Blankets

Over Christmas I bought this fantastic book. I devoured it in two days and read my favorite portions over again. When the student paper was coming out with a special Break-Up Issue for Valentine's Day, Blankets immediately sprung to my mind. This is the "heartbreak" angle I used for my review:

If you have ever lost something precious, you’ll know the heartache that comes along with it. But, as Pulitzer Prize-winner Jules Feiffer has said, “that which goes awry in life, goes well as art.” Craig Thompson’s illustrated memoir Blankets illuminates that sentiment, with 582 black-and-white pages dripping with moody emotion. The inky art of Blankets is rich with quilt-like motifs which he cleverly overlays with his dialogue and narration to generate poignant metaphors.

Spanning 9 thematic chapters, the central story recalls the isolation of Thompson’s religious childhood and youth through the lens of his time spent under blankets, be it sharing a bed with his younger brother or innocently spending the night with his first-love. Subtly woven throughout the plot are Thompson’s musings on how adolescent romantic relationship serves as an analogy for his spiritual relationship with God… or is it the other way around? Through these reminiscences, the “nakedness” that comes with intimacy is exposed, along with the loneliness that comes in its absence, with nothing to cover your shame but blankets.


While the tenderness with which the story is told might seem soppy, Thompson’s self-pitying is told with such honesty that it could wring out sympathy from even the most cynical reader. In fact, what makes Blankets so impressive is not just Thompson’s mastery of the medium, but also in his ability to tell such a lengthy, hyper-personal story while still keeping it universal. The story reveals how a passion can burn so hot that it devours itself. Which is not to say that the passion was not a genuine one, only that it shifts, wanes, vanishes. Love, like this life, is an intrinsic source of meaning and joy, but it doesn’t have to last forever. And not only is that okay, it’s what makes it beautiful. It's in ways like this that the story makes constant allusions to Ecclesiastes, my favorite biblical book (most of the epilogue is just Thompson's own illustrations and contemplations on it, and how it aided him along his spiritual sojourn). Instead of despairing over the meaninglessness of a love lost, Craig feels blessed that he was able to experience it in the first place.

In the end, Craig finds the relief and personal reprieve that comes from letting go. Purging himself of sin, of obsession, he is free to rest in the comfort that someone else has shared in his experience. Blankets’ epilogue ends with Craig trudging through a winter forest, his footsteps filling in with fresh snowfall as he moves forward: “How satisfying it is to leave a mark… no matter how temporary.” Boy, and all that in a silly comic?