A powerful and incredibly well-written novel.

Here it is, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, the book where Michael Chabon comes into his own as one of the best of American contemporary authors. Never mind Philip Roth, John Updike, Kurt Vonnegut, and all those other big literary names, for, in the words of Bob Dylan, "[their] old road is rapidly agin'." Those former masters of American literature are on their way out and into the realm of James T. Farrell, John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Ernest Poole, and all of those early 20th century literary stars, a place known as the "Classics" section. Updike, Roth, and others of their kind might have dominated the latter half of 20th century America, but now with the year 2000 gone and past, they are on their way out, to be replaced by a new generation of novelists. In my opinion, Chabon is one of the best of this new breed.

In The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, the author pays homage to both his Jewish heritage and his former love of comic books by portraying the struggle of two young Jewish-Americans, Joseph Kavalier and Sam Clay. The former has just arrived in America from a long journey that is depicted by Chabon with a velocity that would have been cloying had the story been penned by another author, but with Chabon, comes across as inspired zeal. Sammy's story is, by far, more simple, but it is he who inspires Joe to use two former passions, magic acts and drawing, to create comic books. As for Sammy, he is decided to be the idea man, the guy who sits at a typewriter and types story after story for the use of the artist. Together they create a multitude of comic characters, but the one, above all, that shows above all the others is the Escapist, a blue-suited superhero who, like Batman, uses his wits to get out of jams, but also his intricate knowledge of magic.

A captivating enough story, true, but what sets it apart from other stories of the like (I could probably only count on one hand any books with a similar plot, but whatever...) is the setting, America during World War II. Being Jews, the two comic book artists realize ahead of the rest of the country the kind of horrors going on over in Nazi Germany, the oppression and the murders, and together they attempt to combat it with the only tool alloted them: their comic books. Unlike Captain America and Superman, though, these two choose to have the Escapist and their other heroes battle Nazis BEFORE America's entrance into the war, meaning they naturally run into more than a little trouble about getting their derogatory comics published. Meanwhile, Joe falls in love with Rosa Saks, a wealthy young woman who professes herself to be a painter, and the two begin a relationship, while Sammy is left in the cold, and there begins to acknowledge that he is gay.

Atop all of this, as well as the further developments that occur immediately after the U.S. declares war, are individual scenes that are, by themselves, small masterpieces. In this novel, we meet an insane domestic terrorist who supports the Nazis and thinks of himself as a superhero, Salvador Dali in the midst of choking in a aquarium headpiece, a sagacious magician within Nazi Germany, Orson Welles at the premiere of Citizen Kane, and a score of other characters, some of them in for the long run, others only briefly. Thinking about it now makes a plethora of images summon up in my mind, and it is impossible to grasp on to all of them and even attempt to explain all of the countless details in this book. It is one of the most endlessly creative books I've read in a long time. Whereas Chabon once isolated his beautiful and erudite prose to strictly smaller scopes, in Kavalier and Clay, he goes all-out, going from America to Nazi Germany, an isolated little army snow station in Antarctica, and other landscapes, upon which he introduces and deepens characters. Looking at the book, simply flipping through its pages, one sees mostly dialogue, and therefore it is quite a surprise to find out how much of the book is in the description of it, how individual moments and even entire parts stand out in their entirety in the reader's imagination thanks to the talented pen of Chabon.

The energy in this book is beyond words, it is startling in its clarity, beauty, and gigantic proportions. Simply put, Kavalier and Clay is a spectacular novel, totally deserving of the Pulitzer Prize it won, and another reminder that American literature is far from dead.