No, no. You can’t go ahead and ruin a perfectly good series. Well, series? I guess I’m just gonna see A Curse So Dark And Lonely as a stand-alone. That book was so much fun to read, and this.. just… Well, no.

A graphic novel by Alison Bechdel about exercise, philosophy, literature and personal reflection sits right at the center of my Venn diagram of hobbies and interests, so it was virtually impossible not to enjoy this book.

Bechdel uses her history of exercise as a lens to reflect on her life in general. Throughout the decades, she recounts her quest to be strong and self-sufficient, as well as reach a state of transcendence (letting go of the ego and overcoming the subject-object divide). Several struggles in her life prevent her from reaching this goal: not being in touch with her emotions, a reluctance to be dependent (or even around) others, workaholism, relying on alcohol and sleep medication, etc. Interestingly, in her sports she does attain what she fails to reach in the rest of her life. (Her description of the flow state you can experience during running and cycling, when you are just a body in the here and now, was very relatable. Also, using exercise as therapy.) As the decades pass, she incrementally gets better at the non-exercise aspects of life, and unlike the writers and poets she references, Bechdel seems to escape the self-destruction caused by their attempts at transcendence by "just" being in the world and nature with others.

Some minor gripes: I recall that the cultural and scientific references in Are You My Mother? complemented the memoir really well. In The Secret to Superhuman Strength, the stories about the Romantics, Transcendentalists, and Beat Generation "rhyme" with Bechdel's personal history but overall seem more disconnected. At the same time, these cultural references enrich the reading experience, so they are still a net positive. Just as in life, there were several threads that remained loose ends, such as a satisfying conclusion to the cultural history and a reason for why exercise culture suddenly emerged.