Secret to Superhuman Strength

Charlotte reviewed The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel

Review of 'The Secret to Superhuman Strength' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

So cool to read after seeing Bechdel lecture a few weeks ago!

A book that asked many questions that touched on my insecurities and fears without answering them.
This will take some absorbing; I’ll want to return to this book again.

4thace reviewed The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel

Review of 'The Secret to Superhuman Strength' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

You start this book thinking the title refers solely to physical perfection as approached over decades spent pursuing first one discipline and then another. But as she spares no detail of her own romantic troubles, her dependencies on substances including alcohol, philosophical movements that strip away all that is illusion, psychic traumas and losses then you start to see that much of the strength she strives for is inside. She intersperses her own breakdowns and setbacks along the way with ones from history: Kerouac and Cassady, the English Romantics of the early nineteenth century, the twentieth-century roshis and gurus from the East and West who built fanatical followings. And then there are the real feats of athleticism which come in waves just as her artistic outbursts come and go in waves. The book is the product of a Macarthur Genius Grant recipient who has been given the freedom to take …

You start this book thinking the title refers solely to physical perfection as approached over decades spent pursuing first one discipline and then another. But as she spares no detail of her own romantic troubles, her dependencies on substances including alcohol, philosophical movements that strip away all that is illusion, psychic traumas and losses then you start to see that much of the strength she strives for is inside. She intersperses her own breakdowns and setbacks along the way with ones from history: Kerouac and Cassady, the English Romantics of the early nineteenth century, the twentieth-century roshis and gurus from the East and West who built fanatical followings. And then there are the real feats of athleticism which come in waves just as her artistic outbursts come and go in waves. The book is the product of a Macarthur Genius Grant recipient who has been given the freedom to take the longest view possible on everything she has seen and felt. You get to feel the highs, the numbness (sometimes literal) and the anger she has explored in her other works. It is hard to understand where it all come from both for us and for the author. The drawing style is precise and all-encompassing just as the words are. She doesn't let her subject get off easily, least of all herself, making it a deeply moral statement. What better delivery mechanism to convey greatly unsettling insights than a graphic novel in color? And will she write and draw another one which then deals with the labor of creating this one and what she learned from it? If the author does that, I don't doubt that it will be short on further profound realizations, since I don't see any sign that she's done with these powerful adversaries all her life. The two of us are different in so many ways, but I am happy to count her as an important apologist for the Baby Boomer generation we share.