Getting Graphic with the Church Ladies

Okay, we're not like that Church Lady. But the Neland Book Club is a groups of ladies from my church. And this week we took the giant leap into reading a graphic novel together. This month's title was Blankets by Craig Thompson, a book which is easy to mistake for memoir, but is officially "an illustrated novel." Some were a bit unsure about reading it, and one stalwart decided she wouldn't, feeling that the whole point of reading a book is to imagine it. But more about that later.

Jenny Williams, who teaches a college class on the graphic novel, lent us her expertise tonight. Blankets is one of the books she always teaches in that class. Blankets is about a young man who has grown up in a fundamentalist Christian home, isolated and lonely in a culture that discourages his natural artistic talent. He falls in love with a kindred spirit at a Christian winter camp during high school, and he goes to visit her. Their relationship opens a new lens on his life and his talent.

While the character in the novel, named Craig Thompson like the author and with many similarities to the author, does not embrace the church, this book would give any Christian pause, begging the question of what they or their church is communicating to the young people within. This young man experiences sexual abuse at the hands of a babysitter, harsh discipline from his parents, and bullying from his classmates. His faith offered him a future security, but nothing to help him in his current earthly life.

Jenny's students always have a strong response to this book. Many identify with the small-town experience or the feeling of isolation at the Christian camp. They express their disappointment at the end result of the character's experience and mourn the fact that he was not in a good church situation. She said that students are always disappointed to find out that this is not absolutely true to his life story--that there are fictional aspects to the novel.

Interestingly, since this book is highly autobiographical, Jenny also let us know that Thompson did not tell his family that he was writing this book and, in fact, let them know by sending them a copy when it was published.

We discussed the title: what blankets are in the book? There is a blanket that Raina, his newfound girlfriend, makes for him, which is the obvious choice. Then there are the blankets that he and his brother fight over and play amidst when they share a bed as children. There are blankets of snow throughout the book. Blank spaces abound. And given the different uses of a blanket--warming, covering, hiding, suffocating--there are many dimensions to the image. Christianity is a sort of blanket as well--his parents use it as security and comfort; Craig finds it to be something that hides what's really there and suffocates him. Interestingly, in real life, he still has the quilt that his girlfriend made him.

An interesting aspect of the book, which helps explain why he feels so isolated from his parents' faith, is the complete divorce that he feels between Christian spirituality and the physical world. The physical world is dismissed as unworthy of celebration and attention. Why did God create our bodies, nature, a physical earth if it is meaningless? It's an easy trap for Christians to fall into.

I would not give Blankets to just anyone--I think given the questioning of faith and the sexual abuse in the novel, I wouldn't give it to anyone under 16. And sexuality, as part of the physical world that has been cut off from his life, plays a prominent role. Jenny and her students have discussed what the difference is between reading a story and seeing the images of them in a graphic novel. For some, images last longer in their minds, while others have very vivid images from reading text. This goes to discernment for what is important for each individual reader.



Which leads me back to our wonderful friend who is not interested in graphic novels. She doesn't want everything imagined for her. However, the art in a graphic novel is part of the storytelling. The minimal text is informed by the art in a completely different way than illustrations function in traditional texts.

Blankets is a poignant look at one person's experience. It is filled with both sadness and beauty. Craig Thompson will be at the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin next April. I'm looking forward to hearing what he has to say, and I pray that the experience of Festival will be a blessing to him. I'm also looking forward to reading more graphic novels. The art gives an added value to the experience, giving some variety to the always-enjoyable time spent reading.

Getting Graphic

Have you read a graphic novel yet? I'm not talking about the old romance novels my sister used to keep under her bed. I think Shanna got passed around to all of us over the years--even my brother read it. They were pretty graphic. But I digress.

Graphic novels are sort of like comic books, only not so comic. They are a long way from my old stash of Archie, Richie Rich, and Casper and Wendy comics. They cover deeper subjects and are generally longer and less episodic. The story arc is larger. Take a look in the children's, young adult and even the adult sections at the library. The graphic novel shelves are growing and filling, and the books are getting a lot of use!

I'm a bit careful with them, because to me a visual image leaves a much stronger footprint on my mind, and I want to know what my kids are looking at. Like any other books, there are some better choices and some not-so-great choices. However, graphic novels are great for reluctant readers, because they get to move along in a story with a higher level of sophistication, and with a diverse vocabulary, without being bogged down in long paragraphs. This can be a great step into reading. Author Sue Stauffacher collaborated on a series of graphic novels called Wireman, with just this purpose in mind--to catch the imagination of older readers who needed encouragement to read.

Graphic novels have served another purpose in my household. When assigned reading takes up a lot of the spare reading time for my school-age kids, graphic novels can provide a nice side reading project. My son thoroughly enjoyed the Bone series by Jeff Smith, and he has been introduced to many classics--Frankenstein, Treasure Island, even a Bible story, to name a few--in graphic or manga formats (manga is the Japanese version of graphic novels). He usually hauls home several new choices when we go to the library. My daughter and I had a good time reading Rapunzel's Revenge, a wild west take on the fairy tale, and its sequel, Calamity Jack, both by popular young adult author Shannon Hale. She also enjoyed a book called Korgi by Christian Slade that involved a cute little dog, always a winning topic with her.

But these books can also be deeply-felt novels for adult readers. Today (yes, one day--another bonus of graphic novels for slow readers!) I read Stitches by David Small. He is a Caldecott-winning illustrator of children's books. This book is not fiction--it is Small's memoir. He grew up in Detroit, and he suffered many traumas in his childhood, including losing his voice when he undergoes surgery for cancer. No one told him he had cancer, no one told him he was losing a vocal chord, and no one seemed to care about his loss.

Stitches recounts many horrifying experiences, yet somehow it is bearable because of Small's ability to remember the details of looking at things through a child's eyes. Which is also what makes it so sad. The strange thing about reading this story in a graphic format is that you move through it all so quickly. You hardly have time to recover from one thing, and there he is moving on to the next. That may be precisely what it is like for a child in his situation. Yet it's a strange way to read about a tragic childhood, if you are accustomed to wordy recollections and pontifications in memoir.

It's a fascinating read--partly because of his story, and partly because of the format. It's the first graphic book I've actually sat and read from cover to cover, on my own, to myself. It gives you an intimacy with the mind and heart of the author that mere words could not conjure. I'm looking forward to trying another soon.

Added Note: About 15 minutes after I posted this, I realized that I had lied, but I was too tired to bother fixing it! I have read another graphic novel, and it might be one that interests many of you. It's a gorgeous, glossy, colorfully illustrated version of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, adapted by Nancy Butler and Hugo Petrus. The front cover is made to look like a women's magazine, but the words inside are directly from the novel. It's the perfect gift for P & P diehard fans.