Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize winner did not enthrall me nearly as much as Wonder Boys, I think mainly because it is a very long homage to the Golden Age of Comics and the artists and writers who created the form. The best written and most affecting section of the novel was the strange middle sequence in which one of the main characters, Kavalier, is sent to Antarctica after joining the Army during World War II, and there spends a surreal winter marked by senseless death, madness and obsession. By contrast, I found the sandwiching sections to be overlong and not nearly as emotionally wrenching, and the character of Sam Clay was not as real to me as his counterpart. The novel never ceased to be entertaining, though; it just didn’t have as much of an impact on me as it must have had on other readers.