Gray Stitches

Black soot is seeping out of the high, towering industrial chimneys, which are poking out into the sky, splitting the dark, gray sky into hundreds of little pieces.
The smoke is diffusing into the wide expanse of monotonousness, disappearing along with the surrounding fifty shades of gray.

I'll stop right there, as I unwantingly made a reference to a pornographic book written by none other than that same person that wrote about sparkling vampires and emo teenagers willing to make out with said vampires.

Back to the smoke. That is how the graphic novel Stitches starts. The first illustration is that of Detroit, expressed as a gloomy city with only tones of black and white. The protagonist was six. And this is how the memoir starts.

Now, this book cannot be more fitting at this point, because it starts talking about the narrator's family's different forms of 'language.'
The mom slammed kitchen cupboard doors, and "that was her language."
The dad thumped a punching bag, and "that was his language."
The brother beat on his drum, and "that was his language."
As for the protagonist, the youngest of the family, "getting sick" was the language.

All of this, being portrayed in black, gray, and white with minimal shading. This, at least for me, shows that something about the environment the narrator grew up in was devoid of much emotions. It might be just me, but it seems that the other characters' eyes are never shown too much. Mom, dad, and brother all have glasses, and instead of a pair of eyes, there are usually a pair of white 'holes.' This can also be seen in the cover of the book. Again, I can't see much emotion here and there. Except for in the narrator himself.

That makes sense though. It's his memoir.

Judging by the images I'm seeing, such as that of a human fetus chasing the narrator through a hospital corridor, the overall tone seems gloomy or disturbed, indicating the narrator's troubled childhood.

Unlike most other memoirs I've read recently, this one seems much more metaphoric and expressive. Could it be for the fact that it's graphically represented?
Maybe.

Change Dat Language

The essay is called "Survival of the Fittest".
If you got aroused, stop and leave now. This isn't biology. It's English.

If you got aroused knowing that it was English, leave now. Don't get aroused.

The first thing mentioned is that we probably think that commas are as old as electrons. This is obviously not true. We all know that commas have existed well before electrons, or for that matter, when my physics teacher was young. And that was back when "Machu Picchu was still 'Picchu,'" according to my physics teacher.

Then, it talks about semicolons, which are apparently a more modern creation, which might potentially explain why my English teacher despises them so much (although I'm not sure whether the emotion is actually closer to a dislike or a brotherly love).

If the above were to be true, then it might explain his same kind of attitude towards emoticons such as :) and ;P and >:-D##=-, since both are relatively recent, yet in wide use and 'useful' (although the versatility of emoticons is a subject for debate).

This is an impressive emoticon.

Now, we look back at the title.
Have these new forms of punctuation simply evolved due to their necessity? Maybe. As I always hear, language is always evolving, which is why it's sort of ridiculous to have any form of standardized English tests. You can't really reliably test everyone on something that constantly changing, especially when we're talking about something as complex as the English language. Chances are, "My having of breakfast this day's morning had had had led to a rather entertaining time whilst having been upon will to be being is unto which inasmuch ultimately a great piece of pizza," is a correct sentence in a standardized test. Pretty redonculous.

And English continues to evolve. Ellipses, plus signs, and hashtags have all evolved into their respective forms. Now: quotations. Quotations are those things that have a bunch of weird rules attached to their faces. "Why even bother?" he said with a nasty frown. According to "Q for Quotation," a short essay about quotations, quotations are like "cicadas... [because they] chirp and chirp..." If used correctly, quotations should directly circulate the dialogue provided by the original text.

Now, have quotations evolved to do the above? Probably.
Will it change? Possibly.
Does it matter? Maybe.

What can we do about time. Nothing. Just enjoy the language as it is for now.
Though it may all be a lie.
>:-D##=-

Psychologist vs. Psycho (?)

Some experimentation.
Probably going to try many different styles.

And yes, drawing the whole book as a comic wouldn't be too fun. For both the reader and the writer/drawer.

Click for a potentially larger drawing!

The Burn 'Diaries'

We are going to talk about diction.

"What is diction?" one might ask, and I would retort by saying "You don't even know what diction is?! You should go die in a-"

But really, diction itself is a pretty general word, which, according to the almighty Dictionary.com, means: "style of speaking or writing as dependent upon choice of words." I didn't know exactly what diction was either, so maybe I should go die. I won't though. Life is precious.

The Burn Journals has a familiar register; as in, it sets a tone that makes it more conversational and personal than, say, formal and/or preachy. In case that wasn't too clear, I should note that most of my blog posts, if not all of them, have a familiar register. If you still don't get it, you might want to either graduate elementary school first or consult an English teacher.

So why so familiar? Well, "why not?" As I think I've mentioned for a kazillionth time, the author uses all these elements and floopazoids to make his story much more relatable and sympathizable. It makes the story sound ongoing rather than being all oh-I-remember-back-in-the-days and blubbery. Whether some of the words above exist or not is irrelevant and should not be a topic for discussion.

Let's continue talking: Why did he want to make it relatable in the first place?
Did he want everyone to sympathize with his teenage struggles, hoping for people out there to not make the same mistake he made? Maybe.
Did he want to simply write these words down, confess, and rid himself of the pile of emotions that were sitting heavily on his heart? Maybe.

Burn, diaries!

In the afterword of the book, Brent Runyon says that the idea of the book was to "set [his] trauma down on paper and to write it all" and to "free [himself] of the pain" he made himself go through. In fact, the Burn Journals wasn't meant to be a book, but more like a diary, which is probably why the book is called what it's called. If we were to assume the previous were true, it makes even more sense for the register to be familiar: It's a diary!

Thank you for listening to a nonsensical Asian talking about stuff.

All Fire All Black

Yes.
Success.
Sort of.
Enjoy.























Click here for a potentially bigger image.


 

Catching Fire: The Comic

The title has no relation whatsoever with the second book of the Hunger Games trilogy. If you accidentally got into the blog expecting Katniss-Peeta action, leave. Or read.

For a while, I was just sitting in my chair, probably looking like as if brain had been sucked out by an interdimentional space vacuum, thinking about what the Burn Journals would have looked like if it were a comic book rather than the novel it is. Unfortunately, the image I got in my head was not as satisfying as anything I saw in V for Vendetta or any of the weird Japanese stuff that pops up occasionally here and there.

I realized that this book is great as it is, and if it were to become a graphic novel, it would be much more repetitive and tedious. Instead of focusing on the words provided on Brent's emotions, we would sort of be forced into looking more at the images, which I would imagine to be pretty similar throughout the book entirely. Also, the images would give us a set environment instead of the usual imagination stuff I do when I read, causing the book to be rather devoid of expression. Or intended expression. Despite the more realistic portrayals in the form of images, our relatability with Brent as well as our understanding of his emotions would be cut substantially I believe, and that would not be something that the author would have wanted. But that might just be me talking. Maybe my brain has indeed been sucked out and none of what I'm saying makes any sense.

Rethinking about it, it might not be too bad. I might try some time.

On a similar note, I think the beginning, which has a rather depressing and sorrowful tone, would be able to be expressed much more effectively in a graphic way than the later portion of the book, where the key theme is life, appreciation, and other positive stuff that make your heart say hooray. As in, I think that after the few first days in the hospital, things would quickly get monotonous.

Again, I have to say that this book is very well written.
I like it.
Like garlic bread.

Burns Available Now

The Burn Journals has a lot of content.
Honestly, the about-300-page book seemed longer than that one huge Harry Potter book. Usually, this is an indicator that the book was boring, but it was not. I enjoyed it entirely. Why?

Why did I enjoy the book?
The cover is pretty, I guess. Red and yellow.
Oh, wow. I just realized that the cover doesn't include any black, which used to be Brent's favorite color before the fire. This relates somewhat to what I mentioned last or the last last post, when I said that Brent's favorite color changed  from black to something else, and that it implied a change within Runyon. Now I realize that this is probably even more likely to be true according to this observation. Or maybe this is all in my head and I'm just making stuff up.
It is all a lie, after all.

I seem to have deviated from my original question.
Why did I enjoy it?
I've mentioned before that the present tense makes this narration as a whole a lot more relatable. However, it would be foolish not to notice that Brent is a teenager. And that I am also a teenager. Suddenly it's even more relatable. Double relatability, all the way across the sky.
What does it mean?

Refraction!

All drugs aside, I could agree with many of the things Brent mentioned, especially towards the latter half of the book (because in all honesty, I'm not that depressed and anyone that knows me may have a slight idea of how I'm usually not unhappy).

Getting out of my personal frame, this book would generally feel relatable with anyone else. Not only is it narrated in present tense for everyone else (unless you're a novel editting time traveller), but also I assume that everyone reading this is in, or has gone through, his or her teenage years. Adolescents such as myself can relate by saying "haha, yeah, I think that too and do that too" and older people could say "haha, yes, I used to do and think those things too... Oh God, why did I do that before."

In that sense, this book very available to the public. Maybe not for children. It does have sexual references, bad words, and slightly bad influence in the form of drugs and self-combustion.
All that aside, it's a hot book.

It's All Cool Now

As I near the conclusion of this book, things are starting to wrap up. Sort of. Brent has finally come home, and a lot of things have changed. Turns out, his best friend is moving to Australia (why would anyone go there?), some of his friends treat him differently, and more little stuff here and there. Despite that, Caroline, a friend, tells Brent that he "hasn't changed at all". Even more surprisingly, Brent accepts the fact and even goes on to say that that's his problem. This is rather ironic, as this itself indicates change from the earlier parts of the book. He's talking less "OMG my skin is purple" and more "why did the chicken cross the road".

Going on with the stream of thought sponsored by the previous paragraph, Runyon's mind seems to have had a turn for the positive, constantly mentioning non-fire activities, Playboy magazines, and The Godfather. In fact, he appears to to very happy. "I can use my hands, arms, and legs. I can think. I can walk. I can talk. I'm fifteen. I'm alive. Life's pretty good. It's pretty good," he casually states, and it seems most of his dark, black, bloody, and satanic life has been left back in the past. Maybe the fire did help him in some way. Unfortunately, he's still listening to hip-hop, so there's that.

After all the ups and downs I have witnessed throughout the Burn Journals, maybe it's about time we got into a permanent up (in constrast with the down it started with). But then, there are no happy endings. But then, everything is a lie. But then, is the statement that everything is a lie, a lie? In the end, we can conclude that it could be a happy ending or a bad ending. Or something in between. Like a continuous function.

Speaking of endings here come spoilers (although I already spoiled everything anyways).
Sorta happy ending. It ended as Brent entered school, which I suppose is supposed to symbolize his return to 'normality'. Let's not think about that for too long, shall we?

Now that the book is over, here come some afterthoughts: I liked the book. I liked the style. I generally liked it. It was a longer book than I expected it to be at first glance. It was 'cool'. (Ba-dum-tss.) That's it.

Don't play with fire.

Burns and Rambles

I have decided to never burn myself, or at least die trying not to.
That was probably an overstatement.

On another note, the Burn Journals reading is going great.
I love the way this guy writes. It seems very real. It gives me a clear visual of the mind.
But then, again, it WAS pretty real for Runyon, so there's that.

At some point during his stay at the duPont Institute, Brent states that "with cripples on the one side and the idiots on the other", he feels like the only person in the hospital that is a "normal person". Readers can continually see his self-centered-ness in various forms, many times simply implicit through the words and tone. Speaking of this, there was this part in the earlier pages of the book where Brent describes himself as "winning", when he hears about a girl Maggie, who also was a burn victim but in a somewhat worse condition (she eventually dies). His self-centered character can also be inferred from the fact that he did not care to think of what Craig's or his parents' actions would have been if Brent did, indeed kill himself. Little things. I don't blame him though; I'm probably just as self-centered. Maybe that's just how people are. Maybe it's just me. Just something to clear out of my mind.

Another thing to take out of my mind: there sure are a lot of people Brent describes as sexy. And a lot of people that he describes as gross. And just a lot of people in general.

Then, there's the ups and downs.
"It hurts, I'm purple, life sucks."
"At least I'm not dead."
"Damn, I shouldn't have burnt myself."
"These nurses are hot."
"There's stuff crawling inside me."
"I like ice cream."
"I'm so depressed."
"I'm glad my parents' are always there for me."
"I can't make them feel better."
"Fireworks. Woohoo."
"D*ckhead therapists."
...and repeat.

It seems pretty repetitive, but it's not. Every down is a new down and every up is a new up. Except hot nurses, maybe, because that seems to constantly pop up. I don't think I mind. I approve. (Or at least, I don't not approve.) For a good reason, no photos of nurses after this sentence. Sorry.

Now here's a quote from the book to end with so that we can keep the random tone throughout the post: "darkness is the abscence of light, but where does the light go when it's not here? And how do you know if it'll ever come back?"

That's just something deep to think about, but I won't overanalyze it.
Welcome to the lie.