ewee (15/26): Blankets, by Craig Thompson

[Ok, another book with pictures. But it's a big book, almost 600 pages. And I'm working on two other word-only books concurrently...ok?]

So, this book has been out for some time, and I've been intrigued by it for awhile now. In recent months, I was reminded of that interest by it's removal from a public library [mentioned in an earlier post]. But the real draw is because the author drew/wrote one of my favorite graphic novels of all time, Good-bye, Chunky Rice, a beautiful story of love, loss, and the possibility of redemption.

Blankets was a fast read, well drawn, interestingly told, and overall a touching story of one [straight] young man's coming of age. I'm not really sure why the library is banning it, as I see more risque lack-of-clothing content in the average glossy tabloid [available at your local grocery store...and easily accessed by children! gasp! but then, what is the world coming to?]. And it certainly didn't seem too heretical, tho the author does seem to evolve from a world of fundamentalist Christianity to a more Humanist point of view [but one that seems essentially still Christian, but I'm hardly an expert, as I'll claim Agnosticism, if forced to choose...]. But nothing obscene, nothing even remotely queer, nothing really all that offensive. But enough about what I couldn't find in it.

What it is, is long. And still a fast read. I holed up a bit this weekend, resting, recuperating from an eye thing, but mainly just hiding from the rain, and slowing down a bit. [I even napped! Crazy!] This book was a lovely respite, a bit of an escape, and a very relaxing/absorbing/gorgeous graphic novel. Despite it's heft, I didn't find it as moving, or as deep, as Good-bye, Chunky Rice. But it is a well-told, intimate look at one man's coming of age -- replete with pain, alienation, childhood joys and scars, true love, grappling with self and bigger issues. Worth the read, but not sure everyone will be willing to purchase the tome.

For those who might want to try before you buy, here's a preview of Blankets, and Craig Thompson's artwork site, doot doot garden.

ewee (14/26): Dreams from my Father by Barack Obama

It's because of luckyduck that I read this book, that I even heard of Senator Obama...so read her review. It's far more detailed and insightful than I could put together. So for this book report, I bring you random inspirational bits from the book itself, and various other links...

This is as good a creed as any I've ever found:

"Look at yourself before you pass judgment. Don't make someone else clean up your mess. It's not about you."

More from the book that reached right out and grabbed/slapped me:

You've lost your way...your ideas about yourself--about who you are and who you might become--have grown stunted and narrow and small. How had this happened? I started to ask myself, but before the question had even formed in my mind, I already knew the answer. Fear.
...The constant, crippling fear that I didn't belong somehow, that unless I dodged and hid and pretended to be something I wasn't, I would forever remain an outsider, with the rest of the world, black and white standing in judgment.
...

What was she asking of me, then? Determination, mostly. The determination to push against whatever power kept her stooped instead of standing straight. The determination to resist the easy or the expedient. You might be locked into a world not of your own making, her eyes said, but you still have a claim on how it is shaped. You still have responsibilities.
...

My identity might begin with the fact of my race, but it didn't, couldn't, end there. At least that's what I would choose to believe.
...

Beneath the layers of hurt, beneath the ragged laughter, I heard a willingness to endure. Endure--and make music that wasn't there before.
...

...that beneath the small talk and sketchy biographies and received opinions, people carried within them some central explanation of themselves. ...As time passed, I found that these stories, taken together, had helped me bind my world together, that they gave me the sense of place and purpose I'd been longing for.
...

It was the sort of change that's important not because it alters your concrete circumstance in some way (wealth, security, fame) but because it hints at what might be possible and therefore spurs you on, beyond the immediate exhilariation, beyond any subsequent disappointmens, to retrieve that thing that you once, ever so briefly, held in your hand.
...

Without a power for the group, a group larger, even, that an extended family, our success always threatened to leave others behind.

And (finally) will he run? We'll know soon...

1/16/07: Barack announced he will file papers to create a presidential exploratory committee. He also said on February 10, 2007, he would announce his final decision.

More reviews:

• wikipedia
• new yorker review

Hiatus

In case anyone is wondering....

I'm working through this 1,414-page baby:



While I haven't much time for much else, I am also reading selectively from this one:



- K