“Even awful people can be polite for a few minutes.” Truth.
29.12 The Family Fang
I am glad I read this just in time for Mother’s Day. These
parents are fucked up. They believe in the importance of what they are doing,
but they are fucked up. Their kids aren’t perfect but they end up being okay,
giving hope to us all. Is there any mother out there who isn’t worried that
they are going to screw up their kids?
I am. Daily. Just today I wondered if I was going to make my kid hate
books by reading them so much. I worry about pushing him too far, not pushing
enough. What he is eating, what he
isn’t eating. I am far from
perfect, and he will be the same, but compared to the Fangs I am amazing (Hence, the lesson!),
because seriously, they are fucked up. I digress... back to the book.
I was
in the mood for a quirky, fun read. What I got was certainly original and very
well written, but the quirk wasn’t quite what I was expecting and the fun
really wasn’t there at all. The Fang family are somewhat well known performance
artists. At least the parents are, the kids are more like extras and set pieces
being moved around and manipulated by their parents’ whims for the sake of art.
I thought the art was more of the shock and awe variety; not trying to
entertain as much as humiliate and create chaos. But we all see art differently
and even within this family each person has a different opinion and reaction. I
did love how the state of the current relationships were unraveled through
seeing the past “creations” but I hated the end. I was hoping to see the
parents and children come together as a family, but instead I ended up hating
the parents. The book lost me entirely and made me feel sad for the whole
family instead of feeling any sort of connection, and that was a
disappointment, as often families are.
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