I have, happily, revised that opinion substantially. I felt she was trying to impress with the gravitas of prior works, fearful that her family’s story wasn’t strong enough to stand on its own. Her inclusion of such a wide variety of authors and themes seemed too pat, too cute. The literary allusions, while inventive, seemed forced. He had the vocabulary but not the knack for putting it together.Īnd the first time I read Fun Home, I felt like Alison Bechdel was over-reaching, that she was just plain trying too hard. Reading Christopher Paolini’s Eragon was tortuous for this reason the poor kid was obviously trying to write at a level quite beyond his grasp. As someone who frequently does not try hard enough and often creates plausible works far below his ken (likely in order to save myself from over-reaching), trying too hard embarrasses me. It’s when someone reaches beyond their comfort zone to bring into the world something that they might not have the skill to bring about and that struggle is evident in the final product-that’s when I begin to feel uncomfortable. A clean success betrays no hint that the accomplishment was any kind of a stretch, no evidence that the achievement was anything other than perfectly in line with the creator’s gifts. When an artist tries to create something amazing and succeeds without hiccough, I am wholly unperturbed-this due the nature of success.
When a person tries to act beyond the envelope of their abilities, I become put off. For some reason, and it may be a reaction based upon my own opposing predilection, attempts at overachievement bother me.
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