Julia Wertz has
definitely created a character you can love and hate at the same time. Love
because she has the uncanny ability to tell it how it is and hate because she
sometimes hates herself, creating in her an inability to cope with or see
things for how they are, making her snarky to the point of being cruel. To be
fair, as a twenty something, this confusion and self loathing is not unfamiliar
and to many is simply part of growing up (I just read Meg Jay’s “The Defining
Decade,” which goes to town on this subject). Wertz effectively portrays how
she dealt with this angst by personifying her problem with alcohol as a
constant, one on one battle between her and the bottle.
On page 90, “The
Ambush” depicts Julia getting jumped by a team of liquor bottles who want to
ruin her life. This is a direct example, but more indirect may be the fact that
Julia runs to liquor whenever she feels upset. It took me almost to the middle
of the book to realize Julia had a problem, about the point where she goes on
the internet date and blacks out on a park bench. It made me question what I
consider normative.
There are also
serious moments when we see that Julia has a lot on her plate to deal with
emotionally: her brother the addict, her stepfather’s cancer, and her seemingly
somewhat difficult (we’re not talking Persepolis difficult, we’re talking
divorced family in America difficult) childhood. What works in communicating
these incidents or facts in her life is that she never states up front “I am
feeling…such and such,” she instead will show how tense she gets when her
brother has a relapse, and casually mention her childhood in a panel about
holding babies. Julia’s oblique references show us what potential trigger
factors are without her straight out saying how she feels. Considering this
book definitely has a coming of age element, it seems possible that the reader
is figuring out how Julia feels about things while the character herself is
deciphering her own feelings.
It is apparent that
Julia’s alcoholism is hand in hand with self loathing. On page 106, she has an
entire page titled “How am I abusing my body today?.” It seems she equates self care with a level of
adulthood she thinks she hasn’t attained yet. That is what is so amusing about
this book, the whole time Julia says that going through these difficult life
experiences she is not being an adult, when in reality the experiences are
transforming her into the woman she is to become. It is nice, also, that the
author sheds light into what happens in the future, assuring us that Julia does
quit drinking, and that the journey is one with a successful ending.
An entertaining
book to end our class on! I’m excited to see what we’ll be talking about on
Tuesday.
This is a different image of the coming of age--pretty debauched and sad and hateful. but funny right?
ReplyDeletee
I like your point about Julia as a character being someone we can love and hate. She's very funny, and yet doesn't seem terribly conscious or self-reflective, which I think goes with her age, too. The artwork and even the writing seem so simple and straightforward...I found myself having to rethink that when faced with the fact that it is still complex enough to evoke complicated feelings toward the protagonist/narrator.
ReplyDelete"it seems possible that the reader is figuring out how Julia feels about things while the character herself is deciphering her own feelings."
ReplyDeleteCool insight here! Since starting to analyze memoirs its been interesting for me to think about the character/narrator split and the how and why writers construct themselves as naieve or fallible protaganists. I have to keep reminding myself that this is a craft choice, and it's interesting because then the protag becomes a foil for the reader to project their feelings onto, so the writer is actually not naieve at all.