rating:
Summary: A Must Read Novel
Review: Quite simply, one of the best novels I have read in the last five years.
Rating: 
Summary: Great start, boring middle, rushed end
Review: This book starts with great potential but then gets boring and just plain odd in the middle. Then, when it starts getting interesting again, it all wraps up in a chapter and leaves you thinking that perhaps the editor thought it was too long and just chopped off the end of it. Wouldn't recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Great Books Always Send You on a Quest
Review: Michael Chabon's book both amazed and appalled me: Amazed, because I was entraced by the spell woven by this marvelous novel, and appalled, because I had not realized how far we as a people had strayed from the notion of a land of opportunity and almost boundless possibility. Like the book's heroes, I too was in the spell of comic books and magic -- though mine was the next generation after World War II. I read Uncle Scrooge comics with their wonderful Carl Barks stories and drawings. (Living in Southern California, I still half believe that earthquakes are caused by contention between the subterranean Terries and Fermies.) The superheroes were there, too, and I distinctly remember Classic Comic Books such as "The Prisoner of Zenda" and even novelty 3-D comic books that came with glasses, such as those featuring the Three Stooges. KAVALIER & KLAY dredged up my own boyhood, and that world of superhero flummery that I took so seriously. When my neighbor's house was trashed in a break-in, I remember creating innumerable scenarios featuring me in colorful skintight pajamas saving their cute daughter Patricia, who would thank me in unthinkable ways in those pre-pubescent times. I don't know if Chabon's New York City ever really existed; but I would like to think it did. KAVALIER & KLAY comes complete with very realistic footnotes which are part of the fiction but convincing enough to make me think. If you are as intrigued by the book as I am, I refer you to the excellent bibliography at the end of the book, as well as the author's superb website. You do not have to be an aficionado of comic books, magic, or Jewish history to like this book. If you are a person of spirit, however, I fully expect the book will affect you as it did me, and send you delving into Houdini, the history of the Golem, the Golden Age of Comic Books, and the recent history of New York as shown in the work of A.J. Liebling, Brendan Gill, E.B. White, and others. Chabon has sent me on a quest, and the game is afoot!
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful story, beautifully told!
Review: There are already scores of 5 star reviews with clear descriptions of this book. I'm writing to dispute an earlier comment-- that the book would hold power only for those who love comic books, or are of the WW2 generation. I'm 24, I've never read a comic book, and I couldn't disagree more. I didn't find the comic book references at all confusing or distracting-- they just give the story a little context, color, and humor. The story is so strong, so well crafted, and so beautifully told it would be a shame for a younger, non-comic lover, to shy away from it based on the previous poster's comments.
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