I almost came to nonfiction as my genre by default. I cannot make up stories enough to write fiction and I cannot critique poetry enough to grasp it.
Mother's Urn: Memoir Dust has affected me intensely in at least as many ways as times I've read it this week. The first was blistering. Living a generation between my own gone mother who took too many pills and my baby's birth mother who is doing too much of too many things that prevent her from giving my baby a mom, I was blistered by the words and the art--which does have a blister quality about it.
After the first time, the effect was more specific and the second read left me lonely. Lonely for the mom that I should have been able to connect with in the end but couldn't / wouldn't / didn't. Lonely for the narrator who I think I know (but don't). Lonely for the white spaces most other pages in the world have.
The third time I didn't have use for words and recognized children more than mom, perspective more than escape. In graphic art terms there is a lot of bleed and in subject matter there is a lot of blood. And I notice the character that I take to be the narrator wears a white sweater with red stripes and cuffs and I wonder about the red cuffs symbolizing bloody wrists (if only metaphysically).
The fourth time I was looking for something new and got lost in pity or empathy but I don't know which because they often feel like each other to me but of course they're not and I am bad for getting confused by these. By the end of the fourth read I have turned on myself and wish I had only read this book three times.
Darin
Darin, this was tough to read, and I did it several times. Each time I saw more and felt badly about the story-teller. The fact that we can read this and think it through, relate to it, and read it again helps us grow through the story-teller's lens. While I would not wish this experience on any child, it does give me pause to consider the many children caught in situations like this. What do we, as a sociey, want to do about it to help the children that are not given the voice to change their circumstance? It makes me ashamed that many just figure it's not their problem.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your post Darin. I read the book twice and noticed that I was making myself stay on a somewhat surface level so I didn't fall into a black pit of PTSD-edness. It's pretty cool that in this day of technological "advancement" a paper with some words and images on it could have this affect.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Darin, this book is a very emotional experience. I just felt it and without thinking about it too much the first time I read it. The emotional aspects seemed to drown my ability for intellectual analysis. Mothers and our relationships with mothers are very touchy subjects, and this book brought up some of my own personal stuff that is hard to deal with already, but even more so in the context of a class/homework/intellectual activity. I almost feel like it should be left in that emotional space, that I should not even try to intellectualize it, even though that's what Margot/Margeaux wants.
ReplyDeleteAfter looking it over several more times, I think the disjointed text perfectly reflects the alcohol/cocaine/addiction issues and the results of the process of memory. The black pages keep us in a dark space throughout the book, which is appropriate, as this is a very dark story, but that does not make it easy to sit with it. I'm sure it's not supposed to be easy for us; it clearly was not easy for her, and I'm with Sailor here, it's amazing that the artists can bring us to this dark place and keep us here, and it's even more of an accomplishment to do that in such a short number of pages. I just hope we can all pull out of the trauma presented here without too many extra trips to the therapist.
Darin,
ReplyDeleteWow thank you for this post. You have articulated in so many ways what I was left with as I walked away from this piece, with great clarity.
The part that resonated most deeply was "Lonely for the mom that I should have been able to connect with in the end but couldn't / wouldn't / didn't. Lonely for the narrator who I think I know (but don't). Lonely for the white spaces most other pages in the world have."
One thing I noticed in the images (which I am remembering now prompted by your noticing the white and red striped shirt that KJ always seems to be wearing) was the prevalence of what to me appeared to be bars (as in jail cell) throughout the piece. These are some of the places I noticed that imagery:
- the jars on the table (which looks like it can double as a bed) on page 3 which look like two people behind bars
- the prominent hand also on page 3 which holds captive the woman (which can represent both KJ's mother but potentially also simultaneously act as a foreshadow of the ways in which KJ's mother's addictions and choices held KJ captive in an unhealthy environment and stifled the growth of her independent identity)
- the guitar strings
- which also show up as lines of coke
(while both of these run horizontally they can be seen as bars toppled on their side)
- KJ's shirt as well as her mother's top and skirt have stripes
It goes on.
Thank you again.
Blistering is such a great word to use for this text. I used heavy but blistering sounds so much more accurate. This is a touchy subject that many, many people can relate to in one way or the other. This is why Rhonda, I think it's hard for some of us to be so "acadmic" or objectively critical about the whole thing. It's an emotional experience and for some of us a personal story we've heard, or experienced ourselves. It becomes relatable and thus the lines of critique or "valuing" become blurred. Does that make sense? I hope so!
ReplyDeleteThe discussion here is valuable, thanks Darin, Margeaux (Margot's french sister) is grateful for the way you pushed the emotional in to the critical here. And incited such great responses.
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