Fun home. Una tragicommedia familiare (2006)

Join me for a discussion of this first memoir from the inventor of the "Bechdel Test" at the Willett Free Library on Saturday, April 25, at 10am! ( )

Memoirs aren't my thing. This was the first graphic novel I read. For a long time, I thought it was an academic way to refer to a comic book. They are different from one another. I'm not sure why I expected it to be so similar to her "Dykes to Watch out for" series, but I did. Probably because I like the comic so much. I have an anthology of the series, which I read every year. I liked the art in this memoir, and the green tones were so interesting. I'm not sure what the symbolism was. Bechdel uses a lot of symbolism in this book, and a lot of it went over my head. She had a cold childhood with distant parents, and she wrote the "Dykes to Watch Out For" series over twenty-five years, about warm, close friendships and life changes. The memoir flips back and forth in time, but is somehow too linear to come off as a stream of consciousness. I'm not sure "linear" is an accurate word, but I'm keeping it in the previous sentence. Her dad creeps me out for a variety of reasons. I think I wanted her mom to be there for her so badly, that I interpreted the mom's dialogue as such instead of what Bechdel may have intended. I appreciated that the book didn't end tidily or neatly, but just showed someone working through memories and navigating old grief to figure out where she stood. I'm glad the memoir was so well-received. ( )

Sensible. Se entienden un poco mejor ciertos traumas. ( )

A dense web--no, a felted mat of references, allusions, and insights. I will have to read this a few more times to get a quarter of it. ( )

Alison Bechdel ain't no Marjane Satrapi! Didn't care for this book very much. Good effort though. ( )