I loved Stitches. I appreciated the child pov throughout the graphic; I thought it lent itself well to the overall themes of the story. I especially enjoyed the rabbit as the therapist. Small twisted reality to fit the narrative, and he never paused to explain the twists. Why not have the therapist be a rabbit? His character loved Alice in Wonderland, so it was fitting. Ugh, and the watch was gut-wrenching. Small saw the rabbit as a parental figure but the rabbit always had a schedule to keep.
I thought it was interesting on pg. 63 when he jumps into his drawing and the space is in the shape of a stomach. That image really connects to the images later in the graphic about how Small just wanted to live inside his mouth. I also like this idea that safety is in the stomach. I feel so many emotions in my stomach, and a lot of the times my stomach tells me when I can relax/when I'm safe.
I didn't feel like any of the characters were neglected because I had no intimate moments with the other characters until the end. I think it's when authors give me moments where the main character steps aside for a side character that creates an expectation in me to see the side character develop. But in this graphic I didn't care if I never found out what happened to the father and brother. I did enjoy the real life pictures of them in the back though. That was a very nice touch.
The moment with the mom at the end made me cry. That single tear as she lay dying. Ugh. So moving. I appreciated that Small didn't just leave her as the villain. He gave us some insight into her character. even though she harms him in so many ways throughout the graphic. The ending really showed that Small was ready to talk about his childhood; he was ready to approach his parents as characters and see them in a universal light.
The section about going to Indiana was especially hard for me to read, but Small does a great job at balancing humor with very horrible situations. I was astonished that Grandma burned his little hand. Then his mom yelled at him! He really couldn't turn to anyone in those moments. But I don't know about anyone else, Jesus saying he is a darn fool in his dream made me crack up. There is so much humor in the child pov that Small really tapped into. His utilization of humor really elevated this graphic above "misery lit."
I was very surprised by the revelation that his mom was a lesbian. I enjoyed going back through the graphic to pick up the hints I missed. I especially like the hint on pg. 113 when Mrs. Dillon talks about Brigitte Bardot and she refers to her huge breasts and the frame is looking down into her own breasts. I thought that was quite clever of Small.
Linsey, thank you for these reflections. I agree that Small does an incredible job intervening humor into this work, and it is the timing of those interventions that most astounded me. The moments of humor also worked well to elevate the sorrow of the work, and that again had to do with pacing - ie. I found Grandma snapping the beans pretty funny, but what it indicates is to come, when it happens, not funny, nope, in no way at all.
ReplyDeleteI don't however agree that the end represented that Small was ready to "approach his parents as characters and see them in a universal light." While I don't want to (as is so easy to do and as I often do) read psychologically into the text, I think this work was a more a document to give testimony to the brutality of his childhood, the complicated culpability of his parents, but mostly to foreground the ending where he assumes his identity as an artist as a way to live beyond the conditions of his childhood. And that whole section, given how much importance he gives to it through the final dream, seems under treated.
I like that you pointed out the kind of sinister humor Small used, especially in relation to his grandmother. I think the devices like humor and going inside himself via dreams, imagination were effective in showing the childs POV and relieving some of the intensity of the story.
ReplyDeleteI felt like the ending interactions with his parents (finding his mother in bed/his dad confessing to giving him cancer/his mom dying) brought out how tortured his parents were. Their mistreatment of him was part of a family legacy in light of how his grandmother was treated by her in laws, how she treated his mother, etc. I felt like these moments revealed a bit of why his parents acted the way they did--but I didn't feel like it was excusing it or particularly forgiving. I think the dream at the end was Small's way of distancing himself from the family inheritence of repression, abuse and insanity.
the layers of secrets and silences in this book are out of the park. you observed how gut wrenching those moments were. The observation of him going into the gut of his experience was really on it.
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