One of the books that's been gathering dust on my bookcase due to lack of time while teaching (and its length), was The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. The book won The Pulitzer Prize (2001), was on all sorts of "Best Of" lists, and was praised by a friend who is an avid reader. I bought it years ago, but didn't get around to reading it - until this past week.
The story was interesting. Chabon's writing is good (with tinges of magical realism?). He captures elements of the golden age of comic books, and it was nice seeing familiar names and historical figures making appearances. The Jewish elements were intriguing - who expects a Golem to play a role in a contemporary novel? There are some clever plot twists.
But sometimes the book seemed too clever, and once you got beyond the cleverness it seemed shallow. The book had too much of contemporary sensibilities, and I began thinking it seemed unreal for the time it was supposedly about, and dreading what Chabon was going to pull in next. (At one point something was introduced that made me actually groan, and almost stop reading.) It was popular a decade ago, but like so much that is popular at one time, you don't hear a lot about it now.
Unlike the classics by writers like Austen, Dickens, Dostoevsky, etc., or even more contemporary classics by Waugh, Orwell, Harper Lee, and so on, I suspect in a few decades this book will just be gathering dust on library shelves - as it did for so long on mine.
Bottom line: Okay book. I question the Pulitzer. It might be of interest to fans of comic books and of good writing.
But my copy is going on the pile of books I'm donating for the library's used book sale.
Pax et bonum
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