Review of "Scenes" - Part 1

As I have mentioned in my previous posts, Scenes from an Impending Marriage turned out to be a pleasure to read. Although I am not a fan of memoirs, nor reading in particular, Tomine's presentation using graphical comics to show everything that lead up to his big day, was very uniquely presented. It kept me entertained throughout the whole reading because he uses humorous jokes and comical drawings as way to represent his real-life experience with his wife.  It allowed me, and most likely other readers as well, to enter into his world, and experience the typical circumstances couples are faced with when making decisions between each other; especially when preparing for a wedding.

Excerpt from Scenes from an Impending Marriage; how the memoir came about

When I first read through "Scenes", I found out that the graphic novel was not originally created for Tomine's readers but for his and Brennan's wedding guests. After Adrian Tomine and his wife Sarah Brennan, realized they needed to give a wedding gift for their guest during their wedding, they tried to come up with a few ideas. At first, Sarah wanted to give their guests custom chocolate bars, with their names printed on it. However, after Adrian's disapproval, she comes up with another idea, and asks him to create a bunch of short comic strips for their guests about their preparation for the wedding (see the excerpt above). After this idea, Tomine liked the idea of chocolate bar far better, however in the end, "Scenes" came to fruition, as Tomine wanted to make his wife happy (Tomine, 2011).

The creation of "Scenes" allowed the readers to hear about all the frustrations the couple went through, as they planned their wedding. First it was creating the guest list, then finding a reception venue, then creating invitations, and thereafter finding a D.J. More events followed until the pair finally arrived at their wedding day. At all these points, the couple shares their opinions and disagreements, and in the end try to come to an agreement. Some of their arguments are very funny to read because of the way they react and are portrayed. After all this, the readers get to read about their wedding experience and their wedding night in the epilogue.

Excerpt from Scenes from an Impending Marriage; how the couple ended up hungry

As I think about the plot of the memoir, I found it surprising and interesting how Tomine included the aspect about how his memoir came to creation, and the fact that the whole story as a whole was the gift for their wedding guests. It was something I had not anticipated when reading, as I thought it was just a memoir Tomine decided to write for his readers; I found that aspect very creative to include. I also liked how Tomine represented the hard work he and his wife had to go through to make their wedding a success but in the end, had no food to eat for themselves as they were busy with their guests and wedding photos (see the excerpt above). They ended up eating fast food on their wedding night. It showed how the couple always were busy doing something, even during their wedding, but finally got to enjoy themselves and relax during their wedding night. It was a nice way to finish off the graphic novel.

In my next post I will be continuing my review, and talk about what I think the purpose of the memoir is, and  more details about the things I liked about it; so stay tuned! In the meantime, enjoy the video I found with Tomine, where Leanne Shapton interviews him and asks some questions about his memoir. Some things he mentions, include: how the book was not supposed to be published originally, how some parts of the novel were added on later (such as the epilogue), and how everything in the memoir actually happened but were sugar-coated at times (StrandBookStore, 2011).