The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
By Michael Chabon

Reading through a book, I occasionally write a little note to remind myself of a particularly good phrase or passage in the text. I attach this as a small "post-it" to the page.

One of my notes here was for a strange word I came across on a page in Chabon's novel. The word was Aetataureate and the context :

... a sizeable proportion of the citizens of New York City had the odd experience of feeling for the time in which they were living, at the very moment they were living in it, that strange blend of optimism and nostalgia which is the usual hallmark of the aetataureate delusion.

The USA was weeks away from the attack on Pearl Harbour and their entry into WW2. Not knowing the word, I wrote my note. Looking this up later, it turns out that this is a "nonce" word, something Chabon's made up to mean a "golden age" or a period of peak achievement. Well, there you go. He's a clever guy and a great writer, so that's a good combination in my book.

Chabon obviously loves this period in American history and loves New York. The novel is beautifully written and I also feel that "aetataureate delusion" and a nostalgia for a place in time he brings to life so well. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay won Chabon the Pulitzer Prize in 2001. I think a lot of people feel the pull of a "golden" age and have done since time the Ancient Greeks (if not before). This book contrasts the security and opportunity of New York with the increasing despair and desperation of Europe, entering the opposite of a Golden Age and closer to Dante's Circles of Hell. Not that the USA was a paradise, especially for blacks, jews or gays; but light-years better than elsewhere.

From Europe comes Sammy Klay's cousin, Josef Kavalier. Josef, a Jew from Prague, leaves his friends and family to escape Nazi Europe but feels a huge guilt at doing so, and a burning desire to save his younger brother from the Nazi's as well. With some talent as an artist and with Sammy's help as a writer, the cousins turn their skill to writing and drawing superhero comics, becoming successful in what would also be another Golden Age, this one for the comic book. But bashing Hitler and beating the Nazi's in a fantasy world can only assuage a guilt so far and Joe Kavalier remains obsessed and weighed down by the situation of his family. The European Holocaust is a constant, but background, presence in the novel.

Chabon sets the time and the place in wonderful detail here. The Jewish experience in New York, from the immigrants at the start of the Century and up to the start of World War 2. Not only does he know and love the people, including the lost world of European Jewry, but he is also in love with the old comic books; an industry forming just as the storm clouds gathered. Couple this with the fun of stage magic, lock picking and the escape artist, we have a full stage for the adventures. A funny book but also deeply serious and beautifully written.