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A review by jasonfurman
The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel
4.0
“I was born at the end of the baby boom in the primordial darkness just before the dawn of the exercise epoch… Apart from having to get up and switch channels manually, we did not exercise.” So begins a memoir of the brilliant graphic artist Alison Bechdel’s relationship to exercise over the course of her life. The book starts in the present and then goes back to take us through the decades of Bechdel’s exercise life:
The 1960s: Jack Lalanne on TV appealing to housewives, children’s comic books pushing ludicrous fads including one that gave the book its title
The 1970s: Bechdel tries the odd and seemingly ludicrous activity of running for three miles in her childhood neighborhood, at first thinking it is like hiking she brings along snacks.
The 1980s: Living in Greenwich Village as a young adult, women’s feminist karate classes but then trying it on a harasser in the subway only to get punched back hard—which put it all in perspective.
The 1990s to the present (and yes, it goes right up the pandemic and the 2020 election): A combination of going through various fads like classes, interval training, but also watching everything get harder, her fitness peak and start to decline, and dealing with the process of aging (Bechdel was born in 1960 so was 60 as of the publication of the book).
All of this is interspersed with the stories of Margaret Fuller, Jack Kerouac and some others like Coleridge, Wordsworth and Adrienne Rich that I personally found more distracting from the compelling narrative of Bechdel’s life than illuminating. Plus Kerouac in particular, especially the [b:The Dharma Bums|412732|The Dharma Bums|Jack Kerouac|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1428986082l/412732._SY75_.jpg|827497][b:The Dharma Bums|412732|The Dharma Bums|Jack Kerouac|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1428986082l/412732._SY75_.jpg|827497], was used as a broader context for the Buddhist mysticism of exercise that infused the book but did not particularly interest me.
Overall, the drawing is excellent, the book is consistently funny and self reflective, often candid and self deprecatory, it was exciting to see the process of writing the extraordinary [b:Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic|26135825|Fun Home A Family Tragicomic|Alison Bechdel|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1440097020l/26135825._SY75_.jpg|911368] show up in the narrative, and I enjoyed the nostalgia trip through a bunch of periods and settings that I lived through, albeit ten years younger with a rather different life experience.
The 1960s: Jack Lalanne on TV appealing to housewives, children’s comic books pushing ludicrous fads including one that gave the book its title
The 1970s: Bechdel tries the odd and seemingly ludicrous activity of running for three miles in her childhood neighborhood, at first thinking it is like hiking she brings along snacks.
The 1980s: Living in Greenwich Village as a young adult, women’s feminist karate classes but then trying it on a harasser in the subway only to get punched back hard—which put it all in perspective.
The 1990s to the present (and yes, it goes right up the pandemic and the 2020 election): A combination of going through various fads like classes, interval training, but also watching everything get harder, her fitness peak and start to decline, and dealing with the process of aging (Bechdel was born in 1960 so was 60 as of the publication of the book).
All of this is interspersed with the stories of Margaret Fuller, Jack Kerouac and some others like Coleridge, Wordsworth and Adrienne Rich that I personally found more distracting from the compelling narrative of Bechdel’s life than illuminating. Plus Kerouac in particular, especially the [b:The Dharma Bums|412732|The Dharma Bums|Jack Kerouac|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1428986082l/412732._SY75_.jpg|827497][b:The Dharma Bums|412732|The Dharma Bums|Jack Kerouac|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1428986082l/412732._SY75_.jpg|827497], was used as a broader context for the Buddhist mysticism of exercise that infused the book but did not particularly interest me.
Overall, the drawing is excellent, the book is consistently funny and self reflective, often candid and self deprecatory, it was exciting to see the process of writing the extraordinary [b:Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic|26135825|Fun Home A Family Tragicomic|Alison Bechdel|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1440097020l/26135825._SY75_.jpg|911368] show up in the narrative, and I enjoyed the nostalgia trip through a bunch of periods and settings that I lived through, albeit ten years younger with a rather different life experience.