That’s right, another trip to RetroJunk.com has riddled me with a drive-by Melody Lane-ing. Pizza Hut’s BookIt program, that’s awesome/awful little blue buttons that promoted reading/lying-about-reading in order to gain Pizza Points.
Now, to be fair to myself, I did end up reading about 80% of the books I claimed to read, but that 5 books a week drove a hard bargain and forced me into a lying situation.
This New Year, I campaigned (myself) to read two books a month, and so far, I’ve kept that up.
But as a throwback to my old fibbing days, I’m going to do what I suppose one could call the opposite of the Oprah Book Club. I’m going to talk about a book BEFORE I read it.
First on my reading list is “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” by Michael Chabon.
Here’s what I know about the book:
*It was #18 on the Best Gay Books of All Time list from AfterElton.com
*It follows Joe Kavalier, straight Jew, and Sammy Clay, gay Jew, and their efforts to launch a superhero character, The Escapist, amidst the Golden Age of Comic Books in the Pre, During and Post World War II-era New York City.
*It spans a great deal of time.
*It won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001
*It was attempted several unsuccessful times to be turned into a film.
Here’s what Fibbin’ Adam Sass thinks is going to happen, based on my BookIt Context Clues.
*I just watched Chabon-written “Wonder Boys” on VHS, which featured a sexual orientation-ambiguous Robert Downey Jr. and Tobey Maguire. The gay character of Sammy Clay will be chatty, neurotic and (being the 1930′s and 40′s) not be overtly homosexual (kissin’ boys) until later in the book, if at all.
*Couple people at Barnes & Noble, when I bought the book, said they cried their eyes out at the ending. They were both women, but they did not clutch their chests when they said they cried. It is therefore not an ending where someone beloved dies or experiences terrible heartbreak, it is a heartwarming ending, like “A League of Their Own,” where characters have loved and lost along the way, and we look back at how far we’ve come.
*The artwork is retro 40′s, involves Jews, so there will be several characters who must hide who they really are (just like the gay one) for fear of not “making it” in the comic book industry.
*The character of the Escapist will therefore be a blond Aryan god, as it will be the envious creation of two small, dark-haired Jews who are trying to throw people off the scent of their heritage in such war-lorn times.
*The men will have a professional and personal falling out that will span the decades between Post-War and, say, the 70′s, when a Second Golden Age of comics comes into being, and they are reunited as old men, the character of Sammy having probably come out by then.
*I predict I will enjoy the book a tremendous deal, being a gay-theme, comic book enthusiast, chatty character-loving fan of the Jews.
*I predict I will go on and on about the book ad nauseum to my friends and family, who will humor me for a few minutes and never pick the book up, save for a few who read it a few years ago when it was more current.
I therefore pre-give the book the BookIt Seal of Approval. Where’s my Goddamn dessert pizza?
