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I also think I'm harder on graphic novels than some of their readers are because I don't condescend to them or only compare them to other graphic novels, but to all the great and terrible books I've ever read. I never think, "This book is good for a graphic novel," and I have yet to find a graphic novel that's earned a place in the Pantheon of "Best Books I've Ever Read." My standards are high. With that caveat, these are my thoughts on a few good ones.
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.Fun Home by Alison Bechdel. Beginning with the hardest.... In an earlier post I wrote that I liked Fun Home but maybe not as much as everyone else seemed to; I had some reservations about it. In another post, I explained my policy of refraining from saying negative things about other people's creative work. In contemplating this review, I wrestled with that. But Fun Home is a book that deserves to be wrestled with, so I hope the thoughts that follow are read with the understanding of how much I respect Ms. Bechdel's accomplishment.
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Fun Home is Bechdel's autobiographical story of growing up in a smart, talented, damaged family. Her father is the local funeral director who is revealed to his adult daughter Alison to be gay, and whose possible suicide closely follows Bechdel's coming out as a lesbian. It's a powerful, well-drawn tour de force, buttressed by Bechdel's meticulous attention to detail which in turn draws on journals she kept during her teen years.
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The story is organized into chapters, each of which captures a particular theme or thread, so that over the course of the book the same event might be shown two or three times. Some reviewers have complimented this approach for allowing the reader to look into the prism of Bechdel's life through different facets, each adding layers and depth. Perhaps the repetition reflects Bechdel's changing perspective throughout her life. I understand that.
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Yet I thought Bechdel's chapter divisions were simply the most straightforward way to tell those particular tales within tales, and while reading Fun Home I was struck by how powerful it might have been if her narrative threads had been woven throughout the story as a seamless fabric to deliver the same richness in one pass, instead of as stitched-together patches worn threadbare through repetition (and now I'm done with that metaphor). We discover the secret of Roy the babysitter twice, and I didn't learn any more the second time than I did the first. On the other hand, Bechdel waits until more than halfway through the book (Page 135 out of 232) to introduce her childhood obsessive-compulsive disorder, a fascinating insight that would have enriched material that preceded it.
I also found the shifts in time occasionally confusing--is Alison in elementary school now, or college?--with insufficient cues to keep my bearings. Easy reply: if I can't keep up, that's my problem. Yet I'm a motivated, attentive reader, eager to meet Bechdel halfway. I'm also a writer from the school of thought that anything pulling readers out of the story and interrupting their flow is a flaw, not a strength. My flow was interrupted.
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A lot's been written about the connections Bechdel builds between her family and literature, notably the work of James Joyce and to a lesser extent Camus, Proust, and others. To a point, that's great: literature was the foundation of her family's intellectual life and there were surely times when she really was reminded of literary themes and characters. The references add texture. But through no fault of Bechdel's, I think reviewers are too impressed by this; I'm nagged by the suspicion that they like the Proust, Camus and Joyce stuff because it makes them feel smart.
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In fact it's a short cut, and a fine one. I used it in Mom's Cancer when I put my father in the role of Philip Nolan in Hale's "Man Without a Country." If you write a story about two boys and explicitly compare them to Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, you want your readers to map the relationship of Twain's characters onto yours without doing the heavy lifting yourself. You hope the juju rubs off. But drawing parallels between your story and Joyce's doesn't make it Joycean (not that that was Bechdel's intent, but it's a claim I've seen some make). Again, I'm only mildly critical of Bechdel's over-reliance on Proust, Camus and Joyce--just a bit too much salt in the soup for my taste, and surely more impressive choices than, say, Jacqueline Susann--and it's to her credit that it's not an embarrassing over-reach. But great literature is great because it leads, not follows; it is not that which cites, but that which is cited.
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So my first gripe was a difference of opinion about structural choices (the reviewer's biggest pitfall: reviewing the work you wanted instead of the one you got?) and my second gripe was really more with Bechdel's critics than her. My third gripe is entirely a matter of taste and where I may be on shakiest ground. There's a style of autobiography that just chafes me, in which the protagonist is the most sensitive, perceptive person who ever lived and no one ever experienced life quite as deeply as he or she did. And there's some of that--even a little goes a long way with me--in Fun Home, particularly when Bechdel discovers sex.
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Bechdel's early relationships are not just the sometimes sweet, sometimes hurtful, sometimes embarrassing episodes of discovery they are for everyone else on Earth. They are literally mythic adventures that conjure Odysseus in the Cyclops's cave, Scylla and Charybdis, and eye-rolling ruffles and flourishes. And because Bechdel is a lesbian, she imbues her romances with tremendous political, historical, and literary significance as well. It's all way too much weight to rest on the shoulders of two girls just gettin' it on.
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As I say, a matter of style and taste. I don't like "overwrought" and tried very hard to avoid it in Mom's Cancer, in which I portrayed the worst thing that ever happened to my family with the awareness that it was not the worst thing that ever happened to anyone ever. In fact, it was routine and banal; the fact that suffering is so unexceptional is partly why it's so sad. Most people navigate life's setbacks and joys without accompanying thunderclaps from Zeus. From my perspective, Bechdel fell into snares I worked to skirt.
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Finally, Fun Home confronts an issue to which I'm sensitive: the autobiographer's responsibility to tell their story as they honestly see it versus the pain such honesty can cause. I've read interviews in which Bechdel acknowledges that her mother and family were very hurt by how they were portrayed. In addition, Bechdel's book outed her father to his community and speculated without proof that he killed himself when he was unable to respond on either count. I am genuinely ambivalent on this question--meaning I really don't know how I feel about it.
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I know for certain that if my mother had been unhappy with or distressed by Mom's Cancer, I would have killed it. No question. If my sisters or father had been hurt, I would have tried my best to be fair and address their concerns. I might have agreed to take them out of the book. I think at the very least you owe your subjects--who are at their most vulnerable and never asked to be characters in your by-definition-narcissistic story--the humility of realizing that your perspective is as biased and limited as theirs. I never thought my right to tell my story or the world's need to read it trumped my family's rights to dignity and privacy. It just wasn't that important; it wouldn't have been worth it. Was Fun Home worth it? I don't know, but I'd sure love to hear Bechdel's mother's side of the story someday. Problem is, she's too dignified and private to tell it.
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Am I saying I'm right and Bechdel's wrong? No. Only that I faced some of the same questions she did and arrived at different answers. Hence my mixed feelings. Maybe she's just a better journalist than I am.*
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Such are my reservations, explained in good faith as best I could. I liked Bechdel's two-color ink-and-wash artwork very much. Despite patches where I think she made dubious choices and over-cranked the melodrama, I do recommend Fun Home as a good, smart, sensitively observed portrait of an interestingly twisted family and an exemplar of some of the best qualities graphic novels have to offer.
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* Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people's vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse.
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.
A lot's been written about the connections Bechdel builds between her family and literature, notably the work of James Joyce and to a lesser extent Camus, Proust, and others. To a point, that's great: literature was the foundation of her family's intellectual life and there were surely times when she really was reminded of literary themes and characters. The references add texture. But through no fault of Bechdel's, I think reviewers are too impressed by this; I'm nagged by the suspicion that they like the Proust, Camus and Joyce stuff because it makes them feel smart.
.
In fact it's a short cut, and a fine one. I used it in Mom's Cancer when I put my father in the role of Philip Nolan in Hale's "Man Without a Country." If you write a story about two boys and explicitly compare them to Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, you want your readers to map the relationship of Twain's characters onto yours without doing the heavy lifting yourself. You hope the juju rubs off. But drawing parallels between your story and Joyce's doesn't make it Joycean (not that that was Bechdel's intent, but it's a claim I've seen some make). Again, I'm only mildly critical of Bechdel's over-reliance on Proust, Camus and Joyce--just a bit too much salt in the soup for my taste, and surely more impressive choices than, say, Jacqueline Susann--and it's to her credit that it's not an embarrassing over-reach. But great literature is great because it leads, not follows; it is not that which cites, but that which is cited.
.
So my first gripe was a difference of opinion about structural choices (the reviewer's biggest pitfall: reviewing the work you wanted instead of the one you got?) and my second gripe was really more with Bechdel's critics than her. My third gripe is entirely a matter of taste and where I may be on shakiest ground. There's a style of autobiography that just chafes me, in which the protagonist is the most sensitive, perceptive person who ever lived and no one ever experienced life quite as deeply as he or she did. And there's some of that--even a little goes a long way with me--in Fun Home, particularly when Bechdel discovers sex.
.
Bechdel's early relationships are not just the sometimes sweet, sometimes hurtful, sometimes embarrassing episodes of discovery they are for everyone else on Earth. They are literally mythic adventures that conjure Odysseus in the Cyclops's cave, Scylla and Charybdis, and eye-rolling ruffles and flourishes. And because Bechdel is a lesbian, she imbues her romances with tremendous political, historical, and literary significance as well. It's all way too much weight to rest on the shoulders of two girls just gettin' it on.
.
As I say, a matter of style and taste. I don't like "overwrought" and tried very hard to avoid it in Mom's Cancer, in which I portrayed the worst thing that ever happened to my family with the awareness that it was not the worst thing that ever happened to anyone ever. In fact, it was routine and banal; the fact that suffering is so unexceptional is partly why it's so sad. Most people navigate life's setbacks and joys without accompanying thunderclaps from Zeus. From my perspective, Bechdel fell into snares I worked to skirt.
.
Finally, Fun Home confronts an issue to which I'm sensitive: the autobiographer's responsibility to tell their story as they honestly see it versus the pain such honesty can cause. I've read interviews in which Bechdel acknowledges that her mother and family were very hurt by how they were portrayed. In addition, Bechdel's book outed her father to his community and speculated without proof that he killed himself when he was unable to respond on either count. I am genuinely ambivalent on this question--meaning I really don't know how I feel about it.
.
I know for certain that if my mother had been unhappy with or distressed by Mom's Cancer, I would have killed it. No question. If my sisters or father had been hurt, I would have tried my best to be fair and address their concerns. I might have agreed to take them out of the book. I think at the very least you owe your subjects--who are at their most vulnerable and never asked to be characters in your by-definition-narcissistic story--the humility of realizing that your perspective is as biased and limited as theirs. I never thought my right to tell my story or the world's need to read it trumped my family's rights to dignity and privacy. It just wasn't that important; it wouldn't have been worth it. Was Fun Home worth it? I don't know, but I'd sure love to hear Bechdel's mother's side of the story someday. Problem is, she's too dignified and private to tell it.
.
Am I saying I'm right and Bechdel's wrong? No. Only that I faced some of the same questions she did and arrived at different answers. Hence my mixed feelings. Maybe she's just a better journalist than I am.*
.
Such are my reservations, explained in good faith as best I could. I liked Bechdel's two-color ink-and-wash artwork very much. Despite patches where I think she made dubious choices and over-cranked the melodrama, I do recommend Fun Home as a good, smart, sensitively observed portrait of an interestingly twisted family and an exemplar of some of the best qualities graphic novels have to offer.
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* Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people's vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse.
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--Janet Malcolm
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Next: Three much easier and shorter graphic novel reviews.
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