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tangleroot_eli's review against another edition
informative
sad
slow-paced
I've been following Alison Bechdel's work since the late '90s. This is by leaps and bounds (see what I did there?) my least favorite of her works that I've read.
I read it all because it's relatively short, and I kept wanting to find out what the point was going to be. But engagementwise I checked out on page 24, when Bechdel refers to the modern day as "these lax and decadent times." Which, OK, we have more sneaker choices than you did as a kid. But saying we live in "lax and decadent times" feels disingenuous at best and willfully obtuse at worst when legislatures and courts strip our civil rights pretty much daily and people have to crowdfund everything from housing and food to healthcare and funerals.
Near the end there's a Spaceballs-esque moment where Bechdel-the-character starts writing this book. She describes it as a "lighthearted" look at her relationship with exercise. Later she acknowledges that she's having trouble figuring out how to end the book because she's still not sure what it's about. At that moment I finally understood this book: it never knew what it was about, and so tried to be about everything, and therefore ended up not really being about anything. (Except maybe an ad for L.L. Bean and Patagonia.)
The parts about the Romantics, the Beatniks, Adrienne Rich, and Buddhism are... okay, I guess. I learned a thing or two. But I couldn't help noticing that these parts are most likely to appear whenever Bechdel comes really close to expressing and processing actual emotions. Maybe it's the hifalutin equivalent of a fade-to-black in a sex scene; we don't need to see someone's personal emotional catharsis, so we get poets instead. But it also feels like a dodge: just when it feels like Bechdel's really getting somewhere in dealing with her various issues, we suddenly get a page of Margaret Fuller's or Jack Kerouac's issues, instead.
I also felt dismay that Bechdel never acknowledges, or even seems to notice. that exercise is every bit as much an addiction for her as alcohol and prescription meds are. She starts exercising less; she starts drinking more. She stops drinking; she ramps up her exercise to what seem like unhealthy levels. But because our society says "drugs bad, exercise good!" Bechdel never has to face the fact that she's trading one ill-advised coping mechanism for another, despite repeated references to exertion-induced tachycardia and other health concerns indicating that exercise is not a universal good for her, at least not the way she's doing it.
In the end, Bechdel's own words from the beginning of the book sum up my feelings about it:
"You might well ask what use another book about fitness by a white lady could possibly be.
…"
I read it all because it's relatively short, and I kept wanting to find out what the point was going to be. But engagementwise I checked out on page 24, when Bechdel refers to the modern day as "these lax and decadent times." Which, OK, we have more sneaker choices than you did as a kid. But saying we live in "lax and decadent times" feels disingenuous at best and willfully obtuse at worst when legislatures and courts strip our civil rights pretty much daily and people have to crowdfund everything from housing and food to healthcare and funerals.
Near the end there's a Spaceballs-esque moment where Bechdel-the-character starts writing this book. She describes it as a "lighthearted" look at her relationship with exercise. Later she acknowledges that she's having trouble figuring out how to end the book because she's still not sure what it's about. At that moment I finally understood this book: it never knew what it was about, and so tried to be about everything, and therefore ended up not really being about anything. (Except maybe an ad for L.L. Bean and Patagonia.)
The parts about the Romantics, the Beatniks, Adrienne Rich, and Buddhism are... okay, I guess. I learned a thing or two. But I couldn't help noticing that these parts are most likely to appear whenever Bechdel comes really close to expressing and processing actual emotions. Maybe it's the hifalutin equivalent of a fade-to-black in a sex scene; we don't need to see someone's personal emotional catharsis, so we get poets instead. But it also feels like a dodge: just when it feels like Bechdel's really getting somewhere in dealing with her various issues, we suddenly get a page of Margaret Fuller's or Jack Kerouac's issues, instead.
I also felt dismay that Bechdel never acknowledges, or even seems to notice. that exercise is every bit as much an addiction for her as alcohol and prescription meds are. She starts exercising less; she starts drinking more. She stops drinking; she ramps up her exercise to what seem like unhealthy levels. But because our society says "drugs bad, exercise good!" Bechdel never has to face the fact that she's trading one ill-advised coping mechanism for another, despite repeated references to exertion-induced tachycardia and other health concerns indicating that exercise is not a universal good for her, at least not the way she's doing it.
In the end, Bechdel's own words from the beginning of the book sum up my feelings about it:
"You might well ask what use another book about fitness by a white lady could possibly be.
…"
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse, Death of parent, Grief, Medical content, Alcohol, Mental illness, Self harm, Addiction, and Drug use
Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Cancer, Suicide, Terminal illness, and Animal death
Minor: Violence, Sexual harassment, Ableism, Car accident, and Infidelity
CN exercise addictionnnia's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
sad
tense
fast-paced
4.75
Coming from a family of undertakers, 'The Secret to Superhuman Strength' is a journey through struggle to acceptance of one's own human nature and mortality. Most of the book covers struggle. Struggling to understand what she is struggling with and how to give it up. A lot of learning to unlearn. A lot of following Allison’s own interests, studying her heroes, their journeys, Allison’s journey, giving up the struggle against aches, pains, human frailty, real and imagined and finally just enjoying what life you have.
I don’t think I’m giving anything away here. Learning to unlearn what we have learned is a common practice in the colonial world.
Would have liked more time, space, and panels on the concluding desirable outcome and more enjoyment of life.
Happy for Allison and her loved ones.
I don’t think I’m giving anything away here. Learning to unlearn what we have learned is a common practice in the colonial world.
Would have liked more time, space, and panels on the concluding desirable outcome and more enjoyment of life.
Happy for Allison and her loved ones.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Drug use, Abandonment, Death, and Death of parent
Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, Alcohol, Body shaming, and Violence
nmcannon's review against another edition
emotional
funny
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
After enjoying Dykes to Watch Out For, Fun Home and Are You My Mother?, Bechdel’s latest The Secret to Superhuman Strength was an instant borrow from the library. In her latest memoir, Bechdel chronicles her relationship to her body, from age 0 onwards.
Like with her other works, she twines her relationship with something else: in this case, the USA’s fitness fads, Buddhism, and transcendentalism/romanticism/the Beat generation (especially Margaret Fuller). Unlike her previous works, The Secret to Superhuman Strength is in full color, and wow! The pop! I enjoyed the added depth to Bechdel’s tender, forceful line work. This book is more tactile than Are You My Mother?, and Bechdel’s more earthly themes meant my reading experience didn’t feel like a dream. I also skipped the martinis, haha. The sections on literary figures and movements brought a nostalgic smile to my face.
However, for the first time ever, I was frustrated with Bechdel. As like, a fellow person. Early in the memoir, she comments that people often don’t want what they say they do. That is to say, even when they have the time and means, people don’t take actions towards their stated goals. My mind kept returning to that phrase, because Bechdel’s living it. In her 20s, Bechdel takes some magic mushrooms and experiences an intense, overwhelming connectedness with the world. She states she loves this feeling and wants to experience it again. Until the last page of the book, she desires this “high” and, when it doesn’t happen, wails, laments, moans etc. Despite repeatedly saying she wants this experience, she doesn’t ever like…go for it?
I wanted to shake her. Girl. The answer is obvious. If you interpret that connectedness as the result of chemical reactions in the brain, take some more magic mushrooms. You’re white and live in the woods. The cops won’t get you. If you interpret that connectedness as a spiritual experience, commit to a spiritual practice. Bechdel references Buddhism and other Eastern religions multiple times in the book. She seems to have a great respect for these ways of thinking. Yet, when she meets believers, she disparages them. Though some “Buddhists” are racist cultural appropriators, others are legit. If I squinted, I guess the tone indicates she regrets her actions. These sections made me uncomfortable. The memoir’s conclusion goes so far as to say that Buddhism is wrong: there’s no nirvana, only the physical world. This assertion seems incredibly rude. She went to them for solace. And then she has the gall to insult them? Geez.
My other concern was about the exercise itself. Bizarrely, I think Bechdel needs new doctors? I know other readers were concerned about fatphobia in a book about physical fitness. Bechdel’s writing isn’t fatphobic in my opinion. However, I think she’s suffering from fatphobic care. Obviously, I’m not privy to her doctor visits or full healthcare regimen. Her mental health isn’t a focus of the memoir. What rung my alarms was Bechdel mentioning she can’t sleep if she fails to exercise intensely during the day. My friend has a similar problem. Her anxiety is so bad that she has to run twelve miles a day so she can sleep at night. She’s skinny as a stick from the running, so when she visits fatphobic doctors, they tell her to keep up the running and refuse to prescribe her anxiety medication. The potential parallels to Bechdel’s life bothered me greatly. That, and her tendency to throw herself into these intense regimens. She goes from no karate to karate every day. She ditches running to cycle for far and so fast her body runs out of glycogen. She sets out to climb a mountain without proper training, licensing, or equipment. Nature seems more an outdoor gym to her than, yanno. Nature.
As stated above, I’m not an exercise fanatic. I wouldn’t describe myself as an outdoorswoman, though I do enjoy the occasional hike and was on a sports team in high school. I don’t know all the details of Bechdel’s health, so what I felt as creeping horror may be totally normal. Generally I find it poor form to speculate on an author’s mental health with any seriousness. The reason I included my thoughts on the topic is my friend asked me to evaluate the book for fatphobia. Maybe Bechdel and I are just too different of people? She had to work through her fear of death. If I die, I die. Maybe I wasn’t in the right mindset to read this memoir because I’d just finished Erin Williams’ Commute: An Illustrated Memoir of Female Shame, which left me low-key exasperated.
Listen. The Secret to Superhuman Strength is by Alison Bechdel. Obviously, you should read it. Looking at the other reviews, my uneven experience is an outlier. Despite all the weirdness, this book more than earns its four stars.
For reference, here are my reviews of the other titles I mentioned:
For reference, here are my reviews of the other titles I mentioned:
Review of Commute: https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/2174041b-9687-4215-b60a-b7074740e30f
Review of Dykes to Watch Out For: https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/f33a620e-242c-4c24-83b8-7e596d7ba780
Review of Fun Home: https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/e14f2cb6-d409-44ee-8d1c-9411dd442ecd
Review of Are You My Mother?: https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/c55cfd20-464d-4e7e-bada-28d3c388e031
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Drug use, Violence, Grief, and Mental illness
Moderate: Cultural appropriation and Death of parent
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