The Jewish characters here are cousins: Sammy Clay, who starts off as an inventory clerk for a novelty-gag company; and Joe Kavalier, who starts off by escaping with his life from 1939 Prague. Kavalier makes it to his cousin's home in Brooklyn, and Clay, recognizing his artistic talent, pushes the idea to his boss that he can sell his novelties and save money by creating themselves the comic books in which they normally advertised. The boss agrees, and wouldn't you know, this turns out to be the beginning of the golden age of the comic book, and Kavalier and Clay's comic books make both themselves and their boss enormously successful.

Successful financially, anyway, but these guys have a very tough time achieving happiness. Joe is wracked with guilt and despair over his family, still back in Prague, and despite his efforts he is unable to get them out. Sam has problems coming to terms with his homosexuality at a time in America when having such feelings was cause for great shame and self-contempt.

As one would expect with a Chabon novel, there is sparkling and splendid use of the language evident everywhere. He is also superb at setting and describing scenes: they are vivid, believable, and moving. Unfortunately, though, the novel stops dead in its tracks a little too often, with unnecessary descriptions of the city, for example, or buildings, or the architectural make-up of the World's Fair. There is a lot of name-dropping also, as we get to meet and hear about personages of the day, such as Orson Welles, Salvador Dali and Al Smith. Some of it almost feels like a newsreel. Sure, it adds authenticity to the tale, but at great cost to plot tension.

Thematically, however, the novel soars, and is likely the reason it won the Pullitzer Prize. The comic book hero the cousins create is called the Escapist, as he has the remarkable ability to get himself in and out of difficult situations while constantly battling evil. Of course, he serves as the perfect metaphor for these young men, both of whom make endless and unsuccessful attempts to escape the often painful and unhappy situations their lives present them. Here is a superb, tragicomic summation, taken from a scene late in the novel and having to do with Sammy's doomed marriage. 'As a rule, they tended to avoid such questions like, 'How sane are we?' and, 'Do our lives have meaning?' The need for avoidance was acute and apparent to both of them.

''What is that [you're reading]?' she said.

''Weird Planet.''

In the end we realize that the title of this novel, 'The Amazing Adventures . . .' is sadly meant to be ironic, as the adventures of these struggling young men aren't particularly amazing or unusual after all. Millions of Americans and soon-to-be Americans suffered the pain and horror of losing loved ones in Europe during World War II, and millions more fail to come to terms with what and whom they are, instead attempting to pretend to be something else. The comic book angle again serves to exemplify this: 'Having lost his mother, father, brother, and grandfather, the friends and foes of his youth, his beloved teacher Bernard Kornblum, his city, his history--his home--the usual charge leveled against comic books, that they offered merely an easy escape from reality, seemed to Joe actually to be a powerful argument on their behalf.' Indeed. The desire for escape is both pervasive, and powerful in many human lives.

The story opens with Sammy Clay - a streetwise dead-end kid from Brooklyn - sharing a bed with Joseph Kavalier, his refugee cousin from Prague. Sammy is a struggling teen-age writer and amateur artist. Joseph is an exceptionally gifted artist and magician. Immediately, Sammy sees the oportunity to form a partnership. Together, they create The Escapist - a smash-hit comic book character from the Golden Age.

Now, exactly what their amazing adventures are is difficult to relate and impossible to predict. The book echoes the shoddy treatment that all comic book artists received back in those days - especially Siegal & Schuster, creators of Superman. Although they are plagued by disaster, the story is not a trajedy. It is a journey through New York...and a world that no longer really exists. Chabon takes us through it with the skill of a master. It is not a short book, but by the time you reach the end, you'll be sorry you can't tune in next week for the continuing adventures of Kavalier and Clay.

No brief summary of the action, however, can begin to convey the depth and scope of this imaginative and original novel. Chabon manages never to lose sight of the Nazi menace while putting it into completely new contexts, including magic, superheroes, Houdini-like escapes, golems, and comic book characters, and ranging from Prague to New York and Antarctica. It is a novel of huge scope--and it is hugely entertaining! One of the best novels of the year, it should certainly be a candidate for a major literary award.