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A review by worm_food
Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama by Alison Bechdel
4.0
Both this and fun home (this one more so, it skews more esoteric I think) left me feeling a certain way, impossible to describe. Not a "I feel seen" kind of thing, at least not completely. Bizzare. I think it's because, although her and my mother differ greatly in many things, the impulse to analyze and analyze and analyze and note and reread childhood artifacts is all too familiar.
She's an amazing storyteller and really pulls off weaving autobiography with 20th century psychoanalysis although I do have to admit I lost her at points. I am so sorry Alison, my STEM degree can get me so far.
There is no way to talk about the need for validation even when you know you won't get what you need to, at least not objectively, and Bechdel's really good at depicting it and also how much of a mindfuck it is to try and untangle it (analysis as behaviour whose source is emotional distress, whose goal is to put it at ease, causing more distress, etc.). Lesbianism as a "way out" just through the fact of its existence also felt close. There's a lot more to talk about in this book, I'm just stupid. I really like her longer-form content after having read some of TEDTWOF I have to say her pacing and storytelling sequencing are fantastic and they really make this book and its contents sing.
She's an amazing storyteller and really pulls off weaving autobiography with 20th century psychoanalysis although I do have to admit I lost her at points. I am so sorry Alison, my STEM degree can get me so far.
There is no way to talk about the need for validation even when you know you won't get what you need to, at least not objectively, and Bechdel's really good at depicting it and also how much of a mindfuck it is to try and untangle it (analysis as behaviour whose source is emotional distress, whose goal is to put it at ease, causing more distress, etc.). Lesbianism as a "way out" just through the fact of its existence also felt close. There's a lot more to talk about in this book, I'm just stupid. I really like her longer-form content after having read some of TEDTWOF I have to say her pacing and storytelling sequencing are fantastic and they really make this book and its contents sing.