Rating: 
Summary: Quite worthy of its Pulitzer!
Review: As a kid I didn't enjoy anything more than collecting baseball cards, I never got into comic books, but this book made me feel that I missed out on a really amazing part of childhood in America. I recently started Phillip Roth's Human Stain, also a Pulitzer Prize winner and stopped 60 pages in, quite disappointed. Kavalier & Clay was a pleasant surprise, there's no doubt in my mind that Chabon's most recent work was worth the Pulitzer. The characters had a way of jumping off the page and the story moved very well. I normally read about 300 pages a week, but I finished this one in 8 days (636 pages). I'll recommend this to my friends in the "Great American Novel" category.
Rating: 
Summary: Loved it... but a little Forrest Gumpish, too...
Review: I was swept along. It was a true page turner. The character development was exquisite -- really very, very good. It's practically a paean to NYC, and reading it after you-know-what turned my beloved hometown topsy turvy with horror and sorrow helped.
But! There is a bit of Forrest Gump syndrome with many brushes with famous figures that I'm torn about -- half the time I wanted to hoot and just go with it, the other times I snorted cynically and rolled my eyes.
Also, read the book -- the movie will be a huge, maudlin schmaltzfest involving Tom Hanks or something...
Rating: 
Summary: Starts off well, gets inconsistent, then pornographic
Review: I'm about 3/4 of the way through reading Kavalier and Clay and one aspect of it I'm surprised nobody's brought up is how right around this point the story delves--some might say devolves--unnecessarily into explicit descriptions of gay sex. No gay-bashing intended; it just comes across as a sudden, out-of-place subplot. If Chabon wants to throw his readers this kind of curve, fine, but he could've done it a lot less explicitly. You'd think the character's struggle with his sexuality, given how Chabon tries to spin it into a major plotline, would warrant a mention on the back cover, but it doesn't. So I can only assume, given how "in depth" Chabon gets in describing his character's gay sex life, that he did this mostly for sensationalistic (read: publicity) reasons.Overall K&C hasn't grabbed me the way I thought it would. It meanders around pointlessly, mixes fact with fiction, and doesn't really seem to know where it's going. (Other reviews apparantly verify that this trend continues to the very end.) I've found myself reading it sporadically and at this point I'm not even inclined to finish it. How it ever won a Pulitzer is beyond me; I assume Michael Chabon has connections. I realize how he's skillfully playing different philosophical opposites against one another, but this can only go so far before it becomes just a gimmick, struggling for distinction among numerous other gimmicks within the story.
Rating: 
Summary: Needs some support in the legal department.
Review: The author neglects the fact that names mentioned in the book may (if not are), copyrighted, and trademarked. Should do his homework first.
Rating:
Summary: Great writing, a giant novel, and wonderful entertainment
Review: This book was a wonderful surprise. To tell you the truth, I bought it because my little boy goes to the same school as the author's children, and I felt that it would be the right thing to support local people. Well, what a shock! I mean, a good shock! I must say that I am a rather conservative reader in my tastes. I like good writing skills, a reasonable plot, a read which is not relying on too much "experimental" writing (such as taking out all the punctuation, or writing all in such misspelled slang that just reading it is difficult). I want to enjoy reading a book, and, if possible, I would like to NOT feel like killing myself once I am done with it. Yet, at the same time, I enjoy being stretched in my tastes in literature. This book reached 5 stars at every level. First, it is a true page turner, one of those books which you cannot put down until you are done with it - not so much because you want to know what will happen (although there is a bit of that too) - but because it plays with your emotions and enjoyment in such an unusual way. The language is wonderful - precise when discussing a detail oriented individual, passionate for a romantic, always well tuned to the characters and to the events. The vocabulary is full, although not as rich, maybe, as Conrad. The characters are deeply etched and displayed, yet not revealed to their innermost layers. They are unusual and interesting, yet not so outrageous that you are interested in them because of their anomalous behavior. The story is non-linear and absolutely ignores classical rules of composition, yet it achieves grandeur which reminds you a bit, without all the pathos, of Dostoievski (although the large number of characters also contributes to that echo). The period seems quite well researched, and the author has mixed in his story true details as well as "fake" notes or "small history" regarding his own made-up additions, sometimes creating funny or ironic moments. Altogether - I am impressed by the story and how the writer is able to sell us that story - very few could have pulled it off. I loved the language and its effects. I enjoyed the mix of post modernity and classicism. I loved the book and at the same time enjoyed the fact that it stretched my tastes in literature. I am still trying to describe what makes this such a wonderful, giant novel - it might be the non-linearity of its story, the seeming lack of logic that some of its turns have, and yet the richness of the language and of the events it depicts. If I have any criticism -coming from someone who has never written anything worth publishing- it would be:
- I feel that some loops in the story are superfluous and could have been cut to greater effect
- Joe K, and, surprisingly, several of the minor characters in his and in Sammy's family have true depth, sometimes conveyed in a few sentences. Others, such as Sammy himself, Rosa, or young Thomas (Joe's son), despite being present in much of the text, do not always have as much relief and depth of understanding. I don't mean by it that that are not well described, but that they might not be represented with as much complexity as you would expect a true human being to have.
- the end (the last 50 pages) do not quite carry as much intensity - there is a tiny letdown at the very end. This novel is the best I have read this year (I am a fast reader and read one book a day) - I have no qualms in suggesting that almost anyone will truly enjoy this marvelous book and find it a surprise - it is unlike anything you will have read before, yet resonates in your soul like an old well-loved story. Once you have read it, it will make you envy those who have not because they still have, in their future, the wonderful surprise of this novel. Best, camisdad
Rating: 
Summary: Whiz! Bang! Pow! (And--unfortunately--sometimes, Thud!)
Review: The idea behind KAVALIER AND CLAY is so irresistible that it's hard not to like the book even before you've opened: two young men in New York--one a native, the other a Czech emigré--set out to create the greatest superhero comics ever created against the backdrop of the so-called Golden Age of Comics during World War II. Michael Chabon has reaped his highest praise for this sprawling novel, which might fall under the category of what Henry James would call a "loose baggy monster": the action ranges from suburban Long Island to occupied Prague to Antacrtica, and the list of guest stars includes everyone from Salvador Dali to Eleanor Roosevelt. Chabon's recapturing of the optimism just before the Second World War begins is extremely winning, and the novel is well-researched in terms of its period detail. His decision to make the broadness and romanticism of the characters mirror that of comic characters was not made lightly, but unfortunately it doesn't work out very well: the heroine, Rosa Saks, remains something of an erotic enigma during the war years (she's all kind heart and great sex, but not much else), and the Czech protagonist, Joe Kavalier, is at times embarrassingly sentimentalized. Although Joe's childhood exploits in Prague are quite interesting, his refugee status is often manipulated to earn him special martyr status, and there's something about the Holocaust being used to give a hero a sympathetic backdrop that seems really misguided, to the point of being offensive. After a bizarre episode in Antarctica that seems to belong to another book, the novel mysteriously rights itself: the last sections, which detail the characters' exploits during the early Fifties, when the comics industry comes under attack by the US Congress and child psychologist Frederic Wertham, adds the characters levels of depth and humility they were missing earlier in the work: Rosa becomes fleshed out as a person, and Joe seems every bit as ridiculous as he is romantic.
Rating:
Summary: This book was not worth the time it took me to read it.
Review: I had read a number of online reviews telling how wonderfull this novel was, but when I read it for myself I was extreamly disapointed by its lack of everything. I finished the book thinking why did I read this? It dragged in plot and flipped around so much that I could keep things straight. I do not recomend this book to anyone who likes to read, becase you will be let down. And for those people who hate to read, don't go near this book because it will bite you and you'll get discouredged from reading anything
Rating:
Summary: An AMAZING book!
Review: Kudos to Michael Chabon for crafting such a great, powerful novel. Having been disappointed by Don Delillo's much overhyped novel, Underworld, K&C is a breath of fresh air and more. His themes of love, escape, and the search for identity never bury the characters that inhabit the story. Each page brims with creativity, wit, and passion. The book seems to meander a bit in the second act but looking back in hindsight, one can see that so much of it is a set up for what happens in the end. The third act is perhaps the most affecting and powerful part of the book. Some passages seem a little contrived and syrupy but this is a small complaint regarding the overall effect. Chabon knows the message he is trying to impart and he does so with class. Great Job.
Rating:
Summary: An Honorable Work
Review: With so many tips of the proverbial hat to the sires of the American comic book, 'Kavalier & Clay' is a lovingly-crafted nostalgic voyage through the birth of the Mystery Men of the early 20th century. Chabon's research into the genre is obviously well-paced and concise and elevates this tale even further. While other readers grew perhaps impatient with 'plot meanderings' and a ready-for-cinema ending, I only wish the story hadn't flown past so quickly. Truly a treasure to read- characters with palpable depth, historical descriptions of individual time periods, and a quick wit infused throughout the novel made the book a fast favorite.
Rating:
Summary: A comical book with serious undertones
Review: Chabon has written a very capable book of human breadth. Two cousins, Sammy Clay and Joe Kavalier, combine their talents to create a comic book hero they dub "The Escapist." The setting of 1940s Manhattan is just the place for these two fresh-faced, boyish men who become overnight successes. *** Despite the likability of the story and the characters, I felt somehow out of step with the pacing of the novel. Scenes which I wanted to leave sooner were overlong and others would've been more enjoyable had they not been so truncated. *** The evolution of the characters mirrors the overarching vibe of the era. Joe and Sammy begin as wide-eyed kids full of ideas and spark. With the war comes an abrupt (and even brutal) end to their innocence. They are forced to trade in all their verve and precociousness for the mantles of adulthood. And in the post-war 1950s, they come face to face with the youthful dreams and passions they sacrificed. *** While Chabon's book is clearly nostaligic, it isn't always beautiful and safe. Ugly things happen even in the most idealized of eras. But despite the horrible blemishes, there is foundation for the glorious scrappy nature of America that should not be forgotten. American spunk takes a beating all the time. Nevertheless, we should be able to go back to our early impulses to do good, to atune the world to our creative forces.
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