The book occupied, in time and space, for so long that after I finished it I was enveloped in withdrawal misery. The book, at its roots, tells the tale of two very talented and creative people, mired in their past and their present, whose art anchors their sanity. It creates such a fascinating fantasy of purpose for the characters that I desperately wanted to emulate and belong to it. The story is set forth and very neatly interposed with an era, an art movement, with pop culture, with a war. In the beginning, you almost gush at Chabon’s intelligence as a story teller. The lives he creates are so magical and yet messy and real at the same time that one easily falls in love and once the book is finished, just as easily identifies with the deep unrequited yearnings that fill its pages.

The book is a grand gesture. It tries to cohesively piece together the big and small tragedies and unclear motivations of the lives of two people, of an industry, of a war, the Jews, of magicians, of a child, of a woman, of solitude. It sweeps us all in this world, with its sounds and scenes and in to the mired and sticky thought waves in everyone’s head. And some of the lines are just so poignant and beautiful: where Kavalier thinks about how he always felt that his past and his family were somehow just waiting for him at the breakfast table. That he could, just naturally, be a part of it again. It was an error that had forced its way and he was waiting for it to correct itself. How the winter air suddenly envelops him like plastic warp shrinking up on fish.

He sets forth to illustrate an epic. Glorious, ambitious, strokes are unfurled one instant, intricate, immensely magical sketches the next. But it’s the filling in, in between these moments, that Chabon falters on. The pace is spluttery at times. At inopportune times, his need to establish some history of comics takes over the story. The final chapters of the story are straddled together a little haphazardly. He at times of loses the thread of his characters and their actions. But maybe that messiness just adds to the feeling the book leaves you with. That in the end, it is not a pretty neat picture, which is life. It isn’t tidy and no one has any answers. There are no real conclusions. It is just a multitude of scattered reasons and events from which one tries to decipher any coherent theme.

*In on the proceedings: “All of a sudden I miss everyone” Album by Explosions in the Sky