Alison Bechdel

trying to work out why i like it when I don't like the Robertson Davies book mentioned above

the Davies book i disliked because it seems to require the reader to take the narrators beliefs about psychoanalysis at face value, which seems hardly less true of bechdel

possibly I just think the ideas about psychoanalysis (and therapy) in the bechdel are better ones

(grad school answer) bechdel is already presenting a subject not so much writing a memoir as subject to the discourse of memoiristic writing, and so bringing in the rules of another discourse seems less of an offense -- whereas Davies does not really question the ways his narrators subjectivity is already constrained by the format of the novel

(regular folks answer) writing novels about a successful analysis bears the same relation to writing about a successful analysis as a Sherlock Holmes mystery does to the solution of an actual crime

But the Bechdel is all so witless. It's like:

Analyst says thing.
Bechdel picks up on random word, makes excited but idiotic association, wow so significant, DO YOU SEE?
Woolf/old-timey shrink once did something tenuously related to random word. Illustrate at length.

Repeat.

nah you're just not a very good reader innit

like, just glancing through, the most common analyst-to-life segues are things like

"do you think you're angry about your father for committing suicide" >> bechdel agonises over whether this is the case
"do you think you're angry at your mother for not providing the right kind of affection" >> bechdel agonises over whether this is the case, rereads 'the gifted child' some more

feel like the relevance of the woolf/winnicott threads is too obvious to require belaboring

tbf i can see that the book i'm summarising w/ this

"do you think you're angry about your father for committing suicide" >> bechdel agonises over whether this is the case
"do you think you're angry at your mother for not providing the right kind of affection" >> bechdel agonises over whether this is the case, rereads 'the gifted child' some more

doesn't exactly scream READ ME but hey, i liked it

i enjoyed it - it was much messier than fun home, much more exposed w/ her intellectual influences and less narratively structured. but i still liked it a bunch.

nah you're just not a very good reader innit

riiiiight, so stuff like “You were gonna fix the tear [in my pants], which maybe means tear [as in crying], too! You’re healing me!” is not at all tendentious and stupid

And the fact that she couldn't be breastfed properly is definitely a sign of lacking intimacy with her mother, etc, etc, so I guess my daughter will realise her mother hates her too one of these days

everything she writes is so provisional tho - under examination but never fully embraced as an answer. that's part of what i like about it - she's very honest sometimes about feelings that are absurd or "wrong"

riiiiight, so stuff like “You were gonna fix the tear [in my pants], which maybe means tear [as in crying], too! You’re healing me!” is not at all tendentious and stupid

the point of this scene is that bechdel is providing a spurious reading of her own dream and feeling proud of herself for having Got analysis and then is totally undercut by what her therapist says to her so, yeah, you didn't read that bit right, are there any other bits you would like help with

Fine, you love this specious and padded book so much it has turned you into a condescending prat. I forgot this wasnt ILB where people can discuss stuff like this without getting personal. Bye.

now i kinda want to read this

I thought the actual mother/daughter scenes in this one were great, but the whole Winnicott thing is just too much... Even if Bechdel left the reader some room to interpret things differently than the Bechdel character in the book, the fact remains that so much of the comic is devoted to Winnicot's writings (literally), and to her trying to show how it applies to her life, and if you agree with Winnicot I guess that's fine, but if you're someone like me who feels psychoanalysis is mostly bullshit, then those bits in the comic read mostly read like a overtly long fan-letter, i.e. boring. I thought Bechdel's previous book was a bit dry and boring too, but at least that one had viewed her dad through multiple (literary and non-literary lenses), whereas this one had just the one lens, so it felt largely like psychonanalysis fan gushing.

i saw the musical at The Public and it was admirably executed and superbly acted; they perfectly recreated her world in the book

Fun Home musical now has 12 Tony nominations, including for all 3 performers playing A.B.

Terrible Alison Bechdel cover for Woolf ahoy:
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/W/WEBP_402378-T1/images/I/91apsarQGAL.jpg