40in40 – Swallow Me Whole
“We all come constructed like so, loosely screwed, holding on by our attachment to a light-based narrative… but lowliest sound carries me home.”
Perturbed. I just couldn’t settle in to this graphic novel. All 216 pages, I was waiting for a happy turn, a positive twist, but it never came. Swallow Me Whole was entirely sincere in that way, pinching at my soul while massaging it at the same time (kinda like those really bad shoulder massages). I liken it to that close friend with severe issues but a bleeding heart; the book will make you cry and scream at the same time.
Seriously though, this novel forced me to forget all my conventional views of adolescent life. I couldn’t hold on to any sort of pretense. As Obama often urges us to do, I forgot about color, class, and especially, creed. I was humbled into submission… into openness.
Because in essence, at our essence, we are essentially weak people who are easily swayed by the lowliest sounds. Who of us has really got it together? Anyone who you think is most grounded is really the one holding on tightest to a thread – a hope of salvation, an illusion of wealth, a blot of innocence. With white knuckles and wide eyes, he is always on the brink of destruction. And when the lowliest sound rumbles through, he will lose himself.
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