I don’t have enough time to read everything I want to read - I need more hours in the day and more days in the week. I’m reading five books at once and a new magazine is always arriving in the mail. Today I received The New Yorker and it has a short story by Martin Amis (The Last Day of Mohammed Atta) and an article about how MapQuest works – how can I not read that? I have to know…
My reading dilemma is the catalyst for this post. Since I have too much to read, I thought I’d offer up some reading material for the masses (or at least the 3 people who read this blog), so you’d have more to read too.
The Believer | The Passion of Morrissey
The Believer | Jack Black [Actor & Musician]
Random Wiki | Diagnostic Drone
Michael Chabon | Greasy Kids Stuff
Which is a nice segue into one of my favorite books, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. Here’s a review I wrote for The Charleston City Paper a few years back:
Set in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, Kavalier & Clay is an expansive novel, both politically charged and character driven. During the rise of Hitler’s Third Reich, Josef Kavalier escapes Prague in a coffin containing a sacred golem, and his cousin, Samuel Clayman, later known as Sam Clay, unknowingly awaits his arrival in New York City. When Joe arrives, the cousins at first hesitantly and then enthusiastically embrace each other’s company. Sam, a dyed-in-the-wool comic book fan, discovers Joe’s artistic talent and uses it to make a sales pitch to his boss, Shelly Anapol. Sam and Joe want to create their own comic book – a Kavalier & Clay original. Anapol gives them hesitant approval, and during a weekend of nonstop bleary-eyed work, Sam and Joe create their first comic. On the cover is a picture of their costumed hero, The Escapist, punching Adolf Hitler across the page with superhero force.
After the comic’s immediate success, Sam and Joe settle into their roles as writer and artist and begin to live lives both intertwined and divided.
Joe’s life revolves around his love of family and his hatred of Germans. He saves money in hopes of freeing his family from Europe and brawls with German-Americans in the streets. It appears as if he is going out of control and then something happens. He meets Rosa Saks. This beautiful artist sidetracks Joe’s destructive ways and points his testosterone in another more intimate direction. She is Joe’s new love and the inspiration for Luna Moth, a scantily clad comic book heroin who becomes very popular with teenage boys.
Meanwhile, while Joe is getting in fights and getting in bed, Sam is working. He constantly writes Nazi-bashing comic book plots and roughshod pulp fiction. And when he isn’t writing, which isn’t often, he’s wrestling with his sexuality. Sam can’t figure out why he isn’t jealous of Joe’s relationship with Rosa. Why doesn’t he want such a beautiful girl? Sam is burdened with frustrating asexuality until he meets Tracy Bacon, a brawny radio-actor who plays The Escapist, and then he reluctantly, even halfheartedly, falls in love.
In time Sam and Joe become moderately affluent and, in the small world of comic books, famous. They hobnob with Salvador Dali, Orson Welles, and Stan Lee. Everything in their lives is going well, and then all hell breaks loose. Japan bombs Pearl Harbor. When America joins the war, Sam can’t enlist because of his scrawny polio-stricken legs, but Joe is more than ready to fight. He enlists with dreams of killing Germans, but, to his chagrin, he ends up in an isolated post in the frozen “Antarctic Waldorf,” and, instead of fighting, Joe just tries not to freeze.
After the war, everything changes for the amazing duo. Joe disappears from society, Sam entangles himself in an awkward situation, and Michael Chabon’s storytelling reaches a fabulous crescendo. After reading the last page, I immediately wanted more of Chabon’s odd literary concoction. Without making anything seem implausible, Chabon mixes comic books with World War II, sexuality with Jewish folklore, and surreal images with brutal reality. Superbly written and flawlessly styled, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a true cliché - a classic in its own time.
My reading dilemma is the catalyst for this post. Since I have too much to read, I thought I’d offer up some reading material for the masses (or at least the 3 people who read this blog), so you’d have more to read too.
The Believer | The Passion of Morrissey
The Believer | Jack Black [Actor & Musician]
Random Wiki | Diagnostic Drone
Michael Chabon | Greasy Kids Stuff
Which is a nice segue into one of my favorite books, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. Here’s a review I wrote for The Charleston City Paper a few years back:
Set in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, Kavalier & Clay is an expansive novel, both politically charged and character driven. During the rise of Hitler’s Third Reich, Josef Kavalier escapes Prague in a coffin containing a sacred golem, and his cousin, Samuel Clayman, later known as Sam Clay, unknowingly awaits his arrival in New York City. When Joe arrives, the cousins at first hesitantly and then enthusiastically embrace each other’s company. Sam, a dyed-in-the-wool comic book fan, discovers Joe’s artistic talent and uses it to make a sales pitch to his boss, Shelly Anapol. Sam and Joe want to create their own comic book – a Kavalier & Clay original. Anapol gives them hesitant approval, and during a weekend of nonstop bleary-eyed work, Sam and Joe create their first comic. On the cover is a picture of their costumed hero, The Escapist, punching Adolf Hitler across the page with superhero force.
After the comic’s immediate success, Sam and Joe settle into their roles as writer and artist and begin to live lives both intertwined and divided.
Joe’s life revolves around his love of family and his hatred of Germans. He saves money in hopes of freeing his family from Europe and brawls with German-Americans in the streets. It appears as if he is going out of control and then something happens. He meets Rosa Saks. This beautiful artist sidetracks Joe’s destructive ways and points his testosterone in another more intimate direction. She is Joe’s new love and the inspiration for Luna Moth, a scantily clad comic book heroin who becomes very popular with teenage boys.
Meanwhile, while Joe is getting in fights and getting in bed, Sam is working. He constantly writes Nazi-bashing comic book plots and roughshod pulp fiction. And when he isn’t writing, which isn’t often, he’s wrestling with his sexuality. Sam can’t figure out why he isn’t jealous of Joe’s relationship with Rosa. Why doesn’t he want such a beautiful girl? Sam is burdened with frustrating asexuality until he meets Tracy Bacon, a brawny radio-actor who plays The Escapist, and then he reluctantly, even halfheartedly, falls in love.
In time Sam and Joe become moderately affluent and, in the small world of comic books, famous. They hobnob with Salvador Dali, Orson Welles, and Stan Lee. Everything in their lives is going well, and then all hell breaks loose. Japan bombs Pearl Harbor. When America joins the war, Sam can’t enlist because of his scrawny polio-stricken legs, but Joe is more than ready to fight. He enlists with dreams of killing Germans, but, to his chagrin, he ends up in an isolated post in the frozen “Antarctic Waldorf,” and, instead of fighting, Joe just tries not to freeze.
After the war, everything changes for the amazing duo. Joe disappears from society, Sam entangles himself in an awkward situation, and Michael Chabon’s storytelling reaches a fabulous crescendo. After reading the last page, I immediately wanted more of Chabon’s odd literary concoction. Without making anything seem implausible, Chabon mixes comic books with World War II, sexuality with Jewish folklore, and surreal images with brutal reality. Superbly written and flawlessly styled, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a true cliché - a classic in its own time.
