Reacting to Gustave Flaubert's Quote

“You forget everything. The hours slip by. You travel in your chair through centuries you seem to see before you, your thoughts are caught up in the story, dallying with the details or following the course of the plot, you enter into characters, so that it seems as if it were your own heart beating beneath their costumes.”

- Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

Flaubert's words do a successful job of describing the reading experience in regards to The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. Chabon does a really good job of taking you through the tumultuous events of the 20th century from Sammy Clay and Joesph Kavalier's perspective. Through reading the story you start to feel a connection with the characters and sympathize with them in their situations, personally I started thinking about certain parts of the book throughout the day. Once I really got into the book, it became a real page turner for me.

When Flaubert says we dally with the details, I found that to be true. Whether it is in regards to Joe's abrupt departure from New York or Sammy's apparent interest in comic books specifically with sidekicks, I became emotionally invested throughout the story, which may be why I found the ending dissatisfying as I described in my other post. Their relationship was a key detail and factor throughout the novel and Kavalier and Clay was such a fun dynamic to follow that I was hoping to see it continue when Joe returned and bought Empire Comics. 

The plot also allowed for me to enter into the characters thoughts and ideas. Often times I found myself wanting Joe to make a certain decisions, but he would always do the opposite of what I was hoping he would do. I didn't want him to leave Rosa and Sammy in New York yet he still did. But even after that I still empathized for him, he had just lost his brother and even though he is just a fictitious character, I found myself inside his character mulling over what he could be thinking. Overall, it was a really good book and as I reading, the hours slipped by just like Flaubert mentioned.