Thursday, April 20, 2023

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic


Oh, I have such mixed emotions about this book! 

First, great compassion for this woman. What a life! YIKES! I do hope she has gotten OODLES of therapy. 

Second, was her dad really a "closeted gay"? I would say he was a pedophile. Sick man. Mom should have gotten them OUT OF THAT HOUSE and that town.

Interesting note, I keyed in that he was head of the "Clinton County Historical Society," and realized it was MY ANCESTORS Clinton County, Pennsylvania. So, the author grew up less than an hour away from the town my grandmother grew up in and got out of (some of my relatives still live there). 

I am intrigued that there was a musical done on this!

WARNING: Some of the cartoons are sexually inappropriate and could have been left out! 

Right after reading this, I saw on the news that this book is in an elementary school! NOOOOOOO!!! It is not appropriate for children. 

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

One might expect a graphic narrative to be lean, wry, linear. Yet the pioneering triumph of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home is that it’s resonantly rich in thought and theme, nuanced in its framing and feeling, and contrapuntal in its treatment of chronology, character, and incident. Bechdel imbues her story with an expressive pulse that moves from words to pictures and back again like an intricate melody passed between the instruments of a string quartet. The memoir is the story of a pre-adolescent girl with two brothers who comes to certain realizations about herself and her family. A labyrinthine web of literary echoes and mythological invocations captures the emerging complexity of her intelligence, and you have to read her images with as much attention as her allusive, probing, and alert prose. More than metaphorically, it’s a handmade book, and lived time is layered into every panel. 

No comments:

Freewrite Friday: Contemplating JOY

From: https://www.sparklesofsunshine.com/beauty-for-ashes-free-printable/ I went into a Centering Prayer time with Meditation Chapel this mo...