Blankets, ch.6 & 7

I love how we are led into chapter six, how unexpectedly the feeling of dirtiness, of sin and shame shifts from young, peed-upon Craig to teen Craig at the party. The framing on the party page especially encapsulates that feeling of loneliness and uneasiness in the midst chaos. It's every bad high school party ever rolled into one. It's also every event I've ever attended at the notorious big white apartment building by the Huck's gas station back in my home town. In much the same scenario, every time I visit people I haven't seen since forever and want desperately just to hang out and reconnect with, we wind up at that horrible apartment complex. I even worry about parking my parents' old van anywhere near the place. God only knows what could happen to it. Also, how can so many skeezy guys live in one building and why do my friends know ALL of them??
Anyway, in that sense, Thompson does a great job of making me feel tied to the story, a little empty and hurting for teen Craig.

Random thoughts:

I also love how, on the top left of p.345, Craig's thought bubble connects with Raina, as if through the poems he is able to get inside her mind in a way.

On p.346, Craig says "I love you" in beautiful script, but Raina replies "Oh Craig" in typed letters, robbed of their authenticity like her transcribed poems, in a sense. It's the first time we see such apprehension in her and it's so subtle. Or do the typed capital letters mean something else altogether which I failed to pick up on?

The magic's leaving somehow by chapter six, yet in all the crowds, rarely are Craig and Raina actually separated.

In chapter seven, memories of happier times when Craig's world centered around Raina lack frames, giving them a sort of intimacy, a warmth in the way everyone is clumped together. Craig's view of the outside world as he nears the end of his time with Raina, however, is not only framed, but doubly framed as in the second image we are looking into a room and through a window. Is that melodramatic overkill? The window to the outside world?

And just as a point of comparison, here's actual Michigan in the winter, on the beach by the lake (I spent the weekend there.):