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David Kingsley Kingsley
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 18 June 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 1098
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| Posted: 12 March 2008 at 6:23am | IP Logged | 1
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I read it last year and thought Kavalier and Clay was one of the best books that I read, in a long while. Absolutely loved it. But I have to agree that this article was pretty impenatrable. It felt like thesis paper.
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Brendan Howard
Byrne Robotics Member
FAQ Master Supreme
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4943
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| Posted: 12 March 2008 at 6:35am | IP Logged | 2
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I suddenly feel guilty for really liking Kavalier & Clay. The comicbook
industry stuff was mostly window dressing to me -- the characters and their
story is what drew me in.
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Dan Avenell
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Joined: 06 March 2008
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| Posted: 12 March 2008 at 6:48am | IP Logged | 3
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I also never finished Kavalier & Clay.
The article seems to be saying that super-hero costumes and all they symbolize cannot be realized by adults at comic-cons, but kids can do it with their imagination.
The point may have been made better by South Park when the kids are playing ninja warriors, or with Al Gore in a cape.
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Andrew Hess
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 9845
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| Posted: 12 March 2008 at 7:33am | IP Logged | 4
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A friend just sent this article to me.
Horribly over-written, and lots of comic insider references which would go
over the heads of most of the readers I'm sure.
That said, it's a cute Valentine to comics and Chabon's youth.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 12 March 2008 at 7:33am | IP Logged | 5
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I had an odd reason for not reading "Kavalier and Klay". Everything I heard from people who liked the book told me I wouldn't!It's not the only time that's happened. There have been several writers over the years who I have known immediately to avoid, on the strength of recommendations from critics and friends.
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Vladimir Fiks
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Joined: 03 May 2004
Posts: 1138
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| Posted: 12 March 2008 at 7:39am | IP Logged | 6
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I thought "Kavalier and Klay" was an OK book, but never understood the
hoopla surrounding it. And I certainly never understood how Chabon
became the authority on comics with some of the non-comic reading people
I have spoken to.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 12 March 2008 at 7:49am | IP Logged | 7
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If I may go hyper-analytical for a moment, I have long had my suspicions about why stuff that I think misses the mark re: superheroes is so widely accepted by civilians.I think, despite society's best efforts to pretend to be too "sophisticated" for such things, there is a basic human need for the kind of big, broad, bright, unashamedly heroic storytelling we get in traditional superhero tales. But, since the general impression of superheroes is that they are moronic and sub-juvenile, in order for the general public to be able to embrace them, they must be disguised in some fashion. Thus, we have seen a spate of "stealth" superhero movies, like 300, TROY, ALEXANDER, GLADIATOR, etc, where historical milieus allow for the cape-and-tights motif to be slipped under the radar. Thus, "Kavalier and Klay" takes the basic form and wraps it up in a new set of ribbons, and becomes a hit more for what it's not than what it really is. (This is, I think, the same reason most critics lauded SUPERMAN II as a superior effort to SUPERMAN - THE MOVIE. S-TM had the effrontery to demand that the subject be taken seriously, while SII trashed just about everything Superman is about.)
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Dave Phelps
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4184
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| Posted: 12 March 2008 at 7:56am | IP Logged | 8
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Tom French wrote:
| Though not normally my habit, Kavalier and Clay was one of the few books I didn't actually finish. I usually give a book a hundred pages to pull me in, but K&C never did. Interestingly, all my non-comic book reading friends "thought" of me when they read it. |
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Took me about 130 pages to get into it. If that plane ride was any shorter, I probably wouldn't have finished it myself. :-)
Vladimir Fiks wrote:
| I thought "Kavalier and Klay" was an OK book, but never understood the hoopla surrounding it. And I certainly never understood how Chabon became the authority on comics with some of the non-comic reading people I have spoken to. |
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Agreed.
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Sean Blythe
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Joined: 13 July 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 342
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| Posted: 12 March 2008 at 8:27am | IP Logged | 9
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I feel quite strongly that Mr. Simko and I read very, very different novels. Or,
rather, the same novel very, very differently.
Edited by Sean Blythe on 12 March 2008 at 8:28am
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Michael Arndt
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Joined: 26 April 2004
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| Posted: 12 March 2008 at 8:32am | IP Logged | 10
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Felt the same way about it. Couldn't finish it.
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Brad Brickley
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Joined: 29 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 8287
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| Posted: 12 March 2008 at 8:39am | IP Logged | 11
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I thought it was Siegel and Shuster that was thinly veiled. It was an okay book. It didn't change my life.
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Sean Blythe
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 13 July 2006
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Posts: 342
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| Posted: 12 March 2008 at 9:24am | IP Logged | 12
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My anger over some of the comments in this thread is outsized for some
reason, so I apologize in advance. But I genuinely feel that approaching
Kavalier & Clay (Clay with a C, by the way, not a K) as nothing more than
a Roman a clef (no pun intended) about the golden age of comics is like
going to see Citizen Kane to understand how newspapers work; like
reading Libra as an encyclopedia entry on the Kennedy assassination.
Look, I don't want to get into a literary argument here (and I realize that I
may be dangerously close to calling some people too shallow to fully
understand what I think is a great novel -- I'm not). But there is a LOT
more going on in K&C than "Every anecdote about Golden Age comic
creators with the serial numbers filed off + Drama + Angst ." A lot more
than retelling the traditional superhero story in a different way. This is a
novel about the immigrant experience, about being Jewish in America,
about sexual confusion, about longing and love and the incandescent joy
of creation. It's also a damn good yarn about the place of myth in our
lives -- religious myths, family myths, and the 4-color funny book kind.
Edited by Sean Blythe on 12 March 2008 at 9:31am
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