The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

By: Michael Chabon

Patrick J. Cosgrove

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is a fitting title because it captures the turbulence bound in the life-stories of two Jewish cousins during the 1930’s through to the 1950’s. Michael Chabon conveys a sense of breathlessness, if not suffocation, that accompanies the era’s vanishing naiveté as not only within the lives of the protagonists, but as more generally indicative of a shift in America’s changing self perception amidst reshaping world relations.

After a fortuitous escape from the Nazi occupied city of Prague, Josef Kavalier unites with his cousin Samuel Clay in New York. Once in America Joe is determined to earn enough money to buy his family passage from what was then Czechoslovakia and Sam has an idea of how to make this dream a reality: comic books. As Sam and Joe make their way into the comic book industry, they help to expose the reserved imagination and curiosity of mindset still recovering from the Great Depression. While the cousins’ ideas are met with reluctance behind closed doors, the revenue that their comic books recoup far outweighs any questions of impropriety.

Although The Amazing Adventures can be read as exposé, a rendition of art imitating life, a commentary on American society and socio-political impulses reacting against Nazism (and then Communism, homosexuality, or any such “other”), or a record of emerging American corporatism, Chabon’s characters and their stories are far too compelling to let anything stand in the way of the very real, very personal, and very particular human emotions that are at stake. On the one hand there is guilt and regret, estrangement and loss, strife and struggle; however, there is also compassion and love, hope and salvation, unity and healing. Indeed, within the lives of comic superheroes’ unflinching exterior lies “the odd impulse to conceal their true natures in the guise of far weaker and more fallible beings.”

Michael Chabon’s prose is tight and provides interesting historical and cultural insights. The descriptive passages are clean and create a many memorable scenes. And, without creating caricatures, the dialogue is colloquial and cuts characters of a unique cloth. As the plot stretches across cultures and bridges generations we see the effects of prejudice and reprisal. Truly, besides being a riveting story and a thoroughly entertaining read, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay will definitely leave you with something to think about.

Chabon, Michael. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. New York: Picador, 2000.

ISBN#: 9780312282998

Price: $17.00

Rant
Chuck Palahniuk
Robert Hill

Born in a small town with an unconventional upbringing, “Rant” Casey was never interested in living vicariously through technology. He craved adventure and excitement, and found it in dark holes inhabited by a variety of animals and insects, getting a rush of adrenaline from random bites. Which is how he contracted rabies, and, debatably, started a devastating epidemic, making Rant either the most successful serial killer in history, or an idol, depending on who you talk to.

Rant (or Buster or Buddy) is dead and the people that knew him “best” are filling in the gaps of his extraordinary life. His childhood friends, enemies and neighbours talk of Rant’s heroic or abysmal behaviour, his friends from the city talk about “party crashing” (smashing cars in the search for real life in a world of fabrication and second-hand experience), as well as the newest form of segregation that society has instilled on the masses: separating the upper and lower classes into night and day.

Using his trademark twisted logic and brilliant lines, Chuck Palahniuk has created a new antihero, at times a monster, murderer, martyr, and god. Rant Casey’s story is not easily forgotten or understood, and with an ending that does not disappoint, a second read will become mandatory.

When film exec Heather Byer steps into Chelsea Billiards for the first time all she is looking for is a place to be anonymous, somewhere to escape the stress of work, somewhere to be alone. What she finds is a frustrating, beautiful game that changes the way she views her life.

Sweet is told, much like a game of pool, in a rather round-about fashion. Byer plays freely with time as she relates tales of complex shots and player outbursts, but like a well played shot brings herself back to just the right spot to continue with the narrative. Along the way Byer introduces us to many of the players in the pool halls and bars of New York City. Playing in an amateur league Sweet does lack some of the high-rolling tension that is found in many of the other 'gaming' biographies: there are no million dollar plays or gangs of scheming card counters found in this odyssey, but the book does contain an intriguing group of friends and teachers, losers and lovers who inhabit a world much more accessible than the final table of a major poker tournament.

Byer evolves from not being able to hit the cue ball on her first shot to a confident(some of the time) and integral member of the billiard community. Sweet: An Eight-Ball Odyssey is a fun and enjoyable read that will leave you with a craving for a cue in your hand. A craving that may lead you to rack the balls on that table in the corner of your local pub. And when you find your self lining up that final shot, sinking the eight ball in the corner pocket, that's Sweet.

Sweet An Eight-Ball Odyssey

Heather Byer

$31.00 Riverhead Books