Rating: 
Summary: A Compelling Read
Review: As the book starts, Sammy Klayman and Josef Kavalier are thrust together when Josef flees Prague, one step ahead of the Nazis. He finds refuge in the aunt's flat and his cousin Sammy Klaman's bed. Sammy, who becomes Sam Clay enlists the academy trained Josef in the service of comic strip art, and together they fight Hitler in their own way, as much as is allowed. Fate conspires to involve Sammy, Josef, the vivacious Rosa Saks, and Rosa's son Tommy.We are swept along by the intensity of Josef's character, and his need to fight Hitler, but something more, by his need to come to terms with his own demons. How this spins out makes for a compelling yarn. This novel has it all, comic book antics, magic and escapism, a torrid love story, a heoric homosexual, New York Bohemian as well as suburban life, Nazi-occupied Europe, hand to hand WWII combat and, of course, the golem. The only reason I docked it one star is that it is a little long and slow in places, but otherwise is an engaging and exciting read. At the end I was left scratching my head over one dilemma which had always bothered me before I read this book. Why didn't the golem rise up and protect the Jews from Hitler during this period. Was there not one gaon in Eastern Europe who could raise the golem? If anyone has the answer please email me. Or, does the author suggest that in the modern rational world the golem is dead forever.
Rating: 
Summary: Without a doubt, the best book of the new millenium.
Review: Michael Chabon spins out this wonderful tale with talent, with poetry, and more importantly, with the inherent understanding of the human spirit. Sammy Klayman, a native Brooklynite, is going nowhere fast. He works as a clerk in a small-time novelties company. He still lives with his mother and grandmother. His legs have been ravished by a childhood illness, and are weak and spindly, leaving not only physical scars, but emotional ones as well; he doesn't even know how it feels to be on a date. That all changes when his cousin, Josef Kavalier, journeys to New York from war-ravished Prague. Josef, who has been trained in the art of magic and escape by his mentor, Kornblum, arrives in New York with one burning desire: to release his family from the claws of Nazi-ridden Europe. The two quickly formulate a plan and the Escapist is born, a comic book hero brought to life with Josef's paintbrush and Sammy's pen acting as the medium. They are both are thrown into the glamorous world of New York sociey, where they rub shoulders with icons like Salvadore Dali and Orson Welles. Soon both have more money than they know what to do with and Josef embarks on the quest for his family's salvation, and perhaps his own. The Escapist acts as a catalyst for change by providing Sammy with a metaphysical escape from his humdrum existence and Josef's very real escape, pysically and monetarily, from Prague. One of the many ironies found in Chabon's work is that Josef's success is what severs all ties he has to Czechoslovakia. The Escapist acts as a metaphor, a brilliantly executed one, throughout the entirety of the novel, supplying the cathartic elements and climactic moments of the story. I don't believe in ruining the ending of a book for the sake of a review, so I will end it here. Suffice to say that the book is extraordinary. It is not often, at least not in my line of work, that a novel moves you to laughter and tears in one sitting. The premier book of the new millenium. A must-read for readers of all genres.
Rating:
Summary: A Labor of Love by an Amazing Young Writer!
Review: In spite of the fact that it's too long by a couple hundred pages, can get somewhat convoluted, and meanders at times, "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" is overall a fine, fine book, filled - just like the comic books it celebrates -- with good guys and bad guys, heroes and villains, life and death struggles, and several larger-than-life characters (with even a superhero or two thrown in for good measure). The author of "Kavalier and Clay," Michael Chabon, is an amazing young writer, in love with language, and you can tell that he's also in love with this subject and themes (see below), this place (mainly New York City), this time (mainly just before and after America's entry into World War II), these characters (Kavalier, Clay, and many others), and really this whole book! It's tough not to get caught up in Chabon's enthusiasm, and in the end it's hard to really criticize him for the book's excesses and (minor) flaws. Especially since this is not just a bunch of "brain candy" as some have contended, but is filled with weighty (and worthy) themes such as: freedom vs. bondage (of society's strictures, for instance); fantasy/illusion vs. reality; integrity/honesty vs. self-deception/"living a lie;" sanity vs. "craziness;" courage vs. cowardice; and commitment (to a cause, a person, or an idea) vs. escapism. Throw in anti-Semitism (the threat of Nazism and Hitler runs throughout much of the book), homophobia, McCarthyism (which was at least in part about homophobia), American culture and changing cultural mores, the role of art and the artist, and more (including the Amazing Golem of Prague), and you've got enough meat here to feed several hungry superheroes! And, despite all his "meaty" material, Chabon never lets "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" get ponderous, didactic, or too heavy. In fact, one might say that this book is as easy and enjoyable to read as a top-notch comic book, even as it rises to the level of high art (as if an excellent comic book can't be a fine work of art - hah!). In sum, I loved this book, strongly recommend it, and congratulate Michael Chabon for his creation (and well-deserved awards).
Rating: 
Summary: GREAT first half, fair second half
Review: I fell in love with this book at the start. The writing was clean, the story immediately swept you in. Yet I couldn't help but feel that at the midpoint of the book (I don't want to reveal when, plot-wise, so as to not give anything away), the book fell off considerably. The first half was stellar for its story -- the story really fell apart toward the end, and the writing was not as tight as it had been at the start. I am still glad that I read it, though, for the burst of wonder and excitement that I had when I opened it.
Rating:
Summary: A great book and a triumph for an art form
Review: Superman didn't just appear out of thin air you know. Neither did Batman or Spider-Man or the Green Lantern or any other superhero, someone had to create them. Someone had to dream them up. Someone has been ignored for a long time. Michael Chabon obviously has a true love for the comic book form, as evidenced by this and other works of his. He treats the subject with respect and admiration, and he breathes life into two of the most human characters I have ever read. Comic book fans such as myself will read this novel and be grateful that someone is finally depicting comic books with a degree of respect and honor, and people who just like a good read with engaging characters and a smart plot will enjoy this book as well.
Rating:
Summary: What a disappointment!
Review: Are there no longer editors with the courage to say, "Try again"? This is the second wildly successful novel I have read in the past three months (the other being Barbara Kingsolver's "Poisonwood Bible") that absolutely falls apart after about page 300. Where Kingsolver's book should have ended hundreds of pages before it did, Chabon's book falls into a predictable groove at about page 300 and doesn't miss a cliche plot turn all the way to the back cover. And that's too bad because the book starts out with such energy and great humor that I couldn't put it down, for a while. Suddenly, I knew what the next gesture would be, what the next phrase would be, but worse, what the next plot turn would be. The recent criticism being leveled at fiction -- that books are being written for the movies -- certainly could be applied to this latest of Chabon's books.
So I'm guessing the 100-plus other reviewers whose words have been posted on this site must not have actually finished the book -- or they're just not used to truly great fiction, which constantly surprises and creates new worlds. This book utterly fails in that regard, although it was nice to read a book that captures a little bit of the mystery of Prague.
Better luck next time, Mr. Chabon, and find yourself a tougher editor.
Rating:
Summary: Wide But Not Deep
Review: If they had tucked a ten dollar bill on page 500 I would have found it. This book kept me turning the pages until the rather weak ending. But, remember the scene in "Finding Forrester" where Sean Connery is supposed to be reading his talented protoge's work in front of an audience but the camera cuts away and all you hear is a few scraps of unintelligible vocalization in the background? I felt like Chabon was doing a lot of "telling" and not much "showing." I could not really feel the intensity of the art his young protagonist was producing, even though I was told how intense it was. Good story, entertaining reading, but I could see the author's hand and that kind of spoils the game.
Rating:
Summary: Kavalier and Clay -- magical escape in the post 9/11 world
Review: I started reading Kavalier & Clay shortly before 9/11. When I picked it up for the first time after that terrible day, I wondered at first if I could continue -- Would I want to read about that ominous pre-W.W. II world when our world had suddenly become so ominous itself? But the opposite happened. The magic of the book was that it was an enormous comfort over the weeks that I read it in September and October, making it stretch out as long as possible over that time. I'm still not sure why, but I think the richness and humanity of the characters, and the pitch perfect sense of the period made it easy to enter the book's world each time I picked it up, even for just 5-6 pages at a time. Maybe reading about the "Escapist" helped escape the daily onslaught of tragedy and terrible news. But besides providing comfort in the 9/11 world, it's a marvelous book. I'm always looking for books that combine literary merit with readability, and Kavalier and Clay is a perfect example of that. Moreover, some passages speak poignantly to our time. Note especially the first paragraph of Part IV, Chapter 7 describing how America in pre-Dec. 7 1941 was in the grip of the delusion that it was living in a golden age (an "aetataureate delusion" in Chabon's extravagant words) -- the "odd experience of feeling for the time in which they living, at the very moment they were living in it, that strange blend of optimism and nostalgia. . ." In light of Sept. 11, this sounds eerily like the late 1990's and 2000; or more broadly, the entire post-W.W. II world.
Rating:
Summary: Stick with it!!!
Review: Short and sweet: The book is fantastic. Chabon has a knack for describing emotions, colors and everything else to the minutest detail!! It's a tough read for the first quarter of the book or so - you may want to bail out. But don't - you will soon ease into the story like an old shoe and be glad you did stick with it. I am not into comic books at all - and still loved the story - so don't worry about that. Do yourself a favor - find out what a Golem is and have a dictionary handy just in case!!
Rating:
Summary: Comic, tragic, epic
Review: ... Think of John Irving when he was writing books that weren't just great, they were risk-taking, colorful and fun. This novel is successful on many levels. It's an engaging love story. It's an homage to the New York City of the 1930's and 1940's. It's a history of the early comic book industry. It's a study of the symbiosis between life and art. There are a host of characters minor and major, all skillfully drawn, and a story spanning continents and decades. Though the book is overfull with symbolism, allegory and verbal games, none of them hinder the progress of the story. (In fact, if I had one complaint, it is that some of these were too obvious: in escaping Prague, Josef Kavalier hides in a box with the Golem of Prague; when he gets to New York, he teams up with his cousin Sam Klayman. The comic book hero they create is called "The Escapist", etc.) In all, it is a novel well worth your time.
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