The Secret to Superhuman Strength
Ratings16
Average rating4.1
The Best Graphic Book of 2021 by Publishers Weekly | A New York Times Best Graphic Novel of 2021 | A New York Times Notable Book | An Autostraddle Best Queer Book of the Year | A Boston Globe Best Book of the Year | A St. Louis Post Dispatch Best Book of the Year | NPR, 12 Books NPR Staffers Loved | Shelf Awareness Best Books of 2021 From the author of Fun Home, a profoundly affecting graphic memoir of Bechdel's lifelong love affair with exercise, set against a hilarious chronicle of fitness fads in our times Comics and cultural superstar Alison Bechdel delivers a deeply layered story of her fascination, from childhood to adulthood, with every fitness craze to come down the pike: from Jack LaLanne in the 60s ("Outlandish jumpsuit! Cantaloupe-sized guns!") to the existential oddness of present-day spin class. Readers will see their athletic or semi-active pasts flash before their eyes through an ever-evolving panoply of running shoes, bicycles, skis, and sundry other gear. But the more Bechdel tries to improve herself, the more her self appears to be the thing in her way. She turns for enlightenment to Eastern philosophers and literary figures, including Beat writer Jack Kerouac, whose search for self-transcendence in the great outdoors appears in moving conversation with the author’s own. This gifted artist and not-getting-any-younger exerciser comes to a soulful conclusion. The secret to superhuman strength lies not in six-pack abs, but in something much less clearly defined: facing her own non-transcendent but all-important interdependence with others. A heartrendingly comic chronicle for our times.
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A life reviewed through exercise trends. Ha—I recognized those Iyengar yoga poses immediately.
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Fun Home but I feel like her life isn't actually interesting enough to propel said narrative, and there isn't enough historical content to warrant my reading when I have so many other books soon due back at the library.
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.
