"Blankets"

[fiefoe]

The first thing that strikes me about this book is how honest it is. Craig Thompson's illustrated novel is largely autobiographical. Christian beliefs inform much of the story, despite (or because of?) his earnest struggles with what he had been taught. This is a young man with scruples.

• (Pleading with his mother for a week off from high school:) 'All they do is teach us EVOLUTION and about how God is dead... Not to mention SEX EDUCATION...'
• Suddenly I realized I was sprawled out on Raina's bed - CASUALLY - as if I owned it... and it struck me as a profound act of disrespect for such an object; that instead, I should be removing my sandals (socks?) and averting my eyes. <In the drawing, the bed in question is surrounded with shrouded, solemn biblical figures.>
• (His mother finding a nude drawing young Craig did:) 'The body is beautiful, Craig, but not like that.'
• (An amusing anecdote in which he and his brother's first shower was precipitated by an I-peed-on-you prank gone badly literal, but then -) 'One's first shower is a RITE of PASSAGE - an initiation into adulthood. Only, in the context, it was more so a BAPTISM - a vain attempt to cleanse away our SHAME.'
  
• (Walking on crusted ice:) but I knew (I was competing) ... against myself - against my own clumsy humanity that had lost synchronization with the earth. In that sense, I always lost.

The following dialog happens within this context:
Craig:  Maybe I'm sad about WANTING you. I'm not too comfortable with wanting someone. It feels - LUSTFUL.
Raina:  Well, which is scarier - LUST or TEMPTATION? LUST: that you might want me against my will.. or TEMPTATION - like you're waiting beneath the tree of forbidden fruit? Temptation being... that I might want YOU even more.