The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
“[They were] so finely attuned to the danger of what they might lose that they could not permit themselves to notice what they had.”
4/5 ⭐
Kavalier and Clay tells the story of two boys: Joe, a Jewish artist who has just escaped from Nazi-invaded Prague and landed in New York City, and Sam, his American cousin and soon to be partner in the making of comic books—the new war time phenomenon.
The writing is stunningly beautiful, but be prepared for long paragraphs, even whole pages, dedicated to tangential thoughts and vivid setting descriptions. The plot will pause semi-frequently to ruminate on some topic or another before starting up again. Surprisingly, I didn’t feel like this negatively effected the pacing; his writing is clear and enjoyable enough that I didn’t mind.
Plot-wise, I was gripped right away with a can’t-put-it-down energy that made me prematurely predict that this would be one of my all-time favorites, but then the story fizzled during a dull middle section that veered off in an unexpected and far less engaging direction, before finally course-correcting for a satisfying, if rushed, conclusion.
The story touches on topics of love, vengeance, friendship, and the American dream, which have been addressed a thousand times over, but it made me view them in a new light, from a different perspective, which is all any book can hope to do.
Well worth the read, in my opinion, but certainly not for everyone.
Some underline-worthy quotes:
“The necessary thoughts drive out the terrible ones.”
“There is only one sure means in life of ensuring that you are not ground into a paste by disappointment, futility, and disillusionment. And that is always to ensure, to the utmost of your ability, that you are doing it solely for the money.”
“Every golden age is as much a matter of disregard as of felicity.”
“The true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of the things it contained to vanish, to become so thoroughly lost, that they might never have existed in the first place.”
