The Secret to Superhuman Strength
Ratings28
Average rating4.2
Part memoir, part irreverent description of fitness crazes over the past 50 years, part philosophical musing about the mind/body relationship, part history of the 19th century transcendentalist movement - all in living color! I'm definitely not a visually oriented person but the detailed, Where's Waldo-like full page illustrations were so eye-catching that I took the time to carefully study them. The book's long time span allows Bechdel to show what she was thinking and feeling when she created [b:Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic 26135825 Fun Home A Family Tragicomic Alison Bechdel https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1440097020l/26135825.SY75.jpg 911368] and [b:Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama 11566956 Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama Alison Bechdel https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1511409644l/11566956.SX50.jpg 16507555]. With the publication of this book, she has pretty much gone as far as possible documenting her own story, but maybe someday she'll let us get another glimpse into her life as she experiences the thrills and chills of being an older adult.
Bait and switch! Complete ripoff! There's not a single secret to superhuman strength to be found in this book!!1!
What you get instead is... enlightenment. Or at least one person's life journey thereto, and, when you think about it, aren't they the same thing?
This was such an unexpected delight. Engaging and insightful from the beginning, poignant, self-aware. Tender, even. I get the sense that Bechdel wrote this from a place of love, including for her own self—not something she could've done just a few years ago (IMO). (I also get a small sense that mushrooms may have played a part in this growth, apart from the one in her twenties, but what do I know? More power to her if she accomplished it through her own and her loved ones' efforts).
On the surface, the memoir parts are unremarkable—it's her tone that fascinated me: compassion the whole way through. So much compassion, for her family and lovers and herself. Recognition of, and wry amusement at, her neophilic experience-seeking tendencies. Acknowledgment of her obsessions, but this time with kindness. Explorations of her own privilege. Humor, but the loving kind. (In a therapy couch: “Lemme get this straight. Perfection and worthlessness aren't the only options?”) (Yes, there are therapy couches herein, but much fewer than in her previous book, and much less neurotic, and more appropriate). Reflections on death and our opportunities to live, really live. Much Buddhism, nonduality, exploration.
Bechdel is one of the lucky ones. Not because of her successes or MacArthur fellowship: because she has made it into Awareness territory. Which isn't to say she lives in a state of blissful Om (although, maybe?); simply that she gives every indication of living a more deliberate life; and hot damn, it really thrills me to see that in a person. It gives me so much hope.
I could have done without the repeated references to historical Transcendentalists. It would have left a more focussed look at her personal life. I was blown away by Fun Home, but this one didn't hit as hard.
So I think Bechdel's ability to narrate through comics shows improvement since Fun Home but I feel like her life isn't actually interesting enough to propel said narrative, and there isn't enough historical content to warrant my reading when I have so many other books soon due back at the library.
A life reviewed through exercise trends. Ha—I recognized those Iyengar yoga poses immediately.