In small groups called "Literature Circles", our grade 11s read texts and watch corresponding film versions to form the basis of a comparative essay. These text selections existed at this school before I did and, as such, some of them I have not read.
One of these, prior to this past week, was Alan Moore's Watchmen.
A not-so-secret is that one quarter of my bookshelf is filled with graphic novels. Another not-so-secret is that I used to long to be a graphic novelist.
That being said, superhero comics were often lost on me. This comes from the same rationale of a teenage version of self that craved [quote] reality [unquote] and thought science fiction was trivial.
I did not understand.
I separated literature into such unspoken categories as "real" (because real equalled profound and profound equalled important) and "not real" (because not real equalled fantasy and fantasy equalled trifling).
I did not understand the psychology and the politics and the parody.
Kids almost literally fight each other to be granted the privilege to read Watchmen. A small handful of pages in, I said to Geoff: "We give this to students to read and they don't complain? I'm so confused."
It's a process of unfolding. I want ready answers sometimes. I want to know I'm right. I want to know I'm right immediately. I'm entirely too black and white.
(... Which is why I suppose it makes perfect sense that my favourite character ended up being Rorschach?)
I was wrong in my underestimation of how superheroes and science fiction and fantasy speak to the condition of being human - that they are, despite requiring imaginative stretch and a suspension of disbelief, more real sometimes than real: so prophetic and satirical and empathetic it hurts.
I wrote a pencilled point form list of aspects in this text that most got to me. In no particular order, it reads:
- Hollis Mason's story about his regret over Moe Vernon's suicide
- When Jon Osterman knows that he will be disintegrated in the test chamber, and he just wants Janey Slater to stay with him - he does not want to die alone
- Hollis Mason's death on Hallowe'en - the broken pumpkin and his flashbacks to Nite Owl
- Dr. Manhattan's meaning of human existence on an atomic level
- Everything about Rorschach's childhood
I took photos to complement the parts that resonated with me that I couldn't really explain in words:
As a university student, I eschewed anything "post-modern". As an adult, my most favourite texts would tend to fall into this category: intertextuality; creating dialogues between text, image, and arrangement; juxtaposition to imply and make meaning; stories within stories as reflections of those stories. Watchmen contains all of these - and, in its intents and execution, is not so different than aspects I greatly appreciate in David Foster Wallace's mammoth Infinite Jest, or Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves.
Geoff and I were just speaking of the idea that we, as human beings, probably cannot create new neural pathways if we take easy routes and refused to be challenged.
I am always learning and finding new value.
It's an ongoing battle to live in the greys - which is possible, so long as I permit myself to do so.
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