Fun Home Isn't Set in the Past
Fun Home Isn't Set in the Past
When reading any novel it is vital to take into consideration the context of the writing: who is writing this and how will this affect the way in which events may be skewed. This context is even more quintessential in a novel such as Fun Home; the personal memoir nature of the novel inextricably ties the events to Alison Bechdel’s perception of her past. As much as Fun Home is an anecdote of the relationship between a girl, her dad, and her sexuality, it is also a rendition of events that cannot in any way be separated from Bechdel’s biases and assumptions. What makes this such an interesting aspect of Fun Home is the way in which Bechdel interacts with this fact within her writing. As she examines the past there are many instances in which she sort of breaks the fourth wall, identifying to the reader that we are reading from the mind of current, mature Bechdel as she was formed by her childhood.
Beyond this, throughout the novel, especially in its imagery, we can see instances where the manner in which an event or character is being portrayed is likely inaccurate. Take for example the opening scene of the novel. Even as Allsion depicts her playing with her dad his face remains almost completely expressionless. This detail sticks out to readers as it is very abnormal, almost so abnormal in fact that we can assume he likely did smile and engage with Allison more vibrantly. This discrepancy perfectly illustrates the point of the novel. It is not truly about Allison’s childhood but about the reconstruction of her childhood she has created in order to cope.
Maybe this aspect of Fun Home is something readers inherently pick up on, but either way it is something I find so fundamental to how I read and processed the novel. The characters are exaggerated and morphed, but not necessarily intentionally, such as Plath revealed she did with The Bell Jar. In this vein, we can read the home itself, Allison’s sexuality, and a posthumous version of Alison’s dad on the same personified playing field. The only real character in Fun Home is Alison Bechdel herself. When you take the novel at face value it can become all too easy to get caught up in the disturbing facts of Bechdel’s upbringing. While this aspect of her story is paramount, it really isn’t what Fun Home is about.
Your line “[the book] is not truly about Allison’s childhood but about the reconstruction of her childhood she has created to cope” really sums a lot up. The complexity of incorporating numerous elements to create this narrative, with features such as monochrome colors and a reflective attitude, reveals that coping is a theme that can be found between the lines. This might be a bit of a leap, but when Alison came out, she was just beginning to discover things about her dad, and perhaps she felt that committing to her identity would be a way of coping. That she would find peace or something, but in the end, she didn’t, so the book was an attempt at finding that.
ReplyDeleteHey Olly! As always, I'm impressed by your ability to dig into details in these books and "read against the grain." Thank you for reminding us that all authors/people have agendas/hidden perspectives in their narratives and perception of reality (whether they themselves are aware of them or not). I think your example about her father probably showing (at least some) emotion in real life, but Bechdel not remembering it, makes lots of sense in the context of Bechdel writing a novel reflecting on her familial upbringing and especially her relationship with her late father. I also like your reference to The Bell Jar as a book that distorts a lot more obviously than Fun Home. I think something about coming-of-age novels lends itself to unreliable narrators really well, so I'm glad you brought this up.
ReplyDeleteHi Olly! I love your perspective on fun home as a sorta reaction to the truth of what happened. Just like the novel reminds us constantly, we can never fully know the truth from an unbiased perspective. Recognizing bias in what we read is one of the most important analytical standpoints a reader can take! Great Blog!
ReplyDeleteHi Olly! You are completely right and I think this is an incredibly important aspect of the novel. In creating the novel, Alison was not just telling the story of her childhood---she was trying to understand it and her relationship with her father and her father's past and her father's death in the context of everything she learned about him in the last few months of his life and the time after. She cannot look at those memories the same now that she knows what she knows---such as the memory of the trip they took with Roy. Her knowledge as she was when she wrote the novel colored how she thought about her early memories, and that influenced how she depicted them.
ReplyDeleteHi Olly! Your blog does a great job highlighting the fact that Bechdel's point of view is just that. It is only her point of view, and most likely is missing a lot of key details. I agree that she most likely made everyone more emotionless or somber because she was trying to cope with her father's death, and almost make her whole childhood out to be bad to reassure herself that not being visibly upset about her father was ok. Great blog!
ReplyDeleteIf you ever get the chance to see the surprisingly good musical-theater adaptation of _Fun Home_, you might especially enjoy the metafictional aspects of the stage design and script, which reflect your thesis about the book really being about the *author* Alison Bechdel and her subjective revisions of her own personal and familial history. It's true that when we look at a frame like the "airplane" one, we are looking simultaneously at her effort at "objective" reconstruction of the past (the details of the house are clearly based on photographs and other documentation in addition to memory, and we take these to be realistic renditions of what the rooms looked like) and her subjective memory of what these fleeting moments of "play" were like with her father at this young age (his detached and stoic facial expression, followed by his immediate distraction with a new chore for her to do). We can't "confirm" that this is how his face looked when they played airplane, and her memory can't be relied on to reproduce the exact expression--it *characterizes* him, his relationship to his children and his home, rather than transparently reflecting reality. But also, when we consider the "Icarian" aspects of this interaction, we are in the realm of the present-day author/artist reconsidering her own family history in light of much later revelations (which are, at the point she's writing the book, also about 25 years ago). The musical depicts an artist/author figure sitting at a drawing table, and at multiple points we see her pondering how to represent this past accurately, before the spotlights shift to depict the action on stage, which we always understand as reflecting what she's writing and drawing. It's a cool effect, always reminding the audience to understand the subjective and provisional nature of what is portrayed by the actors. As you note, the book itself has this invisible author/artist figure hovering over the whole thing, to the point that SHE is who the book is really "about."
ReplyDelete