Literature: The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier And Clay
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Michael Chabon about The Golden Age of Comic Books, focusing on two Jewish cousins, American writer Sam Clay (born Klayman) and Czech artist Josef Kavalier, who together create a popular superhero comic called the Escapist, inspired in equal measure by Harry Houdini and Superman.Many events in the novel are based on the lives of actual comic-book creators, and the book as a whole is generally an homage to the comics of the Golden Age.
This book contains examples of:
Ambiguously Gay: Discussed Trope. The Senate committee grills Sam about the fact that he constantly creates young male sidekicks for his characters, and all but calls Batman gay.
All Germans Are Nazis: Deconstructed. Joe ends up venting his hatred of the Nazis on anyone who looks even vaguely German, regardless of whether they support Hitler. Near the end when he's stationed in Antarctica with the Navy, he's so desperate to kill some Nazis that he goes out of his way to track down and kill an innocent German geologist. He immediately feels terrible about it.
Ironically, in one scene he actually saves the life of the Spaniard Salvador Dali, apparently unaware that he's a prominent Fascist.
Author Filibuster: The narrator occasionally stops the action in the middle of conversations to go on, at length, about just how awesome 40's comics were.
Big Applesauce: Not surprising, New York hosted many Jewish immigrants during this time.
Bittersweet Ending: Although, considering the gloomy circumstances, perhaps as happy as you could hope. Joe ends up back with Rosa and his son, but Sam is outed as a homosexual and runs away from it all to LA. However, the first page of the book seems to indicate that he did relatively well for himself in the years to follow and there are implications that he and Joe continued to work as Kavalier & Clay, so it's not all sad.
The Cameo: Salvador Dali appears in one scene. Near the end, there's a brief scene in a New York cafe where Stan Lee and Gil Kane (among others) show up to get a cup of coffee.
Closet Key: Tracy Bacon for Sam Clay. Sam's mother knows before he does.
Commie Nazis: Once World War II ends, the people who own The Ecapist have no problem switching his villains from the Nazis to The Soviets.
Cutting the Knot: According to Kornblum, Harry Houdini had his wife sneak him a key in a glass of water when he couldn't escape a lock. This is used as An Aesop about The Power of Love.
Escapism: The story deals with the theme of literal and metaphorical escapism, especially the way in which various characters use comics to escape the troubles of their lives. Kavalier wants to escape the memory of the Nazis and guilt over his little brother. Clay wishes to escape his closeted gay life and his disability. Together they create the Escapist, a literal escape artist, who gains popularity when the public uses him to escape from the war.
Expy: Kavalier is possibly influenced by real-life comic book artist Jim Steranko, who was also an escape artist and magician before becoming a comic book artist. Steranko was also the inspiration for the Jack Kirby character Mister Miracle. Given how the author's note at the end of the novel ends with an acknowledgment of Kirby, it's possible that Mister Miracle was also an influence.
Gayngst: Sam Clay is a gay man in the 1940's...so it comes up in force, complete with the addition of Fredric Wertham and the congressional investigations into comicbooks in the 1950's. Ironically, he seems to be the only one ashamed of his sexuality, and ends up abandoning Tracy because of it.
The Beard: Sam to Rosa to cover up having Joe's baby out of wedlock. Rosa to Sam to cover up his Homosexuality, although she's not meant to know about it
Hair of Gold: Tracy and Rosa. Both very wholesome love interests.
Real comic book writers and artists from that era appear frequently.
Joe saves Salvador Dali from suffocating inside a diving helmet.
Hollywood Nerd: Sam and the artists he hires to make his first comics.
Irony: Joe tries to take out his anger at the Nazis by picking fights with every German-looking person he runs across. He ends up in fights with lots of innocent German-Americans who want nothing to do with Hitler. But when he runs into Salvador Dali (who actually is a fascist), he ends up saving his life.
Jewish and Nerdy: Played straight and subverted to varying degrees.
Meaningful Name: Sam Clay's real last name is Klayman, or "Clay Man." The book heavily references the story of the Golem, another Clay Man. Kavalier is a play on the French "cavale", meaning escape. Joe's escape artist stage name is The Amazing Cavalieri, putting the emphasis closer to the French.
Naked on Arrival: How Joe first meets Rosa. He and Sam are trying to get into the apartment building where the local cartoonists work, but the front door's locked, so he scales the fire escape and goes in through the window...only to find Rosa lying on the couch completely naked. As soon as his friends find out, one of them pays him to draw her naked from memory.
Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Joe's trek across Antarctica is almost entirely skipped over. First, his pilot dies shortly into the trip and he is forced to continue flying it alone with no experience. After killing the German, he treks on foot across the Tundra and barely survives by finding an old pre-war German base camp and holing up.
Reassigned to Antarctica: Literally. Joe joins the navy in hopes of fighting the Nazis, but he is instead assigned to a remote naval outpost in Antarctica, miles away from any actual battles. This is particularly hard on him, as he only enlisted so he could avenge his little brother, who was killed in a German torpedo attack.
Secret Secret Keeper: It's implied Sam's Mother has figured out the attraction between him and Tracy. Possibly Rosa as well.
War Is Hell: Reconstructed in a (mostly) non-combat situation. Joe is eager to fight the Nazis and pay them back for murdering his family, but, because he's a native German speaker, he ends up far away from the fighting intercepting radio transmissions, at an outpost in Mysterious Antarctica, where the only thing to fight is the harsh conditions. He sees all his comrades die, pointlessly, from a carbon monoxide leak. He does shoot one German— who turns out to be a nice guy and not at all a Nazi.
What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: In-universe example. Joe channels a great deal of his hatred of The Nazis into some very detailed, but graphically violent fight comics.
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