"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. "

I agree...it's one of my favorites.

All of which are presented as a roman a klef of the comicbook industry -- and in a form which will be the first time most civilians gain any knowledge of the industry. The history could be better served without imaginary elements layered in to serve the author's agenda.

I agree, Sean.

This might be the same argument we had about Titanic in another thread. I get the impression that overlaying fictional characters and events onto an environment that actually existed is not always welcomed as a storytelling strategy.

Has anyone here read and/or enjoyed Chabon's Wonder Boys?

Where Kavalier and Clay lost the plot for me wasn't in it's sexual elements or its roman a clef or any of the stuff about comics. Even if he seemed almost desperate to squeeze "MEANING" into everything. 

 It lost me in that sequence with Kavalier sitting in an office in the Empire State Building shut off from humanity for a decade or so drawing the Great American Graphic Novel. Without publishing anything.

With all the great tragedies and scandals in the industry, that hokey kitschy-sentimental ending was the best he could think of? (many mis-steps before that, but that one really killed it for me.)

The article, like Chabon's Kavalier and Clay, washed over me with an enigmatic, dreamlike obviousness that I could neither grasp nor comprehend.

Or, as my old college roommate said regarding some Springsteen lyrics:  "'Endless juke joints in Valentino drag' . . . good God, man -- what does it mean?!"

And frankly, if you don't get this, I must conclude you didn't really get "Kavalier and Klay", either.

The article about costumes by Chabon was not his best effort. 

If anyone is interested, I previously found this article, about Kirby, Big Barda, and love to be much, much better:

http://web.archive.org/web/20060326233017/www.michaelchabon. com/archives/2005/03/a_woman_of_valo.html

Regarding Kavalier and Clay: I read it.  For me, it started out wonderfully and just puttered out completely.  I did not care for the gay subplot.  To me, if seemed to be added merely to create import or gravitas ("See, it has a tortured gay character . . . ").  I also thought the whole excursion to the North Pole (or South, can't remember), while by itself was great, in terms of the novel as a whole, it was an unnecessary diverson.  I also agree with others that the ending just was too nice and tidey compared to the rest of the novel.  But, the protaganist's  escape from Europe and the subsequent creation of the Escapist was great, fun stuff.