Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

Bernice Murphy (Trinity College Dublin)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 2000

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Michael Chabon’s novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, is an exuberant, poignant, and above all, humane celebration of the human will to survive and the thrilling escape which the limitless avenues of the imagination can provide. It is also an immensely readable and at times gloriously old-fashioned homage to the first golden age of the art form which perhaps more than any other can claim to be truly an American innovation – the comic book – and of the redemptive, inspirational possibilities inherent in the very concept of the super hero.

It is perhaps not so surprising that an author to whom success and critical attention came rather earlier than usual …

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1904 words

Citation: Murphy, Bernice. "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 July 2005 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16834, accessed 25 November 2024.]

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