Talk:The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay/GA2

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Nominator: 2804:7F4:8081:5FF3:4DA2:A9D3:E35:C123 (talk · contribs) 20:15, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: TompaDompa (talk · contribs) 17:36, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

I will review this. TompaDompa (talk) 17:36, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

This is a WP:QUICKFAIL based on criteria 1 (It is a long way from meeting any one of the six good article criteria), 2 (It contains copyright violations), 3 (It has, or needs, cleanup banners that are unquestionably still valid. These include {{cleanup}}, {{POV}}, {{unreferenced}} or large numbers of {{citation needed}}, {{clarify}}, or similar tags (See also {{QF}})), and 5 (It has issues noted in a previous GA review that still have not been adequately addressed, as determined by a reviewer who has not previously reviewed the article). I have added a number of maintenance templates to the article itself. A non-exhaustive sample of issues follows.

General comments

• There are a couple of book-length sources that are cited without providing the specific page(s). This makes verification unreasonably cumbersome.

Lead

• Lengthy, Kavalier & Clay was published to "nearly unanimous praise" and became a New York Times Best Seller. – rather a non sequitur. Why note that it is lengthy here, specifically, when the rest of the sentence has nothing to do with the length?
• two short stories published by Chabon that consist of material apparently written for the novel but not included – "apparently"?
• Part of the second paragraph and the entirety of the third consists of material not covered in the body of the article.

Plot

• they find their creative niches: one entrepreneurial, the other artistic – any particular reason not to say outright which is which here?
• [...] passage for his younger brother Thomas on the ship The Ark of Miriam. On the eve of the attack on Pearl Harbor, however, Thomas's ship is sunk by a German U-boat. – the piped link to Struma disaster does not seem remotely appropriate here. Going by our articles, the MV Struma was a ship heading for Mandatory Palestine that was sunk by a Soviet submarine in 1942, while The Ark of Miriam was a ship heading for the United States that was sunk by a German U-boat in 1941.

Inspiration

• Many events in the novel are based on the lives of actual comic-book creators, including Jack Kirby (to whom the book is dedicated in the afterword), Bob Kane, Stan Lee, Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Joe Simon, Will Eisner and Jim Steranko. – I haven't been able to access the source, but the quoted passage only mentions Eisner?

Cultural references

• The scope of this section is unclear. It mixes references by and to the book. Generally speaking, these belong in different sections, if they belong in the article at all.
• This is a reference to the real-life comic book series Captain America Comics, which showed the protagonist punching Hitler on the cover its first issue – this is media WP:ANALYSIS/WP:INTERPRETATION. Citing the WP:Primary source, i.e. the work itself, is not sufficient here—it violates our policy against WP:Original research.
• fact.org does not strike me as a WP:Reliable source; the "about" page says We are a book discussion group in Austin, TX that has been discussing SF and fantasy novels since since Spring 1994.. This was also noted in the previous GA review.

Reception

• This section relies far too heavily on verbatim quotes. There are quite a few of them, and one or two are also rather lengthy. Over-reliance on verbatim quotes is a writing quality issue, and when it is this pronounced it also becomes a copyright issue. This was recently brought up in the general case at WT:GAN# 1a and 3a in Reception sections with isolated reviewers; I am a relatively moderate voice in that discussion when it comes to the organization of "Reception" sections (the main topic of that discussion), but when it comes to overuse of verbatim quotes this is a pretty clear example of falling on the wrong side of what's acceptable.

Adaptations

• This section seems very out of date.
• (Rudin was involved with the novel so early on that his name appears in the acknowledgements to its first edition.) – entire sentences enclosed in parentheses is rarely a good idea, and I don't think this is an exception.
• Chabon told the publication, "a lot of things about the book [...] the period of the war." – again we have a lengthy verbatim quote that need not be.
• In January 2005, Chabon posted on his website that "about a month ago [...] Then it went away". – ditto.
• In a 2012 interview, Benedict Cumberbatch expressed interest in starring in a possible film adaptation of the book. – so what? It is not uncommon for actors to be interested in playing particular roles should the opportunity present itself, without that meaning anything about such a production being on the horizon.

Summary

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

   See comments above.

   B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

   See comments above.

2. Is it verifiable with no original research, as shown by a source spot-check?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

   B. Reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose):

   See comments above.

   C. It contains no original research:

   See comments above.

   D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:

   See comments above.

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   Not evaluated due to WP:QUICKFAIL.

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

   Not evaluated due to WP:QUICKFAIL.

4. Is it neutral?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

   Not evaluated due to WP:QUICKFAIL.

5. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   The only image is the book cover, which is fair use.

   B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

TompaDompa (talk) 20:02, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.