My New York Diary, Book Review Example

Doucet blurs the lines between author/narrator/character in My New York Diary. This is significant as it deals with the way in which she wanted to portray herself in this book. She not only wanted to be the author of the book, but she also wanted to be the narrator trying to explain what happened in her own life. She also had to be the character in the book as well because the book is about her, her life, her experiences, and the many things that happened to her on an everyday basis. She wanted her readers to understand where she was coming from in many different ways; she wanted us to see how she lived and wanted to be able to tell it as an artist would. Artists do the same thing; they narrate through their art and are, of course, the artists, but the individuals in the painting may also be them. Therefore, the artist and the author are very much alike in this sense.

My New York Diary is in some ways about Doucet becoming an artist and this is easily related to this course. During the 17^th and 18^th centuries, women were fighting for their rights to do things such as write, paint, and provide a certain type of beauty to the world. Women, during this period, were challenged by many with expressing themselves in a system where many were not concerned with women’s views. As Doucet was an artist, this is important because it shows that she did what many women did during that time. She found a way to use her art in the form of graphic novels to explain who she was, where she came from and the journey ahead. Many women the in 17^th and 18^th centuries had to use their heads in order to get where they wanted to be. During this time, many cultural and political events were taking place in regards to women’s rights to education and the like. According to “Feminism in Literature,” “Though modern feminism was nonexistent, many women expressed themselves and exposed the conditions that they faced, albeit often indirectly, using a variety of subversive and creative methods.” This is exactly what Doucet did with My New York Diary.

I would not read this text as a diary. I would read this text more as a comic book than anything else. I would read it as a comic book due to its layout and how it is formatted. This is how many of us have been trained to read certain pieces of work for many centuries. We go by the format and the layout of the book, not what the artist is really trying to convey. Just like we would read a literature book as a textbook and we would read a novel as a book, many will and have done the same thing with Doucet’s My New York Diary. However, I believe that it is important for My New York Diary to be read as a diary as it is a testament of Doucet’s life. It is a timeline of the events that have happened to her throughout her life and it should be read with that respect and dignity.

The stories in My New York Diary could certainly be told in a different format; any piece of writing can be told in different formats. However, I do not think that it would be the same. Doucet wrote this piece as a graphic novel in which she did in order to set a certain mood for the work of art that she was trying to create. This could be told in many different formats, but it would not hold the same authority or the same meaning as it does the way it is printed now. The form of the graphic novel contributes to its content because Doucet has a way of putting things into visual appearances more than she does into writing. She is an artist in many forms, but her art is based on the graphic and visual appearances of her life. According to Lev Grossman, “some of the most interesting, most daring, most heartbreaking art being created right now, of both the verbal and visual varieties, is being published in graphic novels.” This is exactly how Doucet felt as well. She wanted to use her literature ability to express her ideas about her life in an artistic form. This is what makes novels like these so interesting. Graphic novels not only tell a story, but also give readers an idea of the artist’s abilities in a visual format.