The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
No doubt an epic work, Michael Chabon's 2000 novel is written with a sharp eye for historical detail and such vivid characters that it's impossible not to be enveloped in their world. The backdrop of the Holocaust and World War II add an urgency to events at the individual level and the themes of love and loss, revenge and redemption, are ideally suited to a book of this scope. Ultimately, however, it is the concept of escape--from lives lived in shadows and in opposition to one's true essence--that makes this work most satisfying.

At a sentence and paragraph level, Kavalier & Clay stands up to just about any fiction--the author's rich tapestry of vocabulary is breathtaking. Perhaps the only caveat that would give a potential reader pause is the book's length. At over 600 pages, there are moments that drag, provoking a desire for return to the plot's driving forces.


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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
Rarely has a book dropped so dramatically in my esteem during the time I was actually reading it. Oscar Wao is one of those books, having fallen from a whiz-bang five stars for the first 50 to 100 pages past four stars during the middle of the book before finally coming to a thud on three stars by the conclusion. Why the steep decline? Well, there's no doubt that the novel, ostensibly about a "ghetto nerd" from the Dominican Republic via New Jersey, grabs your attention right out of the gate. Junot Diaz is a masterful writer, who slips effortlessly between political polemic and the Spanglish descriptions of his main character's tortured existence. His prose is lively and infinitely creative and I sensed that he has a great book in him, but this just ain't it. As he rails against the evils of the Trujillo dictatorship, Diaz is simultaneously telling the sad tale of this miserable young man. Unfortunately for the reader, the two stories don't form a coherent narrative, and by the end, it's impossible to figure out why he chose to base the book around Oscar, whose life may be brief, but is certainly not all that wondrous. I kept waiting for the big connection, the tale of redemption that might explain why Oscar was chosen, by the story, by this author, for his fate. It seems I was waiting in vain.


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