I'm the resident comic book geek in this class. I took it under the impression that graphic novels were the focus. I was a bit disappointed that they weren't, but I adapted, and now my patience has paid off with this book.
Like many of the books we've read, the format of Fun Home has not been traditional. Most stories out there follow the buildup-climax-denouement formula that is generally built to hold the reader's attention. Fun Home, by contrast, starts out in an ethereal haze of buildup and stays there forever. Each of the seven chapters, rather than outlining a specific period of the author's life, cover the whole thing and emphasize different parts of it with the same theme. So the chronology jumps around quite a bit, but each new chapter you read casts the previous ones in a different light. It was fun for me to go over the previous chapters of the book in light of the new information we learned about the Bechdel family life, especially the first chapter, where the themes of sexuality and until the end, Bruce's death, are nowhere to be seen.
I found that the style of illustration fits the slice-of-life genre very well. The characters' expressions are subtle, and there's a gorgeous amount of detail in the backgrounds. It's also pretty amazing how much of her life the author has either remembered or estimated, and I'm not entirely sure her diary is entirely to thank for that, especially since she admits that it grew less reliable over time. People always compliment my memory, but it's nowhere near that good. Maybe the diary taught her to have a good memory, and the reason it got less reliable was because she didn't need it anymore?
Speaking of the diary, I couldn't help but notice how relativistic she made it by putting "I think" after every other sentence. I'm surprised that she was able to grasp relativism so early in her life, but I think she may have overused it. Unless she thought she couldn't trust her memories, I would think that there were some events in the day that she would be able to say definitely did or didn't happen. But then, I've never placed much truck in relativism, especially that of the moral variety.
Also, I can't help but think of Alice's brothers, who are so infrequently mentioned that I've forgotten their names. I think one of them was called Christian? Anyway, we never really get a good grasp of their personalities since the author puts the focus of the story on her father and mother (mostly her father). The only real hint I got was in the page where each of the family's artistic interests are laid out in silhouette; one brother is playing the guitar while the other is tinkering with model airplanes. I realize that her brothers aren't really important to the themes of the book, namely homosexuality, but it still bugs me that Alice didn't pay more attention to her siblings in here.
If you want to know more about how comic books can be considered art, go read Maus (another book about the author's father, except this time the father was a Holocaust survivor) or Watchmen. Oh, and see the Watchmen movie, too, since it's managed to stand on its own legs pretty well, even if it isn't a comic book.
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Your not alone Bradley, I promise. I will gladly stand next to you in the proclamation of being a comic book nerd.
ReplyDeleteJust to comment on a couple things you said. First of all I would agree that the detail was impeccable, Everything on the TV seemed to almost be traced from the TV, the covers of books, the cover of that Blind Faith album with the naked pre-teen girl holding a model airplane. Everything seemed to be perfect.
that being said, I dont know how much it has to do with her being able to recall one specific memory as opposed to her having a decent collective memory of what her life had been and what had been going on in the world around her during that time.
What makes it seem so authentic is that Bechdel was able to pull the minor details, the funny things she either remembered or looked up about the times, and the major points of her life have them correspond with one another. The thing that struck me, once again was that Blind Faith album. A good portion of the story was about her father's sexuality in relationship to her own, right? Once again, the Blind Faith album (which was the super group's only album) has a very uncomfortable album cover. For a full grown man to be parading around in short shorts waving around a photo of a very naked and very young woman in front of the high school boy he is trying to seduce serves to set the sexual tension perfectly of that scene.
Of course the memories of the books also tied in perfectly with her narrations as well as the clips about Watergate and other the other minor details that explained her world outside of the family. All of it fit together so perfectly serving as literary parallels so seamlessly that it would seem that she might have cut and pasted a few things around to make it work.
Anyway, that's all I have to say about that. But in response to your closing paragraph: Yes everyone should read Maus, it's amazing, and yes everyone should read Watchmen, because it is even more amazing, but I would disagree and say that if you watch the movie Watchmen you will never be able to appreciate the book for the piece of literary genius it is. If you like graphic novels I would certain suggest Alan Moore, if you are looking to invest your brain in to it a little more, and Frank Miller if you just want to see stuff blow up and look cool.
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It's great to hear from such avid readers of graphic narratives--the recommendations and perspective is really valuable, especially in a class in which we're reading this alongside other, less graphic, narrative forms.
ReplyDeleteOh, and, Bradley, definitely, relativism doesn't work! I wonder though what Alison's "I think" is really questioning. Is it her ability to comprehend events? Or to tell them? It's such an interesting metaphor for the tricky position of authorship.