Non-Fictional Prose Course

 Reflecting on the first half of A Field Guide to Getting Lost I think that, in opposition to Fun Home, prose is a good form for this novel. Pictures allow the reader to follow the story more intimately, where as with prose, the reader is able to "lose" herself in the text. The mix of stories, facts, and personal anecdotes fit together well, yet are varied enough that I did not know what to expect next as I read. 

I, like others in the class was never encouraged to read, or even exposed to comics as a young child. Therefore I always believed that they were not as "worthy" as novels or other works of literature. However, seeing the depth of feeling and amount of intricate physical and metaphorical detail that Bechdel puts into Fun Home has definitely gotten me thinking about the relevance of comics. While I am still not convinced that a graphic novel should be treated and discussed in the same way as a one-hundred-year-old classic novel, I do think that this art form deserves to be discussed in more intellectual forums, such as this class.

  Reading "Fun Home" was my first experience with reading a graphic memoir. I thought that the narration of the memoir was very interested. I specifically enjoyed reading the combination of the pictures and the words. Since English is my second language, I found that the combination of words and pictures was very helpful as I felt that the pictures/images complimented the words and gave them a more in depth meaning and vividness. So I would say that I found this book easier to read and follow compared to Reality Hunger, except for two references Bechdel included that I had to look up on the internet. 

 On Tuesday, we discussed that Alison Bechdel's Fun Home is brimming with literary reference. Bechdel incorporates everything from Joyce to Salinger to Greek mythology in an effort to tell her "own" true story. And many of her allusions are not cited, as she has determined that they are part of culture's collective, general knowledge. I find this an ironic juxtaposition to Reality Hunger, which argues that everything is collective knowledge, yet still cites (albeit begrudgingly) all of its references (we think). In light of this, perhaps Bechdel's work is making a larger point about collective knowledge than Shields' work is, despite that the core intention of Shields' work is to destroy the ownership of ideas. But maybe I'm wrong.

 My favorite description of William Morris actually occurs on his wikipedia page where someone/ones have described him as an "English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement"

Two artistic movements, three professions and a radical political associate. Morris was definitely a busy man. He was a poet but also a printer and I have always said that if I could get enough money together I would buy his Kelmscott Chaucer. What I think is important about his version of Chaucer (he didn't write the text after all) is the way he presented the text.