Reading a Graphic Novel is like watching a movie. Sometimes you care about the words. Sometimes the pictures tell the story. Sometimes the pictures and words tell two different stories, play against each other, prop each other up then and tear each other down. Yes, it’s published like a book, but it’s more like a silent film with a big pause button. You can stop and stare at any page as long as you’d like. You can let your mind run, you can listen to your heart without interruption, without being rushed on to what’s next.
I read Maus not too long ago. It was very effective. But being a shallow suburban american kid who first fell in love as Nirvana exploded across the county, I liked Blankets a lot more.
And that’s my big concern with this book: If it wasn’t my life on display, would I have loved it so much? Is it universal? And that’s my big concern with this post: Why should I waste my time on a narcissistic yelping of “me too! me too!”?
But I’m stalling. I’ll return to these questions later. I’m shy to post. It’s my life, after all, that I read about in Craig Thompson’s novel. This gets personal!
Here’s the plot summary for you: Super-sensitive kid grows up in a small Wisconsin town, tries his best to balance Truth and Temptation, falls in love, and eventually finds his way to a big and windy city. Just like the fictional Craig in the story, I got out of high school in 1993. I grew up Midwestern Christian and went to Church Camps. I grew my hair as long as I could get away with. I took the words of the Good Book very seriously, seemingly more so than folks doing the preaching. I wanted to be a good kid, but the good kids wouldn’t have me. On the other hand, the bad kids were a lot of fun, but I was afraid of forever ruining my life with a toke or a poke or any other teenage kick. Like Raina’s family, I was dealing with Good Christian Parents working Faithfully Towards Divorce. Fake plastic smiles, unanswered theological concerns: adolescent life was shroomin’ fissures like an old log after a rain. As this book shows, that doesn’t make me special. There’s a million kids just like me. Watch the film Saved if you’d like to meet a few more.
But did I mention that I fell in love? Oh boy, did I fall in love. Fell hard enough to nearly re-track the course of my life and re-route my future. Needless to say, my reading brought back some memories. It didn’t only spark a recollection of things and events. Reading it was a revival of left-to-rot emotions.
That was then, this is now. I didn’t read this book to reminisce. I’m more than happy to Be Here Now. I read this book as a 33-year old with two kids. Two kids that are going to be those kids in the book before too long. Which makes me the dad. Which makes my misses the mom. Am I bound to make the same mistakes, to repeat the cycle? Can you really believe that Craig + Raina + 25 years = Their Parents? Is this both sides of love? Must this wheel come full circle? Can you tell that I’m approaching mid-life with a crisis?
And that’s why I’m so lost on this post: I want to have answers. I’m still no more comfortable with my doubts, with my limitations, with the shear messiness of life than I was in high school. I’m still stuck in the middle with(out) you.
So I’m left to embrace the one and only answer that Craig offers at the end of the book: “Doubt is reassuring.”
He picks up his Bible again after years of neglect. He notices for the first time the footnotes in the text. The possible translations, the contradicting sources: He sees the “or’s” amended to the passage. And he embraces the chaos. He finds release from the fight, both his earlier struggle to be as he thought he should, and his latter attempt to flee the ideals that he couldn’t attain. In the end, he finds contentment in a walk through the fresh snow:
“How satisfying it is to leave a mark on a blank surface. To make a map of my movement — no matter how temporary.”
In the end, it doesn’t matter that he burned his sketches in a fit of piety. It doesn’t matter that his painting on Raina’s wall was erased by the next tenant. Life comes and goes. Life changes — let it go. I’m not sure that’s enough, but it may have to be. “The journey is the destination,” right?
A professor of mine once told us that the point of literature, despite all the discussions of Truth and Beauty, Dulce et Utile, etc, was simply “To decrease the general loneliness.” If this is the standard, then Blankets meets the mark. I’m less lonely today than I was a week ago. And that feels good.
And somehow I’ve answered those questions above:
Is it Universal? It doesn’t need to be. If a work brings joy or understanding to one other person, it is well worth it. If the mere act of creation brings peace and joy to the creator it is well worth it. I know at least two people who have enjoyed Blankets. That is more than sufficient. (See: Mandala)
Why should I waste my time? There’s a lot of Ecclesiastes in the book, and yes, All Is Vanity. This blog is at least a semi-enlightened form of it, and perhaps if I’m lucky, it will spread the joy and understanding mentioned above. In other words:
“How satisfying it is to leave a mark on a blank surface. To make a map of my movement — no matter how temporary.”
And with that, I’m satisfied.
I had a roommate in college whose Bible was Be Here Now. It’s interesting to me that Baba Ram Das now looks a lot like Dick Cheney. Me too. I don’t think either one of us would be very good gurus.
I liked “Blankets” a lot as well. It brought back a lot of memories. But I was also frustrated by the book — not because of Craig’s questions and doubts, but because there was no one in the book who was capable of addressing them, either from the standpoint of offering intellectual answers or or simply offering a compassionate, listening ear. No wonder he got turned off from Christianity.
My “Raina” was a young woman named Claire, who ditched me and my fun-loving ways (yeah, that was it) for Jesus. I hated her for a lot of years. She had a batch of kids named Ezekiel and Obadiah and the like. I think her sixth kid was named Sandy. The Biblical inspiration had apparently run dry by that point. I have no idea where she is, or even if she’s still alive, but if I could find her I’d tell her that it’s okay, and that I’m thankful for the time she was in my life. I bet Craig feels that way about Raina, too.
I love your writing, Grant.
Hi Andy,
Thanks very much for the encouragement. I’m trying to get back to things I once enjoyed before atrophy becomes complete. A little blogging is a mighty step in that direction.
Every once in a while I get the urge to dig up my old copy of Be Here Now and read it again. I meditated on it during a somewhat-altered phase in college. It made a lot of sense then. Not sure what it would do for me now, but I’m curious.
Speaking of that phase in college: That’s when Kristen (aka, Raina) finally gave up on me, again. I didn’t apply to Wheaton like she did. I went to the morally suspect Grove City College and didn’t keep on as she thought I should. Turns out we both had a few other lives to lead, and probably still do.
Thanks again Andy; I greatly appreciate it.