Libraries are God's gift to freeloaders. I like comics, and there are tons of comics which I would like to read, and the library has some of the good stuff. However, I have been introduced into a new kind of comic style: The graphic novel. I have been reading newspaper-type daily comic strips and a bit of manga, so this is the first time i came across a book which is actually a full-length novel in comic form.
I'm addicted to graphic novels now.
While looking for random comics to relax in the school library, I came across a huge book. Its about as thick as an encyclopedia, so I was pretty surprised to see comics when i opened it. I liked the art style, and the bit of the story seemed interesting enough, so I borrowed it.
Turns out I picked out Blankets by Craig Thompson.
A memoir by the author, he talks about his life was like as he grows from an adolescent into a young adult. Being raised in a fundamentalist Christian family, religion has always been surrounding him, but as much as he embraces his Christian faith, some values just seem imposing on him, for example, a Sunday School teacher questioning whether drawings can be used to praise God.
Being bullied as a skinny child and having been sexually abused by a babysitter could be the reasons of him growing up to be reserved introvert afraid of the crowds and other people in general. This can been seen in how he hates Church camps, for he never seemed to belong, especially when the minds of the other campers are thinking only about finding pussy in the camps and not set for God.
However, he meets a girl named Raina during one fateful camp. About half of the book documents the growing relationships between the both of them, as Craig visits Raina in her town for two weeks, meet her not so stable family, have discussions about God, reminisce about their childhood days with their siblings and stuff.
I was somewhat dissapointed with the ending, because Craig made some decisions which I don't agree with, but I won't spoil it just in case any of you want to read it up yourselves. Overall, I found that it was a beautiful take on the ordinariness of life, the emotions of love, confusion, dwindling faith and growing up.
I found that I have many similiarities and parallels with the author. In fact, dramatic as his life may seem, he is actually living out a pretty average life not too different from others. It reaffirms my thinking that everyone is actually the same, only different. I hope my ending isn't like him though, but I respect his decisions.
Not too far away from the shelf which I found Blankets, was a book which I had always wanted to read for years. How would I know that it had been lying in the school library all this while?
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
I want to watch the movie adaptation! Straight Times gave if 5 stars. Wanted to watch it when after o-levels ended but the peanut gallery preferred L Change The World.
Another memoir, this is very different in all aspects. The art style is very simple, childish even, a far cry from Craig Thompson's intricate fine-art stylings. Also, the dialouge and flow is very straight to the point. No time wasted on exposition, soliloquoys, metaphors or cliches that western books always inuanduate you with.
The book speaks about Marjane's life in Iran during the tumultous Iranian Revolution to the Iran-Iraq War. Her life is shaped by the political chaos happening all around her, as her parents demonstrate in the streets daily and her education changes from a liberal co-ed French school system to a strict single-gender Islamic school. Apparently she was the great-grandaughter of a inempt Shah, and her granddad, an educated idealistic prince, was named Prime Minister due to his educational background, but was arrested for having Communist beliefs.
A rebel at heart, Marjane disobeys her different forms of authority in little ways, like telling off a Religous teacher, not wearing the veil/headscarf and listening to American music. With war and strict regime sanctions, life become more dangerous and frightening with close people around either dying or migrating, like her uncle Anoosh, who was a Communist imprisioned before the revolution and grew to love Marjane alot. (SPOILER! He died lol)
Having been bitten by the graphic novel bug, and since I was in the areaI went to the National Library to look for V for Vendetta, a political comic book I read during secondary school. It was on loan, but I found Maus: A Survior's Tale by Art Spiegelman! Like Persepolis, I have always wanted to read this book, but it was always on loan in the Bugis National National Library.
Nazis! And Jews portrayed as mice! What more do you want?
Like Persepolis, this is another memoir from a war survivor. Having two narratives, one involving Art interviewing his father on his life during the WWII (he was a Jew living in Poland), his not so good state of health and his even worse state of marriage with his 2nd wife, another war survivor. (His first wife commited suicide a long time after the war.) The main plot is about how he lived during the war before he was sent to the infamous Aushwitz camp. Its done in a rather unusual style: Anthromorphic animals are used to represent the characters. Mice for Jews (derived from how Nazis deemed Jews as rodents to be crushed), Nazis as cats and Poles as pigs (supposed to be non-derogoratory, like Porky the Pig)
Persepolis and Maus make me think about how I take the stable political situation that we live in for granted. No wars, no revolutions, no forced imposing of religion or ideas. Thank God for that. A "normal" life in Blankets, concerned with other problems like relationships, family, personal religious convictions rather than being forced to ascribe to someone else's set of beliefs seems very inviting as compared to one scraping a living in war.
Blankets also made me realise how I take my family for granted. I do not know how families undergoing divorces and conflicts really feel. I still don't. But now I have a better understanding of what its like being in a broken family.
