The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2000

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Part 4, Chapters 5-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 4: “The Golden Age”

Part 4, Chapter 5 Summary

Most of the Escapist’s villains operate on the battlefields of Europe and North Africa, but the Saboteur lives in Empire City. The Saboteur “is every bit the dark obverse of the Escapist, as skilled at worming his way into something as the Escapist is at fighting his way out” (328). As the Escapist’s power increases, so does the Saboteur’s. The Saboteur shares a canopy bedroom with his girlfriend, the Spy Queen, Renata von Woom. She is a founding member of his evil group, the United Snakes of America.

On a Saturday afternoon, the Saboteur wakes and gets ready for his menial job that serves as his cover. He removes his night-black uniform bearing his symbol, a crimson crowbar, and changes into a waiter’s outfit. He then goes to his laboratory to collect the dismantled parts of the Exploding Trident, which he has cleverly concealed in a pink cake box. He waves goodbye to Renata, who is lying on the bed underneath a portrait of the Führer. She tells him to “knock ‘em dead, big boy” (330).

The Saboteur takes the bus to Fifth Avenue and then another 20 blocks uptown: “Ordinarily he dislikes taking the bus, but he is late already, and if you are late, they take it out of your pay” (330). He arrives 10 minutes late and is docked 50 cents. The Pierre is a popular place for events for the wealthy Jews of the city, something he discovered shortly after taking the job. Tonight, he plans on making his greatest exploit to date. Even though he hates having to serve such people, he knows that his secret identity will allow him the opportunity to strike a terrible blow. At a bar mitzvah last winter, the Saboteur learned that the Amazing Cavalieri was performing and that the Amazing Cavalieri was none other than Joe Kavalier, his nemesis, having rectified his previous misconception that Sam Clay was his enemy. Tonight, Joe will perform again. The Saboteur wheels the Exploding Trident into the ballroom:

At that moment, the sheet of paper on which the contours of Carl Ebling’s mind have been drawn is like a map that has been folded and carelessly remolded too many times. The reverse shows through; the poles meet; at the heart of a ratifying gray grid of city streets lies an expanse of virgin blue sea (331).

Carl Ebling then grows cold feet: “The Saboteur tries to remain calm, but the stuttering doormat with whom he must share his existence is a bundle of nerves and, like a fool, goes running out of the room” (332).

He gathers himself in the foyer and then wheels the cart with the Exploding Trident back into the ballroom. His powers of invisibility continue to work their power, and no one notices him. The Saboteur readies the pipe bomb and then wheels the empty cart back out of the room. However, he cannot resist the temptation to look his adversary right in the eye as he leaves.

Part 4, Chapter 6 Summary

It is April 12, 1941, and Joe has self-printed the list of illusions he is going to perform. Joe has some difficulties with his performance. His self-consciousness about his level of English forces him to keep his act swift and wordless. He has heard on more than one occasion that he should at least smile while performing. However, tonight, to the guests at the Saks reception, he is more guarded and more workmanlike than usual. Rosa fears Joe has received some bad news from Prague. In actuality, Joe has recognized Carl right away.

Joe scans the room for Carl during his performance but doesn’t spot him. He begins the Contagious Knot and smells smoke. He notices a thin plume of smoke to the side of the bandstand. He drops the knot and quickly but calmly walks over to it, and he discovers a fuse and a long pipe. He returns to his magician’s table, grabs the bowl of water he uses for his goldfish trick, and announces to the audience, “Excuse me…we seem to have a little fire” (336). As Joe is about to pour the water over the fuse, he is hit by something large and heavy in the small of his back. Carl and Joe wrestle around on the floor, and Joe tries to crawl to the fuse to extinguish it. The bomb goes off with an “awful sound like a heavy club falling on a bag of tomatoes, and then an autumnal whiff of gunpowder” (337). Both Joe and Carl are taken to Mt. Sinai Hospital. Carl takes the brunt of the explosion but suffers nothing fatal or life-threatening. Joe returns to the Pierre and is greeted as a conquering hero. Carl is charged with attempted murder, among other crimes, and confesses to all.

Joe is escorted back to Harkoo’s house by Rosa and her father. Sometime in the middle of the night, Joe gets up and searches his tuxedo. The letter from his mother is gone. Joe returns to the Pierre in the morning in search of the letter but never finds it.

Years later, long after Joe has retired from being a magician, he wonders what the letter might have contained. It is during these times that Joe begins to understand the nature of magic: “The true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of the things it contained to vanish, to become so thoroughly lost, that they might never have existed in the first place” (339).

Part 4, Chapters 5-6 Analysis

Chapter 5 is written like earlier chapters that introduce a storyline in one of Sam and Joe’s comics. The major difference this time, however, is that the episode is not anything written by Sam or drawn by Joe; rather, it is a delusion that exists solely in the mind of Carl Ebling. The narration flows seamlessly between the two characters, the Saboteur and Carl, illustrating just how much Carl has taken on the persona of the Saboteur, blurring the line between reality and imagination. Carl enacts his own drama of Escape and Freedom in trying to escape his own identity as Carl—whom he views as weak because of his stutter—and replace him with the persona of the Saboteur. To what extent Carl’s delusions have spread through his psyche and how much control he has over his actions are left to speculation.

Carl also raises certain other issues pertaining to comic books. In Chapter 4 of Part 3, while Joe is ransacking Carl’s Aryan-American League offices, he discovers that Carl likes to read and analyze his and Sam’s comics, and Joe feels guilty and ashamed that his comics appeal to Carl. In spite of their pro-democracy point-of-view, the comics nevertheless glorify violence and the strongman. Carl exhibits the dangers inherent in such glorification. In reckoning with this aspect of his work, Joe is thinking about the conflict between Society and the Individual Conscience of the artist. He has made art for himself and for people like himself—those who have been victimized by the violence of powerful groups and who dream of having the power to enact justice. However, he cannot control who reads his work or how those readers understand it. Carl is, with little doubt, psychologically unwell, and Joe’s war against the Nazis couples with Carl’s confusion and search for something to make himself feel more important. The alluring world of the superhero/villain sends Carl over the edge.