Book Club Review: Blankets (+ May Book Pick)
AH BUT ANOTHER MONTH HATH PASSETH.
If you haven't heard of the Shda3wa Book Club before, check out our read for February and my short introduction to book club here (and then our March review of Persepolis here).
How sexy beans is Bader's cover art AGAIN?
It's always fascinating to see the parallels between books randomly chosen each month. The Fact VS Fiction dilemma carried through from Snow, Glass, Apples into Persepolis, and now, we're faced with the review of another graphic novel autobiography. Blankets (2003) by Craig Thompson is a memoir that delves into Thompson's childhood and first love, another coming-of-age tale that's completely apolitical. The fact that Persepolis and Blankets are so similar but so different is still blowing me away. I'll try to move on from that.
Our Review
No Spoilers:
The book's title is actually the perfect representation of how you'll feel while reading Blankets; it's a cozy and warm story of first love. In many instances, it becomes incredibly cold, which only prompts you to pull the mental blankets closer. Cheesy? Maybe. The first issue most of us brought up, when discussing the general feel and impression of the book, is the lack of focus on Thompson's baby brother. It's not just a love story. In fact, the chapters that focused on Thompson's childhood and his brother were our favorite chapters, so it's interesting that this book is perceived as a love story when the best part is outside of the love story. That's not to say that the love story isn't beautiful, we all fell in love with the relationship while reading Blanket, and the author does an impeccable job of translating the characters' feelings and the tone through his narrative and through the absolutely gorgeous art.
The issue, perhaps, is somewhat similar to one of our key issues with Persepolis: the flow plateau. With Persepolis, it was a plateau in terms of the plot, but with Blankets, it's a tonal plateau that started to drag on. Realistically, no human being is in one mental state for 16 years, but it felt that way when reading Blankets. It's an issue because this is an autobiography, which means the tone and the plot is based on real human beings, and real human beings fluctuate, but we didn't feel the fluctuation in Blankets. That's not to say that the book wasn't enjoyable, but there were definitely (rare) moments when we felt the drag.
Have I mentioned the art yet? SO GOOD.
I'll get into the deets now. Details.
I'm sorry.
Yes Spoilers:
It's going to be tough not to dominate this review with my own personal opinion, as I was a bit more harsh with my critique than the rest of the group. TIME TO BE OBJECTIVE.
The Ending
The first thing that came to our attention after we finished the book: the ending. Some of us were extremely angry at the way Thompson immediately cut the pace of the book and switched into a completely new character, while sort of quickly summarizing his life. It's such a sharp contradiction to the rest of the book, where we lingered, explored, and felt the story; what an anti-climactic way to go. You went from a romantic, creative, emotional, religious, and unique individual to a cliche atheist who's suddenly living life like a normal person and hooking up with girls left and right? This person who studied every curve and line on the woman he loved, who went through years of bullying at school, being forced to mature early and take care of himself is suddenly meh. There were two saving graces to the final chapter of the book: watching Craig's brother get married to a smart and successful woman, and the panel where Craig illustrated Luke 17:20-21 from the Bible (p.564), as they were two moments which linked us to the life we knew before Footnotes (Chapter IX).
Craig: The Character
I guess the only real thing we didn't like about Blankets can be summed up with Craig's character in the book. By the end of it, we just didn't like him very much (if you didn't realize when we hated the ending). Very much like Persepolis, the author seemed to bravely showcase his flaws, and we couldn't all accept him for who he is. Two of us were completely turned off by what Craig turned into when Raina introduced him to her daily life, with her friends (p.358 - Chapter VI: Teen Spirit). He was negative, possessive, and ungrateful. When watching Raina interact happily with her friends, he thinks "Why can't we just be ALONE together - like this morning when she typed and I painted?" Funny he says that because a few panels later, when he was remembering that morning, he was annoyed that they had to work without touching each other. So when they were alone together, he was whining ("Working is such a distraction from each other!" - p.337), and when they were outside in the world, he was whining. Personally, his discomfort at the party and clingyness to Raina wouldn't have bothered me if he actually cherished that morning when they were alone together.
It's interesting because that was a lightbulb moment for me, when I realized how self-centered the character was. Looking back, you see it everywhere; his lack of brotherly protection when Phil needed him (pretty much all the time), his sudden distance from Phil after he became a teenager, the illustration of a victimized adolescent and child throughout the whole story, the whiny and possessive boyfriend behavior, the sudden indifference to Raina and cutting her out of his life completely, and the holier-than-thou (ironically) attitude towards his family after his shift to atheism. To be fair, he did try to reconnect with his brother, albeit briefly, by the end of the book. To maintain this fairness, he did state throughout the book that he was a lousy brother. Another attempt in the fight to be fair, he did have some very significant panels when he expressed a point of view different from his own, like when we got glimpses of Raina's dad during the divorce sadness. So it's totally plausible that Blankets was a reflection into a time when he made mistakes, and now he's become a much better person.
Maybe. I don't know.
Raina, Phil, Raina's Dad, and Ben
Let's talk about Raina. We love Raina. She's an honest person, who wasn't afraid to show Craig how much she cared about him, and she wasn't afraid to be upfront about how dangerously intense his feelings were. She was honest to herself when she said she wasn't ready for an intense relationship because she was going through her parents' traumatic divorce and taking care of the family herself. It looked like, unlike Craig, she knew exactly what she wanted and exactly how she felt, and she was a refreshing breath of air in an ocean of melancholy and internal conflict. We fell in love with her the way Craig fell in love with her, but we were the ones who were heartbroken when he suddenly threw her away. He fucking BURNED her stuff. Burned. Her ONE photo alone, which she GAVE to him. You can't reprint that shit. That shit wasn't digital. There was ONE. And he fucking burned it. If that was the only mistake he made, it was more than enough for us to officially dislike him.
He burned it.
Fucking. Burned it.
AND he put her fucking blanket, which she MADE for him, in the cubby hole of hell. THE CUBBY HOLE. THE SYMBOL OF HORROR IN HIS CHILDHOOD. After everything they'd been through, he put her in the same category as his childhood demons.
No.
Not cool.
Now let's fucking talk about Phil. FUCKING LOVE Phil. I wanted to take Phil, hold him in my arms, and squeeze all the pain out of him. Even watching him play videogames as a teenager filled me with heartbreak. Sigh. Wonderful character who tugged at every string our hearts ever had. It was annoying to have him abruptly disappear just before Craig met Raina, but at least we got to see that he ended up happy, successful, and married to a beautiful and smart person. Yay. Love you, Phil. Ugh. Love you so much.
Raina's dad was a really interesting character, because Thompson focused on him quite a bit, subtly giving him his own panels in between the Craig/Raina moments. Thompson did a beautiful job of illustrating the dad's sadness, exhaustion, and frustration. Another heartbreaking element in the story. Sigh. Just wanted to hug him... Definitely one of the characters that stood out.
Ben was another fantastically illustrated character. For the majority of his appearance, he was an angry and silent brother with down syndrome. We all assume he's angry and quiet because he's intimidated by Craig and is feeling overprotective of Raina, which he probably did, but the moment he spoke was a beautiful shift in tone. His first words ever in the book (to his dad) are: "You treat me like a RETARD. I'm NOT retarded." (p. 350 - Chapter IV: Teen Spirit). He lashes out in front of his dad and breaks down in anger, frustrated by his parents' impending divorce. Heartbreaking. Beautiful.
I guess this section of the review is just to give props to the author for fantastic secondary character illustration and development, which balances out after talking about how much we dislike Craig.
Yay objectivity.
Accuracy and Realism
Like Persepolis and Snow, Glass, Apples (I like doing this reference thing), the issue of factual accuracy came up. It's more of a Persepolis thing because Persepolis was also a non-fiction autobiography graphic novel, whereas Snow, Glass, Apples was fiction so you can let everything slide. Is it REALLY realistic that pretty much every day of Craig's life was a sad day, from his childhood to the day he graduated high school? (It's not). It's basic human psychology, you can have the shittiest life in the world, you still have a few good moments. You have to. But with Craig, he even tainted his good moments with some form of guilt or sadness. It became aggravating.
Also, on the note of Craig's self-centeredness (if you've been paying attention), the self-victimization got to the point where it felt unrealistic. Even the teachers bullied him when he said he wanted to draw in Heaven (p.136 - Chapter III: Blank Sheet)? When he was hanging out with Raina's friend who tried to get him to smoke (p.99 - Chapter II: Stirring Furnace), was he REALLY that aggressive? Was Raina really the only perfect person surrounded by a family of messed up and bad people? At the end of the day, we don't know exactly what's true and what's exaggerated, but many elements just seem too Hollywood or too fairytale-esque. Also, Raina's dad walking in on Raina and Craig sleeping naked in bed and not freaking out? Sounds suspicious...
That being said, Thompson does a powerful job of illustrating childhood creativity and perspective in the Craig-childhood panels; the way his parents seemed so evil when they were kids, but turned out to be really nice parents later on; the way the cubby hole was pretty much the Hellmouth; the way his art took him into a new dimension; and the way he and Phil played as kids. So during the childhood panels, reality was deliberately stretched and exaggerated to reflect the children's state of mind, and it was cool beans. Personally, the childhood chapters and panels were my favorite. Especially the beginning of the book: absolutely captivating.
Blankets: The Symbol
It becomes very clear early on in the novel why blankets are so significant. The blanket Craig shared with Phil represented not only the happiness of his childhood, but his gateway into a world outside of the poverty, cold, and loneliness that Craig lived in. When their father separated them after buying a new bed, they clung on to that blanket connection that they had for as long as they could. Eventually, they grew accustomed to sleeping separately and, thus, no longer share a blanket. Their connection was gone.
Later on, Raina gifts Craig a blanket that she made out of other blankets; a blanket created from memories and different stages of her life. She created physical connection to Craig which encompassed her entire self; it was a blanket made out of Raina.
When Craig and Raina slept together, Craig made it very clear that there was a whole world under the blanket; a universe in which Raina's body moved and floated. They drowned with the blanket as they were interconnected and caressing each other to sleep.
After he broke up with Raina, Craig filed her blanket into the cubby hole, essentially filing away their connection; filing Raina away into the cubby hole.
It's evident that Craig used blankets as a symbol of his moments of happiness and escape from reality, and the symbol for his connection to the most important people of his life; Phil and Raina.
The Art
I don't know where to start and where to end with the art. If Craig Thompson had removed all the text from Blankets, the story would still be told. I don't even know where to start naming favorites, but I still had to have a section called "The Art" just to emphasize the part it played in the telling of the story of Blankets.
TL;DR Our Review
Bader: 4 Stars
Noor: 3.5 Stars
Ali Haji: 3.5 Stars
Reem: 4 Stars
3.75/5 Stars
MAY BOOK CLUB PICK:
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (2000)
- Horror, Fiction, Contemporary
THANKS FOR READING IF YOU ACTUALLY READ EVERYTHING!
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