Yang, Belle, Forget Sorrow

Gabriella Winslow    

Blog Post 10/29/17

Forget Sorrow is a compelling graphic novel with many focuses on history, family disputes, and personal decisions that shaped Yang’s life. One major focus in the novel that influenced Yang’s life was the impact of politics and how it changed throughout the time periods seen in the novel.

The novel is aimed to tell a personal story of her and her father’s life. The novel starts off with insights into her life and tells the reader about where her journeys had brought her. She had been born in Taiwan but both of her parents originated from China.  In her earlier years as a writer, Yang had put lots of time into children's literature. This was her first novel that was not categorized children's literature and it made quite the impact, unlike some other genres. Right before reading this, I had discovered the graphic novel ‘Maus’ by Art Spiegelman and the two are very similar and connect to common themes. Both novels reflect and pull memories of their fathers which I thought was an amazing connection between the two. I am happy that I had the chance to read ‘Maus’ first because it trained my reading of graphic novels to be flexible as I was putting myself in not only the author's life but in their father/families lives as well.

The reading of the graphic novel included many insights into the surroundings of the story. The setting played a major role in helping the reader understand where the scene of the story was at the time and what was happening that made it significant. For example, on page 65 her father was discussing how his brother had been taking a large portion of their harvest and how they had to rely on that for their household. This lets the reader know that at this moment in the novel, and in her father's story, times were hard. This was helpful because as a reader I was able to infer the current financial status and I could tell from the time period that they lived near a place that relied heavily on crops. I liked that I was able to feel as if her father was convincing me that his struggles were so brutal and real yet I was still curious about Yang’s life too.

To read a graphic novel clearly and fully grasp the context is challenging but with Forget Sorrow, it is not the case. I very much enjoyed the novel and the use of real-world factors that shaped the story. At one point Yang mentioned that it was 1989 which was one of the most turmoil times in China. A large portion of the book took place in China which is what made the retelling of her father's view so interesting. A lot of the politics arose from the setting and specifically being from China. I gathered that Yang did not take much interest in the depth of her family until she had to come home from an incident in Beijing with an abusive ex-boyfriend. When she realized how much she had disappointed her family I felt a shift in the novel. A shift that made her really focus on understanding why her father was so upset when she hadn't finished the schooling he had helped her go to. Specifically, one memorable scene in the book happened on page fifteen when Yang created a panel that showed her parents faces when she had told them she would be coming home. Their look of disgust was a scene I had remembered throughout the entire novel. Some of the blame for many of the challenged within her family was the different ideas of value within the same family. I had thought that most of them were to do with generational differences and different outlooks on life but I realized that some of the barriers between her and her parents were just that she had never really been exposed to the whole truth of her family yet.

One of her biggest decisions in life had been extremely influenced by the Tiananmen Massacre which she described on page fourteen as “The People's Liberation Army Soldiers fired at the citizens of Beijing”. This was very relatable to present day because similar tragedies are happening all over the world and many people do not stay put when serious events like that take place. The panel above her quote is a scene of many protesters waving flags wanting a democracy and below people are injured and placed in a black panel laying on the ground. She intentionally used a very busy scene here to grab the reader and possibly make them see why she fled home. Her decision to move back home was very much influenced by what was surrounding her which was a conflict caused by a failing government in China.  

A specific part that was touched upon in her novel was her grandparents and I feel they added to the story as well. We were introduced to them in the early beginning but the reader did not get a connection to them until the political riots. I felt as if her grandparents had a lot of wise lessons for her to learn but they were never expressed fully. Their ethnicity which was Manchurian played a role in her life and her parent's life. It was shown to impact them positively and negatively throughout the novel.

Overall Forget Sorrow was an amazing graphic novel that touched on history, family disputes and personal decisions that were all influenced by the power of politics. Belle Yang wrote this with ideas of sharing much of her father's story and how that directly impacted her life. Once she was able to appreciate her family's history and knowledge she saw much clearer that her parents raised her the way they did on purpose. They were direct examples of generational differences that had only become clear when she had left home. The setting in the graphic novel gave many of the answers I had when I was reading this. The time frame and switching from present day to historical day was helpful to be in the minds of the characters as they were developing.  

Blog Post # 2

Gabriella Winslow

12/01/17

Blog Post 2

Welcome to my blog post about Forget Sorrow by Belle Yang. It is a novel that uses history, passion, and reflection to tell the story of Yangs life through a historical graphic novel. If you are at all interested in Chinese history, this novel is a great reading to get a personal story along with relevance to China and its history.

This text interacts a lot with the hard times experienced in China dealing with effects from communism and how it changed her father's life. While learning of her father's stories about his elders, she began to really take interest in them and found them to be powerful. I feel that she was forced to learn about her father's life which lead her to realize how important the history of her native country was to her. The book ties the reader in to know that there are definite divides in her family. Many of these were caused from her not fully connecting to her parents on the same level because she chose to ignore her history for many years. Her parents are old world Chinese natives and are very much involved in what happened in China in the forties and lived through some of the stories that he had known from his grandfather. In the beginning of the novel, Yangs tells about her early life and how she was able to move away and avoid learning about her history. I feel that her moving away and choosing to neglect the hardships of her family's older generations is what created the major divide within her family. At first I felt that I couldn't connect to Yang because I had not seen how she could have been raised to not know a lot about who she is and where her heritage came from, but, I could understand why she seemed as if she was intimidated to learn it.

When Yang was forced to move back home she finally took interest in the stories her father would tell. She is hearing the stories from his perspective after he lived them. His father was the son of the Patriarch who took him and his other brothers in. One of the major stories of the Patriarch was how he led a movement to new land. He made this decision based off of struggling with harsh remains of World War 2. The family battled with the effects of many things shown throughout the novel such as famine, poverty and the communist government. For Yang to fully understand the hardships that were faced, she had to have a mindset that remained in reality where she would remind herself that this was her direct family going through it.

She expressed the life story in her graphic novel by depicting very real and passionate scenes. When telling about the wars and the conflicts in government her panels were brightly drawn with many bold parts. For example, on page 200-201 there is a fighting scene where she depicts the darkest parts of the page is where she wants the attention of the reader to go. She uses this technique throughout her novel and it helps put emphasis on the intense scenes. She doesn't use a traditional comic book style with letter bubbles or other characters, but yet she uses lines to imply motion or force.

One specific aspect about the ending of the book that I liked was how she was able to find out how everything within her family turned out. Many people in her family were either not mentioned or they had passed away. When she was describing how everyone had passed,  I felt like that part of the novel was done very well. Her reflection upon how much she has learned of her family and its history was what solidified the novel for me.

Yang used many writing styles in her novel such as humor, wit, and perseverance to deeply describe what her family went through. One memorable scene that stood out to me was one that was describing what kept her great grandfather going.

The scene above describes just one instance in the novel where she was told that perseverance is what got her family through the wars and famines. When her family left and went on their  journey it started with one single step to find a better destination. If you are a first time reader of this novel I would advise you to pay specific attention to some of the more optimistic times in the book because they will truly surprise you. As I got through the book, I took a closer look at the determination that laid in the founders of her family and I saw it reflected back into Belle Yang herself.  Many of the conflicts within the story had arose from being generations conflicts but she sealed the gap between most of them and I belive it is because of her new understanding of her Chinese history.

On the contrary there are some extremely heartbreaking parts to this novel, which I also believe added to the reconnection to her family and their history. When Yang told about the betrayals within the family it felt like a time in the book that many people might be able to relate to. I do feel as if her knowledge of these negative and splitting times also contributed to her wanting to learn more and be able to change who she is in the future from knowing that this was her history.  

Forget Sorrow was an amazing graphic novel that connected to history through the use of  passion and reflection. Once Yang realized how the history of her great grandfather and the others in her family impacted her and her native nation she was able to appreciate her parents for more than what she had originally thought. This was a direct example of generational differences that had only become clear when she taken the time to learn about how she got to where she is.