You know when you read something or see something and you know that it will fundamentally alter the way you look at everything you read and see for the rest of your life? Not in the sense of, you know, a religious text or anything. It doesn't mean that you live your life in a different way (or maybe it does, but it doesn't have to), it just tells a story in a way that makes you reevaluate all the stories you've read before and gives you a new lens to look at all the stories you see in the future.
That's how I feel about Y: The Last Man.
Which is really just a long-winded way of saying: wow.
I'm sure a bajillion people have talked about how this book was amazing, but it's my turn, so here I go.
But first I need an anecdote, because I like anecdotes. In college, I had the phrase "the personal is political" smashed into my head a whole lot. To me, the world is personal. Everything is personal. Our lives are what informs our views and our actions. I am where I am because of who I am, and I read things the way I do because of who I am. So here's the anecdote.
I'm a lawyer, but I wasn't always. And to become a lawyer in the United States you have to pass this stupid exam called the Bar. This is basically somebody's idea of a way to test you on everything you've learned in your three years of law school, about 1% of which has anything to do with the actual practice of law (I've been a lawyer for a bit now, I feel like I can legitimately say that). It's the hardest test you'll ever take in your life (if your life is the lawyer-path), not because of the subject matter, but because of the way it's done. It's a marathon of shoving information into your brain and hoping the stuff you're capable of regurgitating during those two or three days at the end of July is the stuff that happens to be on the exam. And the entire time you're doing this you have "real" lawyers telling you that it's more of a rite of passage than anything else, because it's got absolutely nothing to do with what you're going to be doing with the rest of your life. So you know it's completely pointless except for that one, important point: passing.
I have no idea how this compares to medical boards or GMATS or anything like that, but I was an excellent standardized test taker until the Bar Exam.
Which is to say that I failed my first time. If any of you know attorneys in the United States, you may know that, despite the passage rate of many state bars, there's a huge stigma on failing the exam. It's shameful, whether we admit it or not. Needless to say, I wasn't in a good place that November.
Shortly after I received the results, I went to see the movie Stranger Than Fiction. If you haven't seen it, and you enjoy quirky movies with a vaguely science fictiony, romantic, quirky bent, I recommend it.
That movie changed my life.
The thing is, that I'm not really sure how.
The point of Stranger Than Fiction was that everything happens for a reason, and that even the smallest thing can be extraordinary, and even the most mundane person can be extraordinary.
There's nothing more I want in life than to be extraordinary. It's why I lose myself in books and movies, like Bastian Bux. This is why I become attached to the characters in stories, like they're friends of mine.
Which is why I cried when reading the last two issues of Y, and why I'm getting a bit choked up right now just writing about it.
The reason I mention failing the Bar and seeing Stranger Than Fiction right afterward is because I saw that movie at the exact right moment in my life. I needed to know that everything would be okay, because life moves forward and the decisions I make can be important ones, even if something bad happens.
I retook the Bar Exam and passed on my second go around. Not because of that movie, because I'm insane but not crazy, but because of myself. Because I wanted to be a lawyer since I was ten years old. And now I am.
Okay, anecdote done.
You know, usually I'm a lot funnier than this.
Anyway, I read Y: The Last Man at the perfect time in my life. I just don't know why yet. It's one of those things. To make a quasi-obscure law joke, I'll know it when I see it. Or when I experience it. I just have a feeling.
All the best stories, to me, are stories that transcend the literal. (Quote from Tron: "All that is visible must grow beyond itself and into the realm of the invisible.") Yorick's story isn't just the story of the last man on Earth (and I like what Vaughn said about the epilogue beying the story of the last boy becoming the last man), it's our story. My story. It's an epic. An Odyssey for the twenty-first century. It's about searching for love when it's next to you the whole time, and losing it when you finally find it. It's about an ordinary person stepping up and being what he (or she) needs to be, for the good of everyone. It's about how we're inherently good, deep down, and we want our loved ones to be okay... even when we're bad for a little while. Even when we're bad to them. It's about being extraordinary in an extraordinary world... and about being ordinary in that world, too. It's about surviving when you don't want to, and escaping to freedom when you need to. It's about the way lives intertwine even if we don't see it or realize it. It's about how everything happens for a reason, even if that reason is "just because".
It's about telling a good story (which I realized when Yorick responded to the meta of "Tragicomic" with a very telling "meh").
And this was a good damn story. One of the best I've ever read. The characters became my friends, the world became my world, and the story became my story.
So that's why I liked Y: The Last Man.
There we go. I'll try to make the next one funnier.
That's how I feel about Y: The Last Man.
Which is really just a long-winded way of saying: wow.
I'm sure a bajillion people have talked about how this book was amazing, but it's my turn, so here I go.
But first I need an anecdote, because I like anecdotes. In college, I had the phrase "the personal is political" smashed into my head a whole lot. To me, the world is personal. Everything is personal. Our lives are what informs our views and our actions. I am where I am because of who I am, and I read things the way I do because of who I am. So here's the anecdote.
I'm a lawyer, but I wasn't always. And to become a lawyer in the United States you have to pass this stupid exam called the Bar. This is basically somebody's idea of a way to test you on everything you've learned in your three years of law school, about 1% of which has anything to do with the actual practice of law (I've been a lawyer for a bit now, I feel like I can legitimately say that). It's the hardest test you'll ever take in your life (if your life is the lawyer-path), not because of the subject matter, but because of the way it's done. It's a marathon of shoving information into your brain and hoping the stuff you're capable of regurgitating during those two or three days at the end of July is the stuff that happens to be on the exam. And the entire time you're doing this you have "real" lawyers telling you that it's more of a rite of passage than anything else, because it's got absolutely nothing to do with what you're going to be doing with the rest of your life. So you know it's completely pointless except for that one, important point: passing.
I have no idea how this compares to medical boards or GMATS or anything like that, but I was an excellent standardized test taker until the Bar Exam.
Which is to say that I failed my first time. If any of you know attorneys in the United States, you may know that, despite the passage rate of many state bars, there's a huge stigma on failing the exam. It's shameful, whether we admit it or not. Needless to say, I wasn't in a good place that November.
Shortly after I received the results, I went to see the movie Stranger Than Fiction. If you haven't seen it, and you enjoy quirky movies with a vaguely science fictiony, romantic, quirky bent, I recommend it.
That movie changed my life.
The thing is, that I'm not really sure how.
The point of Stranger Than Fiction was that everything happens for a reason, and that even the smallest thing can be extraordinary, and even the most mundane person can be extraordinary.
There's nothing more I want in life than to be extraordinary. It's why I lose myself in books and movies, like Bastian Bux. This is why I become attached to the characters in stories, like they're friends of mine.
Which is why I cried when reading the last two issues of Y, and why I'm getting a bit choked up right now just writing about it.
The reason I mention failing the Bar and seeing Stranger Than Fiction right afterward is because I saw that movie at the exact right moment in my life. I needed to know that everything would be okay, because life moves forward and the decisions I make can be important ones, even if something bad happens.
I retook the Bar Exam and passed on my second go around. Not because of that movie, because I'm insane but not crazy, but because of myself. Because I wanted to be a lawyer since I was ten years old. And now I am.
Okay, anecdote done.
You know, usually I'm a lot funnier than this.
Anyway, I read Y: The Last Man at the perfect time in my life. I just don't know why yet. It's one of those things. To make a quasi-obscure law joke, I'll know it when I see it. Or when I experience it. I just have a feeling.
All the best stories, to me, are stories that transcend the literal. (Quote from Tron: "All that is visible must grow beyond itself and into the realm of the invisible.") Yorick's story isn't just the story of the last man on Earth (and I like what Vaughn said about the epilogue beying the story of the last boy becoming the last man), it's our story. My story. It's an epic. An Odyssey for the twenty-first century. It's about searching for love when it's next to you the whole time, and losing it when you finally find it. It's about an ordinary person stepping up and being what he (or she) needs to be, for the good of everyone. It's about how we're inherently good, deep down, and we want our loved ones to be okay... even when we're bad for a little while. Even when we're bad to them. It's about being extraordinary in an extraordinary world... and about being ordinary in that world, too. It's about surviving when you don't want to, and escaping to freedom when you need to. It's about the way lives intertwine even if we don't see it or realize it. It's about how everything happens for a reason, even if that reason is "just because".
It's about telling a good story (which I realized when Yorick responded to the meta of "Tragicomic" with a very telling "meh").
And this was a good damn story. One of the best I've ever read. The characters became my friends, the world became my world, and the story became my story.
So that's why I liked Y: The Last Man.
There we go. I'll try to make the next one funnier.
