In Atonement by Ian McEwan, the protagonist converts fiction into a kind of currency. She harms people with almost literary notions, and then in the same way she tries to atone for her guilt in the form of literature and invent a beautiful and graceful fate for the victims. In "The Adventures of the Cavalier and Clay" something similar happens, but with the help of art the heroes struggle not so much with their own conscience, but with the imperfection of the world around them. Well, everyone has their own weapon. It would be foolish to wield your fists and shoot a rifle if you have the strength of a sparrow and the accuracy of the stormtroopers from "Star Wars". Everyone fights as best they can.
“In the immemorial style of young men under pressure, they decided to lie down for a while and waste time.” Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
The art in the novel is the comics. If "Cavalier and Clay" was written about sculptors or musicians, then the idea of art-wrestling also worked, but it would have been less prominent. Comics, bright, exaggerated, often say something straight on the forehead, and this is exactly what they are good about, because they can instantly react to everything that is topical and exciting for large masses of people. While you are still there sculpting a sculpture in which Apollo or Athena trample underfoot Hitler in plaster. But you can quickly draw a scuffle - and the people will see much more.
Of course, Michael Chabon's novel is not only about dealing with problems at different levels of life. Starting to list the problems means getting bogged down for a whole evening in the formulation of topics for school essays. This is not required. It is much more important to mention that a real strong American novel (a great one, of course, and a multi-page one) for the most part consists of the realities of a particular country, but at the same time it still manages to gradually infiltrate to a larger-scale level, if not the world, then at least the psychological - for certain individuals. For American-centered prose, this is a great rarity that needs to be protected and allocated so that they are not completely closed there in their own shtetl literature.
I am sure that in a hundred years, this particular novel by Chabon will be studied with a magnifying glass and multi-page monographs will be written, occupying many more pages than the text of the work itself. But that later, and now we can afford the luxury of enjoying a great romance without unnecessary glances and analyzes. If you do not find for yourself in the novel at least something consonant among the variety of lines, characters and problems, then, by God, you are some kind of alien, not a person.
I wish everyone to read it, even those who are afraid of comics like plague. You may change your mind.
You can get "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" at PenguinRandomHouse.com
This article was sponsored by Kellie Cyr.
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