Queer Lit

Much of the emphasis here at Veggie Dyke has been on the veggie part, i.e. I’ve posted lots of vegetarian recipes. While cooking and baking are major parts of my life, they aren’t everything. Literature is my other great love (in terms of career/hobbies; M is, obviously, my great romantic love). So I thought I would occasionally post about queer texts I’ve read; I spend a huge amount of my time reading, teaching, and researching literature, which means I know quite a few texts in what we might call the queer canon.

I’ll start with a book I’ve already mentioned once here, Alison Bechdel’s The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For. When I was first exposed to her comics, back in my days as an undergrad at a women’s college, I found them a bit threatening, probably because I was pretty closeted (I had girlfriends, but only ones who weren’t from my school, and I was careful about who knew about them). It was hard to fathom that there were women who lived happy and healthy out lives. I think, to be honest, I was jealous, just as I was jealous of all the women who marched off to the Rainbow Alliance meetings every week or who openly held their girlfriends’ hands on campus.

But here I am, over a decade later (that’s a frightening thought), with the most fantastic partner imaginable and a fairly happy and healthy out life of my own. So I’m in a better place to appreciate Bechdel’s work. I love the fact that her long-running comic is so diverse, although a more cynical person might accuse her of ticking lots of boxes (there are characters from everywhere on the LGBT spectrum, Jews, Muslims, Christians, a variety of socioeconomic classes, many different jobs, there’s a character with a disability, there are different sorts of relationships and families, lots of personality types, etc). Many people can see themselves in Bechdel’s work.

The drawing is well done (naturally), the writing is sometimes funny and sometimes moving and sometimes pedestrian, reflecting the realities of life (although Mo’s political rants do get a bit tiresome), and the story lines are interesting, even if they do move rather fast at times (but that’s probably how it has to be in comics). It’s fascinating to read The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For and notice how prescient Bechdel has been about world events and how her work has reflected the zeitgeist so well, even as it’s been firmly situated in the queer community.

I definitely recommend this book and in fact I plan to use it in my teaching next year. It is worth watching out for Bechdel’s work; you’ll be glad you did.