Module 13: Graphic Novels: Blankets

Amazon. (2017). Blankets. Retrieved from
https://www.amazon.com/Blankets-Craig-
Thompson/dp/177046218X

Thompson, C. (2003). Blankets. Marietta, GA: Top Shelf Productions. 1-891830-43-0

Summary:

This 500+-page autobiographical graphic novel is a story that is told in words and sketches of Craig’s maturation from a young boy to a teen a young adult who has come into his own understanding of the world, his natural creativity, and life without the overprotectiveness of the church that he was raised in.

As a young boy, Craig and his brother Phil were like typical siblings: constantly squabbling and fighting, but nowhere was this bickering more present than in the fact that they shared a room, a bed, blankets. But they also had some their moments of brotherly love: drawing together, play-imagining that their bed was a ship and their stuffed animals their fellow pirates, and snow and ice games in the winter.

Craig was always curiously pious: he was active in Sunday School, read his Bible, often talked at length with his pastor, and attended church camp over Christmas break. The Christmas break of his senior year, he met Raina, a girl who lived in neighboring Michigan. Together, they eschewed the jocks and the bullies and the grunge rule-breakers. While the story isn’t always told in chronological order, then-Craig’s ponderings on church dogma and Bible passages often segue between different time jumps.

Craig and Raina kept in touch via snail mail once they went home, but they grew very close, close enough that Craig went to visit Raina for two weeks over spring break. There, Craig helped Raina look after her family: parents going through a divorce, older sister’s baby, two siblings who have cognitive and/or physical disabilities. Raina was the glue holding their family together, and Craig provided the support that helped keep Raina’s head above water. But Raina and Craig also spent time together: talking about themselves, sharing their spiritual beliefs, exploring the wintery forest, cuddling under the blanket that Raina made for Craig, and having sex. This provided a lot of cognitive dissonance for Craig: Raina was the first person he met whom he trusted and loved that had different beliefs than the Baptist teachings he got from his parents and church-- plus they had premarital sex, which until that moment, Craig abhorred due to its definition of lust and temptation.

When Craig left Raina to return home, he was advised from his pastor and other members of his church to not go to art school despite his passion and talent as an artist. There, they warned, he would have to paint from live models, which would turn him into a homosexual.

At 20, Craig moved out of his parents’ house and “gorged” himself on reading without censorship, seeing girls for their beauty outside and inside, and drinking. He only came back to Wisconsin sparingly: his brother’s wedding to a geology student who told him how the earth is 4.5 billion years not 6,000 as the Bible states. While home, he finds his Bible, hidden at the bottom of a box, and leafs through it. He finds the book to be much less assuring than when he was younger with footnotes, translation difficulties, and his more expansive personal context. Craig is fine with the person --the devout Christian-- he was a teen. And he’s okay with the person he is now: someone content with the limited impact he will make on the world. It’s okay, he’s discovered, to not live life only concerned with eternal salvation. He can make life on earth beautiful with that energy instead.

As a Format/Genre Example:

As an artist, Thompson is sharing his story of struggle, doubt, and bildungsroman with readers. He reaches a wider audience with the graphic novel format than if it were the traditional format because young men are the ones who need to read the story and to realize that it’s okay to struggle and to have self-doubts. Like the module notes state, young men aren’t often the ones visiting the library, but, with graphic novels, they can be enticed. As such, Thompson is meeting his target audience where they are and reinforcing the importance of art (and reading) through his medium. It’s rare for a story (of any medium) to say/show that it’s okay for males to be introspective, good with kids, to think about God/theology, artistic instead of athletic, and to not be raging sex fiends because that’s what culture/society defines as “quintessential male”.

Evaluation:

I’m not usually a fan of graphic novels, but I enjoyed the theological aspect of Blankets. I’m fully of the opinion that everyone should make their own mind up about their beliefs, and I’m very content with the fact that Craig doesn’t limit himself and his thinking to what was drilled into him by his parents (if he had gone through the same processing and come out on the same page as his parents, I would be fine with that, too). I thought that Craig and Raina’s relationship was really sweet. It started out so very innocently and then rapidly progressed to a mature relationship because of Raina’s role within her family. I hate that she’s been put in such a hard place and give such adult responsibilities. She is the youngest of four kids and has to take care of them all. I would recommend Blankets to someone who is struggling with their faith to show them that it’s okay to have doubts and it’s okay to struggle with your understanding of God. Our relationships with God are constantly shifting and evolving, and Blankets is a good illustration (ha!) of that.

Reader's Advisory:

Of any of the genres we’ve studies this semester, Blankets most closely aligns with Inspirational fiction. However, it is definitely not the typical Karen Kingsbury or Tracie Peterson of the Evangelical Christian subgenre. I actually had a patron come in a couple of months ago looking for the type of book that Blankets would fit: inspirational (more so of the relationship with God variety than the cured of cancer variety), thought-provoking, and asks the deep/hard questions. I wish I had known about it then so that I could recommend it to him.

Module 12: Fantasy: The Bear and the Nightingale

Photo taken by me

Arden, K. (2017). The bear and the nightingale. New York City: Del Rey. 978-1-101-88593-2

Summary:

Vasya is the daughter of a Russian boyar in the 1300’s, whose village is on the outskirts of a mysterious forest. Unlike her brothers, sisters, and the other villagers, Vasya can see the chyerti, household and nature sprites who live in their specific spaces (i.e. the stables, the lake, the kitchen) and can either be helpful like the domovoi who sits on a stool next to the oven and helps with the mending or they can be dangerous like the rusalka who lives in the lake and tempts humans to her and drowns them.

The villagers have always given offerings to the chyerti until Father Konstantin comes to live amongst them at the behest of Anna Ivanova, Vasya’s stepmother. Father Konstantin converts the villagers fully to Christianity and to turn their back on the chyerti. Because of this, the Bear --Medved-- is able to come to his full power and threaten the way of life the Russians know: prosperity in the crops, happiness on the hearths and in the family, and peace in death. Only Vasya, with help from Medved’s brother Morozko --Death, the Frost-King; her own brother Aloysha; and her new stallion Solovey, can return Medved to his prison and make everything in the village right again.

As a Genre Example:

The world-building in The Bear and the Nightingale comes from the immersion in 14^th century pre-Russia. Even as a fan of historical fiction, I was mostly unfamiliar with many of the setting aspects, and I had to look up clothing terms such as “sarafan” to accurately make the picture in my mind as I read. Arden has taken multiple fairy tales and Russian folklore to create this new story (Staggs, 2016), which is in-line with the Saricks text, although I’m not familiar enough with Russian tales to identify a specific fairy tale.

The biggest deviation from the fantasy described by Saricks is that The Bear and the Nightingale is more the magical realism subgenre of the module notes than the overt fantasy of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Narnia. Encyclopedia Britannica (1999) and the module notes identify magical realism more with Latin-American authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, Isabel Allende, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but characterizes it “by the matter-of-fact inclusion of fantastic or mythical elements into seemingly realistic fiction”. Because the chyerti, the Frost-King, and so on are as much a part of the Russians’ daily lives as cell phones and Facebook are to the 21^st century, the story can be classified as magical realism.

The main characters are humans, but Vasya and her stepmother can see the chyerti, which marks them as having the “Sight”. The chyerti and the horses speak with Vasya, and Vasya directly interacts with Medved, Morozko, and the upyr (“vampire”).

The language is very lyrical and is reminiscent of literary fiction. Yet it is more flowery than the overwhelming prose of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Charles Dickens. The pacing is quite slow. The exposition is extremely long-- almost dreadfully so. However, after some digging online, I found out that this is the first in a trilogy, hence the slow beginning.

Evaluation:

I give The Bear and the Nightingale 3.5 out of 5 stars. I love fantasy, and it ties with historical fiction as my favorite genre, but this book is not my typical fantasy read-- I much prefer Sarah J. Maas and Harry Potter than magical realism. Although, my typical distancing from magical realism is due to the presence of everyday magic in the present, because The Bear and the Nightingale is set some 700 years ago, it helped my suspension of disbelief.

I like Vasya as a character very much. She is spunky, feminist, and the complete opposite of what was expected of girls and women in the medieval world. I love strong female protagonists, and she is one in thought and action.

I would recommend this book sparingly. It’s quite “heady” thanks to the lyrical prose, and someone looking for a “beach read” will not take to it. There is also a lot of Christianity vs. paganism contained within, and since paganism “wins” over Christianity, it probably won’t be well-received by a devout fundamentalist.

Reader's Advisory:

The Bear and the Nightingale is currently on our ebook “display” for books about Russia since the Russian Revolution happened 100 years ago, so I would recommend it to those who want to read about Russia, especially since most books about Russia are during the time of the czars, and this one takes place before that Russia. I would also recommend it to fans of historical fiction since it does take readers to a wholly different setting, which is sometimes sought when a reader has read one too many WWII novels.

References

Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. (1999, September 17). Magic[al] realism. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/art/magic-realism

Staggs, M. (2016, October 9). NYCC 2016: Katherine Arden discusses The Bear and the Nightingale. Retrieved from http://www.unboundworlds.com/2016/10/nycc-2016-katherine-arden-discusses-bear-nightingale/

Module 10: Science Fiction: Ready Player One

Photo taken by me

Cline, E. (2011). Ready player one. New York City: Crown Publishers. 978-0-307-88743-6

Summary 

Ready Player One is a dystopian story in the near-future of 2044, in which America has devolved into a wasteland thanks to an energy crisis. Wade, like most Americans, lives in abject poverty in Oklahoma City and, like most Americans, is a frequent user of OASIS (think Sims meets World of Warcraft), a virtual reality galaxy where players have an avatar and go to school, go to work, level up to get experience points via fighting and questing, and generally go about their day-to-day business. The two creators of OASIS are James Halliday and Ogden Morrow (think Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak), who grew up together and created OASIS and became bazillionaires.

Upon Halliday’s death, five years before Ready Player One starts, Halliday’s lawyers release a viral video in which Halliday explains that he had hidden an Easter egg somewhere in the OASIS and whoever finds it first will inherit everything of Halliday’s including money, stock, and control of OASIS. And thus begins the madcap rush of users learning everything they can about Halliday --mainly his love of all things ‘80s pop culture, video games, movies, and music-- in order to ferret out where the Easter egg is hidden.

Almost on accident, Wade (whose avatar’s name is Parzival) stumbles across the first Key in the journey to finding Halliday’s Easter egg. On his way out of the tomb, he runs into Art3mis, a female avatar who Wade has developed a crush on after reading her blog for the past three years. She also succeeds in acquiring the Key. A few days later, Aech (pronounced like the letter “H”), Wade’s one and only friend, also obtains the Key, followed by Daito and Shoto, two Japanese brothers, several days later. Each of the “High Five” (so named because they are now in the top five spots on Halliday’s scoreboard) are able to use their Keys to get through the first Gate thanks to the extensive research they’ve conducted on all things Halliday and the ‘80’s.

Unfortunately, an army of Sixers is on their tail. The Sixers are employed by IOI, a competing internet service provider-like company who want to find the Easter egg first in order to have control over OASIS and turn it into a profit-machine for their company. Wade, the other High Five-ers, and many other OASIS users are against IOI taking such control. As such, the race to the Easter egg has become ever more precarious as the end comes closer in sight.

Wade must prevail through OASIS-based and real-life threats in the months before the second, and then the third and final Key and Gate are before him. Thankfully, despite some tension between him, Aech, Art3mis, Daito, and Shoto, they are able to all band together at the very end in order to defeat the Sixers, prevail for the greater good, and learn the important lesson that reality is better than OASIS because it’s real.

As a Genre Example

Ready Player One definitely appeals to the reader’s intellect via the fact that Cline goes to great pains to explain much of the video game science and strategies behind OASIS and the video games from the ‘80’s. There is some ground for discussion due to the questions posed around virtual “life” and real life; however, it is “solved” in the end when Halliday/Anorak takes Parzival aside. Additionally, Ready Player One fits the mold of sci-fi because it is set in the future (2044) and centers around technology, although there is some magic that avatars can use, it is rarely mentioned and even more rarely utilized by and/or against Parzival. There is quite a lot of ‘80’s jargon, but because Wade is an expert, it is often explained so that readers can also get the inside joke. The tone is more dark than comic, but it’s not gritty in the way a Horror or Hard-boiled Mystery is. The pacing was extremely slow, with an emphasis on Wade’s thought processes and musings rather than ideas and/or adventure.

Evaluation

Ready Player One was okay. I liked when Parzival/Wade was actually on the quest within OASIS, but when he is just musing or thinking about the clues or explaining backstory and the science, it was really boring, and kind of made me exasperated with Wade. By the end, I really wanted Art3mis to be the one to find the egg, not Wade, because she was more round and dynamic character than Wade. I’d give it 2.5 stars out of five. I’d recommend this book to others. In fact, I gave it to my brother for Christmas a year a half ago based on the word-of-mouth of patrons checking it out. It seemed like up his alley, and now that I’ve read it, I definitely know it’s up his alley. Some of my gamer friends commented on my Instagram pic of it that they had read it and liked it, too, so people who like to play video games and/or tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons would also like it.

Reader's Advisory

Fans of fantasy would probably the closest cross-over genre to enjoy Ready Player One because of its references to magic/wizard avatars. And it would also be a good introduction to “adult” novels for teen readers.