Reviewed by Erin Pennington
Top Shelf Productions, 2003
592 Pages
Craig Thompson’s graphic novel, Blankets, quickly clothes its readers in the awkward skin of adolescence. The book artfully recalls the paradox of youth in which the uncertain and the definite are in constant volley, where “never” and “always” are sure to be preceded and followed by the vacillation of “I don’t know.”
At its base, this bildungsroman chronicles its protagonist’s, Craig’s, winding developmental path. Its graphic format displays both in pictorial and textual formats how Craig negotiates his feelings toward and relationships with fundamentalist parents, an admiring younger brother, his first love, a myopic pastor, God, The Universe and himself. While Thompson points up the familiar coming-of-age theme of us vs. them, he permits the protagonist to walk the versus line with aplomb, learning what he can from both camps.
The book, which alternates between scenes of childhood and adolescence, opens in the shared bed of Craig and Phil––Craig’s brother who is three years his junior. With no say in the sleeping situation, Thompson makes it clear at the start that control is decidedly not in the children’s hands. Instead, it is in the hands of the adults who are not to be questioned. Ever. The paternal character appears with balled up features, casts dark shadows, hovers over the boys’ bed demanding, “Don’t question your parent’s authority!” (13), and stuffs them behind the upstairs wall to sleep in the cobweb-encased and much dreaded “cubby hole” when they misbehave. The natural extension of parental authority becomes the authority of God, which is similarly unquestionable.
Craig mirrors his father’s power play by exerting control over Phil and instilling fear in him: “You just wait until you get to THIRD grade. Then you’ll have HOMEWORK and you won’t have any friends at school . . . In fact, you’ll probably get BEAT UP every day” (19). Yet there is a side of Craig that knows he is falling short: “. . . I was a pathetic older brother. I neglected my protective role in dangerous situations” (18). We later realize that one of the “dangerous situations” is the sexual abuse that both boys endure at the hands of their male baby-sitter who separates the two under various guises and abuses them behind closed doors. What anger isn’t directed toward Phil is redirected inward as shame and guilt. Ironically, Craig could have been less isolated had he shared more with his brother rather than using him as a scapegoat, but perhaps this is the rub in many fraternal relationships.
All the regret that Craig feels related to Phil seems to be channeled into discovering the “right” way to love the beautiful Raina, whom Craig meets at a Christian summer camp. He is instantaneously smitten. Post-camp, the two remain closely linked through letters. The only time Craig momentarily escapes the perceived Christian mandate that physical pleasure equates to sin is when he masturbates a single time during his senior year of high school. He can no longer hold back upon the realizing Raina’s pen must have been pressing hard against the paper of one of her letters, upon seeing the “alluring line” looping her “l”s and the falling of her “f”s (147).
Craig’s relationship with Raina is formative not only because it teaches him much about love and giving and heartache, but also because crossing the bridge relates to the guilt of their sexual exploration, enabling him to see that there can be beauty in that which seems forbidden. It suggests that perhaps there is room for God to want things other than strict adherence to mandates communicated through adults with unbending points of view.
Craig’s visit to Raina’s mother’s house offers the two numerous opportunities to play house (sitting for Raina’s baby niece, taking care of Raina’s two developmentally disabled siblings, sleeping in the same bed where their sexual experimentation is accompanied by both guilt and pleasure). While Raina’s parents are in the throes of a divorce, an adult relationship and responsibilities are practically thrust upon Raina and Craig. Raina’s mother even says just minutes after showing Craig the guest room, “. . . it’s not difficult to picture you two getting married” (213). It is clear that Raina is the family anchor and carries the family burden of care-giving for her disabled siblings, free sitter for her older sister and therapist for her parents, which causes Craig to love her and want to help her all the more.
Craig’s consistent (though sometimes secret) companion, his “get-away car” (44) as he turns the unpredictable pages of youth, is drawing. “An ENTIRE DAY would be consumed by drawing . . . These were the only wakeful moments of my childhood that I can recall feeling life was sacred or worthwhile” (44). But he is crestfallen on more than one occasion when adults see little use in its spiritual value, telling him that God has already drawn His creations for us and that Craig should abandon a drawing-related career in favor of the ministry. In fact, even the escape of drawing becomes yet another source of guilt when Craig is caught at school drawing a naked woman. When lecturing him about the “sin” of such drawings, Craig’s mother says “ . . . God gave you a talent and we don’t want you to use it for the Devil. How do you think Jesus feels?” Sobbing, Craig responds, “Sad?” “Yes. SAD. Because it hurts Him when you sin.” Craig is depicted rushing away in fear from the drawn figure of a naked woman and toward the base of a painting of a sad looking Jesus, where Craig seems to beg forgiveness. What is really sad is that a child’s only escape becomes devilish. But as is Thompson’s approach throughout the book, as a negative is revealed, a positive also becomes apparent: we are gently reminded that the fostered passions of youth may translate into the successes of adulthood (if they aren’t first stamped out by short-sighted naysayers).
Paired with illustrations whose lines sometimes curve softly and other times slice and sting like paper cuts, Blankets is rife with universally applicable truths. The blankets it reveals are those that cover, protect, hide and connect. It upliftingly suggests that the nirvanic medium we all seek––somewhere in the ever-oscillating margins between self-loathing and self-obsession, rejection and acceptance, confusion and understanding, strife and peace––may actually be out there waiting. What is clear is that such a state is not going to knock us over our heads; instead, we must struggle incrementally to reach it.
The heft of this nearly 600-page could-be tome might suggest a thick and tangled plot or a complicated tapestry of thought. Instead, its elements are reduced to what really counts and its pages turn in few hours. Blankets ends not with a bang (or a whimper), but with what all “good” novels should—a slight shift or realization. In all, Blankets lingers where the true stuff of life exists, not in the big events, but in the small moments of awakening.
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Craig Thompson’s other publications include Good-bye, Chunky Rice (1999), Bible Doodles (2000) and Doot Doot Garden (2001).
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Erin Pennington is a Contributing Reviewer for Emprise Review
