I think I'm supposed to be happy at the end of this book. I think I'm supposed to be happy when Craig burns (yet again) his memories, this time of Raina. I'm supposed to be happy when he leaves behind everything he has learned throughout his childhood. I'm supposed to be happy when he gets the latest, coolest, hippest, most awesomest hairdo. Huzzah! I say. He's finally found himself.
I'm not happy, and here's why: I think throughout the book, and especially at the conclusion, Craig has difficulty distinguishing being a unique, exciting individual with being totally and completely alone.
Grunge is actually in style? Must get new haircut. Don't agree with my parent's religion? Must move out and come back to visit approximately twice in my life. (Emphasized by his lack of presence in their embrace on p. 560). This even applies to religion. The main reason Craig first becomes disillusioned with Christianity, even though he has question before, is at camp simply because of the mass of people. When talking to Phil on p. 533, he again emphasizes this: the problem is not with the core teachings of Christianity, but he sameness of the people in it.
p. 533: "It denies the beauty of being HUMAN, and it ignores all these GAPS that need to be filled in by the individual."
Individualism is great. My individual self is all for it in fact. But when I see Craig alone, even at a crowded party, alone, even on a crowded street, alone on the last page of the book, I don't think, wow, he's done it, he's found his unique self. I see a man, now in his thirties, who apparently cannot get close to any human being because he has to be completely an individual. Guess what Craig? No matter how different one is, there are still ties and similarities that bind us to other people. It's called being HUMAN.
(A side note: Craig claims he is not a Christian anymore. But he still believes in God and the teachings of Jesus, the very things that make one a Christian. Even if he didn't, the doctrine of Christianity teaches that once some one, as Craig clearly has, has been "saved," nothing can change that. So really, at the end of the book, Craig is a Christian whether he likes it or not, still part of this big mass organization, still part of the one thing he's been trying so hard to escape. Where does that leave him?)
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
3 little words
In one of the chapters we've read so far in Understanding Comics, McCloud discusses how the more generically a person is drawn in comics, the more the reader inserts him or herself into that character's place. Reading Chapters 6-7 of Blankets this weekend, I've discovered that the opposite can also be true: When an image is incredibly specific, it can reverberate especially loudly with the reader who may still be able to identify with it.
p. 182
p. 434, p. 435 (top right panel)
p. 437
p. 435 (snow)
What do I mean by this? Well, that blanket that Raina gives Craig which makes its presence known throughout Chapters 6-7... I swear I own it.
p. 182 p. 434, p. 435 (top right panel) p. 437 p. 435 (snow)Except that my blanket comes from Target, not from an eccentric and overwhelmed, if underwhelming, pseudo-lover.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
tea for 2
I'm confused.
Last week I was really into the relationship of the two brothers. I guess I should have known the story wouldn't stay focused on them based on the picture on the cover, but reading Chapters 2-5, I feel like we may have veered a little off course.
Adding to my problems is the feeling I now get that I'm in a time traveling machine that is quickly spiraling out of control. Even though the time line jumped around a bit in Chapter 1, I could still follow it. Now I don't know where or when I'm going to be next, and my chronology is all off. Confusion lessens when Craig arrives at Raina's house, but between the end of Chapter 1 and that point in Chapter 3, I'm a little confused.
Where did Phil go? Why doesn't he get to go to church camp too? Did he fall off the end of God's green and rather flat earth?
I understand, however, that the novel is not as disorganized and chaotic as I make it out to be. While events may not be as clearly organized by chronological time, the are not totally unrelated. Instead, events are bound together by time in terms of the season (winter, which connects the flashbacks to Phil and childhood with the high school present), religious themes, and location (the novel can leap from childhood to high school in Chapter 2 because the events take place in the same place- camp).
However, I still somehow feel like I'm reading a different novel. I loved in the first chapter the collision of so many issues- religion, relationships, abuse, etc.- in such an unexpected way. Now I just feel like I'm reading a generic teen love story. The relationship is great, religion begins to be conveniently pushed aside, and the most complicated problem is that people keep trying to get Raina and Craig to eat meat. Oh no!
Here's crossing my fingers for the return of the punch of the first chapter in the remainder of the book.
Sarah
Last week I was really into the relationship of the two brothers. I guess I should have known the story wouldn't stay focused on them based on the picture on the cover, but reading Chapters 2-5, I feel like we may have veered a little off course.
Adding to my problems is the feeling I now get that I'm in a time traveling machine that is quickly spiraling out of control. Even though the time line jumped around a bit in Chapter 1, I could still follow it. Now I don't know where or when I'm going to be next, and my chronology is all off. Confusion lessens when Craig arrives at Raina's house, but between the end of Chapter 1 and that point in Chapter 3, I'm a little confused.
Where did Phil go? Why doesn't he get to go to church camp too? Did he fall off the end of God's green and rather flat earth?
I understand, however, that the novel is not as disorganized and chaotic as I make it out to be. While events may not be as clearly organized by chronological time, the are not totally unrelated. Instead, events are bound together by time in terms of the season (winter, which connects the flashbacks to Phil and childhood with the high school present), religious themes, and location (the novel can leap from childhood to high school in Chapter 2 because the events take place in the same place- camp).
However, I still somehow feel like I'm reading a different novel. I loved in the first chapter the collision of so many issues- religion, relationships, abuse, etc.- in such an unexpected way. Now I just feel like I'm reading a generic teen love story. The relationship is great, religion begins to be conveniently pushed aside, and the most complicated problem is that people keep trying to get Raina and Craig to eat meat. Oh no!
Here's crossing my fingers for the return of the punch of the first chapter in the remainder of the book.
Sarah
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
1 is the loneliest number
Before yesterday, not only had I never read a graphic novel before, I also was not exactly clear yet on what they really were. I think this is a common problem, because when I told my roommates what English class I was taking, they were distressed that I would apparently be reading about Spiderman for fifteen weeks.
I myself was like pre-age eight Scott McCloud, destined to read "real" literature, which certainly does not involve speech bubbles. My first contact with graphic novels reinforced my view, when my best friend in high school told me that her boyfriend like graphic novels because he could not concentrate well enough and long enough to read a real novel.
Imagine my surprise then when by the second or third page of Blankets I was hit with an emotional punch the equivalent of which I have not felt since approximately the time I read Where the Red Fern Grows in fifth grade, and certainly did not feel when I read "real" novels like Tess of the d'Urbervilles last semester. By page nineteen, I wanted to get on the phone with my sister, our relationship seeming to be the basis of the brotherly relationship in the novel, and apologize for every garbage thing I have ever done concerning her.
Who knew a simple (shudder) comic could hit so close to home? But Craig and Phil are us. I the realist, she the imaginer. I the dreamer, she the one who would try to follow in my footsteps if I would let her. But in a strange twist, she is the artist, while my stick figures beg to be put out of their misery.
In this novel, unlike I imagined, the pictures do not cheapen the words, but rather give them their full meaning. The words pull the brothers apart, the fake snoring, the telling of the world's harsh realities. The pictures bring them together: the way they both have superhero emblems on their pajamas, the claw marks of Phil's in the cubby hole that are the same as Craig's on the school bathroom mirror, Craig's real hand next to Phil's turkey handprint.
So with this new viewpoint in mind, one of a literature in which words do not have the final say, I look forward to what graphic novels have to show me this semester.
Sarah
I myself was like pre-age eight Scott McCloud, destined to read "real" literature, which certainly does not involve speech bubbles. My first contact with graphic novels reinforced my view, when my best friend in high school told me that her boyfriend like graphic novels because he could not concentrate well enough and long enough to read a real novel.
Imagine my surprise then when by the second or third page of Blankets I was hit with an emotional punch the equivalent of which I have not felt since approximately the time I read Where the Red Fern Grows in fifth grade, and certainly did not feel when I read "real" novels like Tess of the d'Urbervilles last semester. By page nineteen, I wanted to get on the phone with my sister, our relationship seeming to be the basis of the brotherly relationship in the novel, and apologize for every garbage thing I have ever done concerning her.
Who knew a simple (shudder) comic could hit so close to home? But Craig and Phil are us. I the realist, she the imaginer. I the dreamer, she the one who would try to follow in my footsteps if I would let her. But in a strange twist, she is the artist, while my stick figures beg to be put out of their misery.
In this novel, unlike I imagined, the pictures do not cheapen the words, but rather give them their full meaning. The words pull the brothers apart, the fake snoring, the telling of the world's harsh realities. The pictures bring them together: the way they both have superhero emblems on their pajamas, the claw marks of Phil's in the cubby hole that are the same as Craig's on the school bathroom mirror, Craig's real hand next to Phil's turkey handprint.
So with this new viewpoint in mind, one of a literature in which words do not have the final say, I look forward to what graphic novels have to show me this semester.
Sarah
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