Fun Home

It's a book by Alison Bechdel, some sort of graphical memoir of her distant father, whom she found out to be gay/bisexual after she came out to her family as a lesbian.

I was supposed to have read this book during the summer, which I did, and had a discussion among us freshmen and the author. I said it was an emotionally moving book to me. And that was mainly because her father was gay, and had hid that from his family, his wife etc.

I didn't really understand some parts of the book, because of the deep vocabulary and extensive reference to some western canon literature (e.g. Odyssey, however you spell it ==) which I had not read before. Homosexuality shouldn't be the focus of the memoir, but rather the relationship between the author and her father, as I understood from our discussion. Yet the part that moved me the most is the fact that the author's father was gay. I just felt so sorry and sad that he (presumably) was forced to hide, not able to share this delicate but significant part of his life, his being. To be honest, this was not explicitly mentioned in the book, but I sort of "imposed" my own personal (and short) journey onto the plot of the book, and I cried whenever the book was dealing with either the author's or the father's sexuality, even though I failed to have a full grasp of the book.

That said, I don't understand why we had to "dissect" the book by overarching analysis. For example

Professor: Ok, let's talk about the word choice of the title. Fun Home. What are the connotations of "fun" or "home", anybody want to share their thoughts?

Student1: The author's home is not a fun place to be, it's actually dark.....creates a sense of surrealism.....connotation.....

Student2: bla bla bla....which is what contributed the most to the emotionality of the book.

Student3: bla bla bla....which is akin to the works of (some famous author I never heard of) ...... through the portrayal of.......transition.....

That said....I recognize the benefits of being able to analyze and criticize a literature or an artwork and the impression one gains from the work. I suppose it helps us to clarify our thoughts and opinion or sentiments rather than simply allow ourselves to be flooded by emotions, which is a rather lazy thing I often allow myself to indulge in.