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lightreadsFiction. Two cousins embark on a joint career in comics against the backdrop of New York and World War II. Which does not sum this book up well at all. The thing is, Chabon had me from the very first page. He made me laugh, he made me angry, he nearly made me cry. One of the fundamental yardsticks I apply to everything I read is my own skill -- could I have written this? And the thing is, there's something so fundamentally daring about this book, in the way it plays with reality and superreality, with fiction and history that goes leaps and bounds beyond places I've ever comfortably gone in my own work. This
is written as a faux-historical account of the careers of the title characters, but with a simultaneous and intense intimacy to their lives. The theme here is escapism -- from the people who are killing your family for the crime of being Jewish, from your own desires which draw you to men instead of women, from poverty, from dullness, from pain. The message is beautifully executed with complication and tenderness: you can never get away, not entirely, and
that's what will save you. Chabon lost me in a few places with that exact daringness I spoke of, as Joe's storyline pushes the envelope of believability
and then busts it right open and leaps out, bold as life, daring you to still believe. But I know why Chabon chose this particular style, and he always
got me back with these wonderful, screwed up people who love each other so very much. Which is to say nothing of the writing, which was good enough to
throw me out of the narrative sometimes to go back and reread a passage (a particular description of the Brooklyn Bridge has stayed with me for weeks).
In short: highlight of the month. Brilliant, even if a few elements were more appreciable to me on an intellectual than a personal level due to my own tastes
in fiction. There was more than enough through the heart in the rest of the book.
is written as a faux-historical account of the careers of the title characters, but with a simultaneous and intense intimacy to their lives. The theme here is escapism -- from the people who are killing your family for the crime of being Jewish, from your own desires which draw you to men instead of women, from poverty, from dullness, from pain. The message is beautifully executed with complication and tenderness: you can never get away, not entirely, and
that's what will save you. Chabon lost me in a few places with that exact daringness I spoke of, as Joe's storyline pushes the envelope of believability
and then busts it right open and leaps out, bold as life, daring you to still believe. But I know why Chabon chose this particular style, and he always
got me back with these wonderful, screwed up people who love each other so very much. Which is to say nothing of the writing, which was good enough to
throw me out of the narrative sometimes to go back and reread a passage (a particular description of the Brooklyn Bridge has stayed with me for weeks).
In short: highlight of the month. Brilliant, even if a few elements were more appreciable to me on an intellectual than a personal level due to my own tastes
in fiction. There was more than enough through the heart in the rest of the book.