the amazing adventures of kavalier & clay - michael chabon
I was in the middle of this book when the planes hit the World Trade Center. That was a weird moment to be reading a book that is (among many other things) about a World War and in which one of the characters keeps a watch for enemy planes from the observatory at the Empire State Building. A book that has lines like 'A great feat of engineering is an object of perpetual interest to people bent on self-destruction'.
It's a great book. I loved it. Chabon has such a delightful, daring imagination and so much love of language and is funny and wise to boot. But I wonder about the last third of the book. What happened? Did he write it too fast? Did he try to do too much? Was the editor ill? Something's wrong here: I think it is too much explanations and too little dialogue. The last part is jumbly and sometimes feels wooden, and then, when there is dialogue, it suddenly comes alive again and is wonderful. Wish there were something like a director's cut dvd for this, in which we could see the development of this story through time and hear comments about what he was planning to do.
But all in all, it was very good. I guess I will re-read this and try to understand it better. And steal as much from it as I possibly can.
28-09-2001
