Reading and Not-Working: A Hobby.

So I have a lot of work to do tonight. Legitimate work that needs to be done post haste, because a huge, fairly uncontrolled deluge of work is about to rear its ugly head in precisely 11.5 hours, and I need to be as ready as I can be.

Therefore, I read this book all evening:

Ages ago, when I was at Woolf's apartment for a dinner she was making, she gave me Alison Bechdel's Fun Home to read. I was suspicious at first, not really sure why exactly Woolf was recommending I read such a book, but I gave it a try anyway since she and Ecclesiastes (or is it Leviticus?) were chatting about something I didn't particularly have any useful input on. So, I picked it up, started reading...

And read through dinner.

Then I read through the train ride back to my and the venerable saint's apartment.

Then I read through a televised debate involving not-yet-vice-president Joe Biden.

Then I read through all of the ensuing discussion by my roommates and Woolf, until finally I finished the book.

I kept Woolf's copy until my own arrived in the mail a few days later. 

I was absolutely astounded by the book. It's a graphic novel, and it's just honest and raw and gorgeous, and Alison Bechdel is a genius. Because of that one book, I went out and bought the collection of Dykes to Watch Out For, which was a comic strip she did for over 20 years. But I truly love the honesty that Bechdel projects. I find it fascinating.

So, naturally, when this book arrived at my house today (I pre-ordered it months ago), I told myself I would only read a little bit, since I have so much to do tonight. 

Book is read. Papers are not graded. Contain the shock.

To be honest, I don't really know what I think of this book. It's very heavy in psychoanalytical topics, and it doesn't quite have the thoughtful, linguistically and artistically tantalizing essence that Fun Home does. Fun Home just... it really moved me. There are so many pictures and phrases that I can remember word for word and line by line, because for some reason they resonated very deeply with me. But I think that expecting any other work to dig down so deep inside and on the same level is both unfair and unrealistic. Certain works just have that power, I suppose, and anticipating a repeat performance of a unique work is just stupid. But then, I also read Are You My Mother in a sort of furtive rush (my procrastination causes me endless obsessing guilt, yet I do it anyway), so I think it's a book I'll need to revisit. 

I suspect there also just may be the fact that I am more connected to the idea of fathers than mothers, for a variety of reasons, but that's taking things in a more personal direction that I'm not currently prepared to go. I don't know. I'll get back to you.

And it will probably be before I get back to my poor, unfortunate students. Oops.