Fun home calls itself a 'Tragicomic', a justified name, because Alison in this book, tries to make sense of a heartwrenching tragedy called 'loss of a loved one'. For the most part, I thought Alison was objective and distant while trying to comprehend her father's death, with a wry underlying sense of humor, dark ironies, and obsessions which are best understood only in the face of a grave tragedy. Dark humor is no fun without the darkness, and the darker the better. I enjoyed her critical reconstruction of her childhood, and her identity as she grows out of her childhood, as she introspects about her relationship with her father. I don't know if her relationship with her father was complex, but her understanding of the same definitely was.
What stays with me is that she and her father were 'inversions' of each other; completely polarised in their most fundamental beliefs; her father being a man, loved flowers, and was thought of as a 'sissy' by her. Her father, on the other hand thought she was too manly for a woman. The fact that they both flouted others' expectations of them, from their gender and yet, disapproved of each other, connects them on the deepest levels. It's almost like Alison wanted to be a man and feels her father is lucky to be a man, and yet does not seem to enjoy it and vice versa. Disconnected badly, and yet connected deeply, they are placed in a conflicting, a lifelong emotionally draining situation.
Her father was a mess. That he was a closeted homosexual, and had discrete affairs with several of his students, was OCDish about flowers and restoring their Victorian house did have strong implications on Alison and her siblings. Alison implies that most of his obsesssions and dedications derive their roots from his conflicts in accepting himself and his sexual identity. Alison on the other hand, chooses to accept her homosexual identity openheartedly and is comfortable disclosing it to the world. But to be fair, she and her father were products of different times; and Morever, Alison had the advantage of seeing her father, his mistakes, and his right doings. I think Alison acknowledges this when she says in the end 'But he was there to catch me.'
Alison calls her father obsessive, but she is obsessive too. Not just about believing that even numbers were better than odd numbers, and such like from her childhood days, but even about understanding her father and dealing with loss. Who would otherwise draw parallels with Proust, Gatsby, Icarus and several others, counting days and pages and draw intimate connections out of the most mundane details? But I understand what she did, and I think her philosophical observations, and her literary parallels and explorations only help her understand the depth of her pain behind the loss. It was more difficult for her, because she always roamed around death, owing to the 'Fun home' (Stands for funeral home, that her father was the director of). She thought she would be prepared for death, but faces one of many life's evil surprises - that indeed she wasn't. So if she could skip the steps, 'Denial and Anger', what would she replace them with? All the suggested rules in the rule book for behavior or understanding that worked for others, don't work for her. This also reminded me of how I thought, so many of our unexplored emotions are defined by films, television and other forms or media that we are exposed to. Like whenever I imagined someone's death, I always thought I would 'cry' like the way an actress did in a movie, or if I had to be sexy, I would do that someone else did somewhere. Many times we behave and believe a certain emotion (especially the ones that we don't go through very often) needs to look and feel like this. Alison didn't have a choice, because she just couldn't act like anyone else, because her situation was distinctly different.
I loved her confusions and her making sense process, because when faced with something like death of a loved one, the amount of confusion we face is just boundless; It's like quicksand that sucks you deeper the more you try to get out. It's daunting to even think about, and the best reaction is to use the everlasting drug to any problem - escapade and procrastination. By reading this, I am inspired to enter a room I have locked within, and battle the cobwebs, and understand.
Alison had made up her mind that she was a lesbian even before she experimented, in the 'intellectual way'..I thought her coming to terms with her father's loss was similar too - A spiraling intellectual ladder, but she falls into his lap in the end. And acceptance blinds it all, like white light.
Her father was a mess. That he was a closeted homosexual, and had discrete affairs with several of his students, was OCDish about flowers and restoring their Victorian house did have strong implications on Alison and her siblings. Alison implies that most of his obsesssions and dedications derive their roots from his conflicts in accepting himself and his sexual identity. Alison on the other hand, chooses to accept her homosexual identity openheartedly and is comfortable disclosing it to the world. But to be fair, she and her father were products of different times; and Morever, Alison had the advantage of seeing her father, his mistakes, and his right doings. I think Alison acknowledges this when she says in the end 'But he was there to catch me.'
Alison calls her father obsessive, but she is obsessive too. Not just about believing that even numbers were better than odd numbers, and such like from her childhood days, but even about understanding her father and dealing with loss. Who would otherwise draw parallels with Proust, Gatsby, Icarus and several others, counting days and pages and draw intimate connections out of the most mundane details? But I understand what she did, and I think her philosophical observations, and her literary parallels and explorations only help her understand the depth of her pain behind the loss. It was more difficult for her, because she always roamed around death, owing to the 'Fun home' (Stands for funeral home, that her father was the director of). She thought she would be prepared for death, but faces one of many life's evil surprises - that indeed she wasn't. So if she could skip the steps, 'Denial and Anger', what would she replace them with? All the suggested rules in the rule book for behavior or understanding that worked for others, don't work for her. This also reminded me of how I thought, so many of our unexplored emotions are defined by films, television and other forms or media that we are exposed to. Like whenever I imagined someone's death, I always thought I would 'cry' like the way an actress did in a movie, or if I had to be sexy, I would do that someone else did somewhere. Many times we behave and believe a certain emotion (especially the ones that we don't go through very often) needs to look and feel like this. Alison didn't have a choice, because she just couldn't act like anyone else, because her situation was distinctly different.
I loved her confusions and her making sense process, because when faced with something like death of a loved one, the amount of confusion we face is just boundless; It's like quicksand that sucks you deeper the more you try to get out. It's daunting to even think about, and the best reaction is to use the everlasting drug to any problem - escapade and procrastination. By reading this, I am inspired to enter a room I have locked within, and battle the cobwebs, and understand.
Alison had made up her mind that she was a lesbian even before she experimented, in the 'intellectual way'..I thought her coming to terms with her father's loss was similar too - A spiraling intellectual ladder, but she falls into his lap in the end. And acceptance blinds it all, like white light.
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