hey folx! so two things: i typed this last night, but still wasn't able to post it to the blog. my apologies for its lateness! secondly, i must state that yesterday was an INCREDIBLY emotionally charged day for me, it being superbowl sunday and all. i felt a true obligation to watch that game as the only seeming ravens fan on the west coast, and i have never been more proud to be an american.
and now, onto the blog...
"my dad's stories -- which were becomng MY story -- managed to turn a conversation around." (108)
of course, this amazing attention to color detail brings up for me, is it fully the truth? on the one hand, does it really matter if her bathroom walls were actually purple when she talked to her mom about her dad? or is it purely us, the reader, being trapped in her memories, strapped along for the ride? either way, the aesthetics are beautiful. nonetheless, i'm still steeped in more questions than answers.
i've done a considerable amount of thinking about memories, the truth, and the truth we create through our memories to suit us, even if it's somewhat deceptive. for example, i had a huge problem with laurie using her dad's imposter stories to bond with the celebrities she interviewed, even though she hadn't actually seen him in years. the imagined william meant more to her than his actual fatherly role in her life. the dichotomy of being entrapped in so many secrets and lies from BIRTH that it affects your sense of self and your intimate relationships is enough to make anyone crave the truth in order to free yourself...but what happens when your anecdotes outweigh the actual story you're after? but hey, in her line of work, what is the truth anyway, when she's trained to "validate whatever identity they wanted to create", a skill she learned firsthand being her father's daughter? (99) there's a level of responsibility to her self that she did accept, but to her family that she completely ignored. which is more ethical? or does it even matter, if you have to live for your own passions? i frame these questions for all artists, especially writers, who have no other choice but to dig deep into the confines of our deepest family secrets in order to create some wholeness, some truths. but again, who's at risk? who benefits, truly?
also, what does this mean for the truthtelling of her telling her own life story, if the truth is more important than loyalty for her? was she loyal to her own story? oh, the questions, the questions.
it is so fitting how she chose to be a celebrity columnist -- she said it herself: her "seeming incredibly open without giving too much of myself away" was a specialty (99). so, there's no need to dig deeper, even though in her entire life, she was in competition with herself and for her father's craze caused her to give much of her true self away before she even recognized it was gone. she only gave enough of herself to others before things got too deep, and then, because of her need to have the upperhand, she could run away from them. clearly, there is a parallel: running away from others is equal to running away from self. that "tower" of fear/abandonment/pain she had built against others, even locked herself out from getting answers.
in many ways, she was much like her father: leading with a torch to blame the world for her issues, rather than deal with them head on. or, instead, just pop an ambien...or two...or three...and really forget about them. even though the looming mystery of her father's life helped to dwarf her emotional health for much of her life, she still blamed him well into her adult years for why she was not happy, and needed to have "this elusive info...[which] held the key to [her] happiness", at the expense of everyone else's disappointment. (126) what are the risks for happiness and peace of mind here? is it being incredibly distant from your families to pursue your work, even if you're still dragging along the fantasy version of your father? is pushing away the only man that loves you because he's not a narcissistic asshole and is "too normal" enough, when you're left with nothing in the end? COME ON.
in short, she was a hot. mess. but the apple didn't fall far from the tree.
i mean, god, her father sure dug himself into decades worth of wormholes as a scam artist, and left the family to dismiss criticism of him with the euphemism of being "loyal" to the family. the mother, dear god, should win a "wife who should've left you 20 years ago" award, but didn't even recognize her own strength without him either. they all were sucked into a speckled vortex of william sandell (whose last name came by way of a bank in new york...how loving), where no woman had a word in edgewise. the only woman who refused to give into his schemes was depicted as a witch, only later to be revealed that he was insanely jealous of how much his father loved her and was indifferent to him.
i just ask, what immunity does he have to be an imposter and NOT be assassinated after this long? if anyone else had built up a career based on that many lies, that many lawsuits, and pissed off sheisty individuals "who don't do business with no sandells", would they live to tell about it? or even have their daughter go to extreme lengths to gather this story in pieces, only for it to be rejected by the family? annnd, to still feel unresolved bitterness and emptiness? is it worth it, even if "his story is my story too", as she puts it? (85)
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in the second portion, i just wanted to comment on sandell's usage of 2, 3, and 4 panels per page, and when she chose to use each. usually, each page reads at any of the aforementioned, interchangeably. what stood out for me though, was how she chose to frame the crucial points in her life, as not all of them took up the entire page, or even half of it. some, just a quarter of it. to contrast her recognizing she had built a tower of emotional weight around her, for example (99), with the panel of her dad as a child waiting for his mom to pick him up (167). the tower, albeit extremely critical, is only a quarter of the page. her father's frame as a boy, takes up half of the page.
(naturally, he is in almost every frame in this book, either physically or in flashback form, towering over everyone in the frame (except in parts where he shrinks into the frame, signifying his shrunken physical importance in her life.)
do the size of her panels have to do with the importance of the incident to her life, or importance/weight that the moment holds, in general? i'm reminded of elmaz stating the visual aspect of graphic novels eliminates the need to create images while reading written text. as the act of reading is subjective, depending on who we are, we fly over some moments, and concentrate on others. i equate this visually to frames being 1/4 of the page, and more crucial ones, 1/2 to the entire page. in the graphic novel, we are essentially TOLD how to see these moments and their importance, based on the weight it holds in the author's life. this, to me, is also a tension that we as readers are faced with: our insights and memories and emotions while reading, and that of the author's, based on illustration.
what a wonderfully crafted, amazing, slightly frustrating book. and possibly life story...whether it's completely true or full of lies, truth is, we're all made up of a little bit of both anyways.
"(also, am i the only one who noticed she wore orange throughout her life?)"
ReplyDeleteThis made me laugh. It's almost slightly paranoid, on the part of the author as artist, Will my character be recognized? If I keep changing clothes?
It works though....
And Dad wears teal blue.... Opposite and complementary colors.
so worth waiting for... super bowl charged or as one post contorted Superb Owl. Better. The observations about the excavation of the truth of your life and family are compelling, the vision on the visual, very intriguing. Got to tear it up
ReplyDeletee
I had a problem with Sandell using the story of her father to bond with celebrities, or get them to "open up," too. That's not so different from the tall tales he used to bond with her, but she does not seem to see that similarity at all. Maybe she dismisses it because her stories are "true," but the manipulation factor is still there. I wondered, too, if it was courage that made her include that in the book or unconsciousness; it was difficult to know whether to read it as her being aware and exposing her ethical vagueness, a "here I am, judge me or not, I don't care, this is who I am and this is what I did," (as I read some of her other actions) or as an ongoing lack of awareness. It's not clear to me whether she now feels that the way she used the story of her father was ethically questionable and unquestionably manipulative.
ReplyDeleteAlso wanted to tell you I looked out of place in my Ray Lewis shirt yesterday, drowning in a sea of red at a Super Bowl party. I also felt pretty good at the end of the game, when all the trash talkers congratulated me on their way out. So, you aren't alone in your West Coast Ravens' fandom, just almost alone.
i hadn't thought about the meaning behind the different sizes of her panels and how that communicated how to read into certain moments or memories. it's also interesting how much of her personal story focuses on her father's past and memories that other people in his life had about him. it seems like in attempting to figure out all the ways that he was an impostor and con artist, she was attempting to also find reasons for her own tendencies toward being an impostor. she seemed to have a desire to pinpoint her father's actions in order to make sense of her own emotional distance and need to deflect (with pills, tasks, etc). in a way, sandell is much like her father-- he charismatically made connections with a lot of different people to get something from them, while she did the same and said what she had to in order to get info from celebrities. both were never completely connecting with others, just projecting an air of safety, compassion, warmth. not saying she's artificial or sociopathic in any way (as he seems to be), but she definitely did develop personal fronts for herself in order to keep herself comfortable and safe.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your reflections Unique.
ReplyDeleteI too noted Sandell's use of panel size and the way she depicted figures in order to hammer home her version of the story. I noted the repeated practice of zooming in on parts of the face to punctuate particular emotional reactions - usually shock. This fast paced zoom in strategy seemed to increase the pace of the story and also inflamed my own feelings - a successful imparting on her part of the emotional reality she was aiming to construct (and I use that last word very intentionally).
thank you guys for sounding off!! glad we're all on the same page.
ReplyDeletesomething still lingering for me after reading y'alls...i too, wonder if she was actually genuinely aware, when putting this book out, that she was exposing herself as having extreme parallels with her father, or still seeing her own actions as different or justified in some way.
"projecting an air of safety" = so spot on! i wonder if she's like that if we met her in real life hahahaha. either way, makes for a good read!
thank you guys for sounding off!! glad we're all on the same page.
ReplyDeletesomething still lingering for me after reading y'alls...i too, wonder if she was actually genuinely aware, when putting this book out, that she was exposing herself as having extreme parallels with her father, or still seeing her own actions as different or justified in some way.
"projecting an air of safety" = so spot on! i wonder if she's like that if we met her in real life hahahaha. either way, makes for a good read!