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Kavalier & Clay
May. 23rd, 2008 09:35 pmI finished The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. This book really packs in a lot -- 1940s New York, the comic book industry, magicians, escape artists, worldwide travel, the immigrant experience, the American dream, the Holocaust, Surrealism, World War II, McCarthyism...
Michael Chabon's writing is lush and quirky without being bloated or overwrought. He can pull off long sentences with numerous asides without losing the reader.
Here are more yummy quotes.
How not to cool a room:
"They followed Ethel into the living room. The electric fan was going in the window, but, in accordance with Ether's personal theories of hygiene and thermodynamics, faced outward, so as to draw the warm air out of the room, leaving an entirely theoretical zone of coolness behind." (P. 308)
The Empire State Building:
"A great feat of engineering is the object of perpetual interest to people bent on self-destruction. Since its completion, the Empire State Building, a giant shard of the Hoosier State torn from the mild limestone bosom of the Midwest and upended, on the site of the old Waldorf-Astoria, in the midst of the heaviest traffic in the world, had been a magnet for dislocated souls hoping to ensure the finality of their impact, or to mock the bold productions of human vanity." (P. 492)
Watching a magic trick:
"...questioning whether he imagined it or had been fooled into seeing more than was there by the artful anenome flutter of his cousin's fingers and thumbs." (P. 511)
Yes, anenome is an adjective now. :-)
On smells:
"Normally he folded into the envelope of their bed an olfactory transcript of his day in the city, a rich record of..." (p 560)
Michael Chabon's writing is lush and quirky without being bloated or overwrought. He can pull off long sentences with numerous asides without losing the reader.
Here are more yummy quotes.
How not to cool a room:
"They followed Ethel into the living room. The electric fan was going in the window, but, in accordance with Ether's personal theories of hygiene and thermodynamics, faced outward, so as to draw the warm air out of the room, leaving an entirely theoretical zone of coolness behind." (P. 308)
The Empire State Building:
"A great feat of engineering is the object of perpetual interest to people bent on self-destruction. Since its completion, the Empire State Building, a giant shard of the Hoosier State torn from the mild limestone bosom of the Midwest and upended, on the site of the old Waldorf-Astoria, in the midst of the heaviest traffic in the world, had been a magnet for dislocated souls hoping to ensure the finality of their impact, or to mock the bold productions of human vanity." (P. 492)
Watching a magic trick:
"...questioning whether he imagined it or had been fooled into seeing more than was there by the artful anenome flutter of his cousin's fingers and thumbs." (P. 511)
Yes, anenome is an adjective now. :-)
On smells:
"Normally he folded into the envelope of their bed an olfactory transcript of his day in the city, a rich record of..." (p 560)
