by younglove & 4 users
Type: fiction
Status: favorite
Author: David B.
Tags: french nonfiction autobio graphic.novel mental.illness to.buy
Description: I also have a brother who is freakishly sick both physically and mentally and who may neverI also have a brother who is freakishly sick both physically and mentally and who may never grow up. Reading about someone with a handicapped brother brought me the mundane but comforting realization that I am not alone in the ways that I feel about this. David B. (the author) also views his brother as pathetic, becomes angry with him, is sometimes frightened of him as if he were a monster (a child in a man's body can be hideous) and fantasizes about becoming like his brother only to feel even more confused about the issue.
One passage shows his brother's increasing attempts to compete with him in a way that would be natural for most siblings but becomes unnatural for a mentally handicapped sibling. As David B.'s comic books become more successful, his brother makes sincere but disillusioned attempts to write his own book -- it would be laughable situation if it weren't so sad. I have seen the way that this type of normal rivalry becomes sick, like a parody, in situations where it cannot work. David B. has the same reactions I do, swinging wildly between self-rightousness, pity, vindictiveness and guilt.
A quote from Time Magazine about the book: "As he [the author/narrator] becomes disillusioned with 'doctors who can't heal' and 'parents who know nothing,' he seeks solace in the world of dreams, leading to a lifelong obsession" (see the full article at http://www.time.com/time/columnist/arnold/article/0,9565,1015442,00.html). I do not have a lifelong obsessive relationship with my brother (thank God!), but I imagine that if we were both of the same sex that this might have happened. I do have a lifelong struggle with disillusion and illness, with doctors, with medicine, with the mind, and with the body....
2005-09-07
