Drinking, Drinking, and more Freakin' Drinking at the Movies

Well I am so glad that the first prompt makes a small link to Lucky, because that is more or less the connection I made in regards to this memoir as well. Many of her struggles and difficulties seemed to me at least, very self-educed. I’m not trying to place judgment on her character because I am sure we can all related to this in some way or another, I just felt like if you are going to move to New York on a whim (and even recognize the idiocy of the circumstances) you don’t really have much room to complain. Though I do understand and give her much respect for recognizing the trivialness of her complaints (as on page 31) and realizing her place in privilege (page 12, “I indulged in one of the many luxuries of the white middle class” and page 146, “Suck it, boring ass white kids!” side note, arrow points to her, “boring ass white kid”). So in that sense I didn’t feel so put off to her narrative. I think she not only knew the reality of her privilege but she purposefully recognized it throughout the telling of her memoir.

The only thing that I felt set this memoir apart from that of Lucky was the weight of trauma occurring in Wertz’ life. For example, these years were riddled with drug abuse, near death experiences, overdosing, alcohol abuse and cancer. That’s some deep shit and although this sort of trauma doesn’t pale in comparison to that found in say, Persepolis, this trauma, as I have argued before, seemed to help me become more invested in the telling of her story as well as in the life of Julia. I did however find myself being annoyed by her antics that often led to her being fired from her job. I found myself wanting to yell at her life a disappointed parent, “Get your shit together!” but again, I think she recognizes. She most definitely displays it through the constant referring to her “growing up”, asking herself, “When will I grow up?”, “Do I want to be a grown up?”, “Is this what it feels like to be a grown up?”. The reality is, at the very least, she seems to be recognizing her weaknesses and reports to us in the last pages of her book that in many ways, she finally “grew up” a bit. It is of course, a life process.

A couple of things that stood out to me in regards to this particular memoir were the things like the panels found on page 166. I was like, “what the hell?” but then realized it said, “Drawn by Laura and Julia”. I thought this was pretty cool and a nice way to introduce her friend’s profession without even directly saying it. It did however strike me as odd and a bit random. In regards to the illustrations as a whole, I had such a problem with her, what seemed like flat and expressionless illustrations. I was a bit disappointed to open the pages only to find black and white cartoons (the cover was misleading). I was further irked by her illustrations and their inability to emote any kind of emotion besides a damned squiggly eyebrow! Needless to say, I didn’t care too much for her illustrative choices.   

Lastly, as with the panels on page 166, Wertz’ insertion of “surreal” panels like those found on pages 90, 91, and 183 were likable but struck me as a bit disjointed and random. I enjoyed her shift from realism to surrealism throughout the memoir. In fact, I wouldn’t even argue that the memoir is in a format that suggests total realism (a lot of it is simply her projection of her own perception onto “real life things” i.e. book names, “Some Dumb Book, by Some Dumb Asshole” and movie titles on page 67, “Another shitty romantic comedy” along with things like the “Freelance Factory”).  So it was nice and dare I say a bit refreshing wrapped together in some pretty funny comedic sentiments. These scenes oftentimes spoke more to the reading that what could simply just be said. Her metaphors and personifications packed more of a punch in terms of meaning (and also they punch the crap out of her!).  But yet again, like I said, I found these “breaks from reality” a bit random, especially the whole “Sherlock Holmes” piece. I found myself having to pause simply to truly find the meaning within it and decode what the hell just happened. I’m not sure if anyone else had the same sort of reaction but it would be interesting to explore on Tuesday (and I hope we do!).