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One! Hundred! Demons!
One! Hundred! Demons! | Lynda Barry
12 posts | 28 read | 10 to read
Youll wonder how anything can be so sad and so funny at the same time. Lev Grossman, Time Inspired by a sixteenth-century Zen monks painting of a hundred demons chasing each other across a long scroll, acclaimed cartoonist Lynda Barry confronts various demons from her life in seventeen full-color vignettes. In Barrys hand, demons are the life moments that haunt you, form you, and stay with you: your worst boyfriend; kickball games on a warm summer night; watching your baby brother dance; the smell of various houses in the neighborhood you grew up in; or the day you realize your childhood is long behind you and you are officially a teenager. As a cartoonist, Lynda Barry has the innate ability to zero in on the essence of truth, a magical quality that has made her book One! Hundred! Demons! an enduring classic of the early twenty-first century. In the books intro, however, Barry throws the idea of truth out of the window by asking the reader to decide if fiction can have truth and if autobiography can have a fiction, a hybrid that Barry coins autobiofictionalography. As readers get to know Barrys demons, they realize that the actual truth no longer matters because the universality of Barrys comics, true or untrue, reigns supreme.
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review
BookishMarginalia
One! Hundred! Demons! | Lynda Barry
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Pickpick

Cartoonist Lynda Barry is one of my creative inspirations. This book is a good intro to her work because the short “essays” cover topics she visits again and again: childhood, memory, creativity, the awkwardness of growing up, the need to be authentic.

BethM Thinking about you- hope all is well! 2y
kspenmoll Love this! Hope you are doing well- 2y
TrishB Missing your posts! 2y
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Avanders Just checking in and hope you are doing ok!! ♥️ 2y
Bklover Thinking of you!! 1y
TheBookHippie Was checking in. Missing you. 1y
tpixie Hope you are doing well! I keep checking on whether you‘ve posted anything lately… 4mo
113 likes1 stack add7 comments
blurb
Gina
One! Hundred! Demons! | Lynda Barry
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Look at all those books written by Wisconsinites♡

review
megnews
One! Hundred! Demons! | Lynda Barry
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Pickpick

Not really my type of art. However I did appreciate the author‘s concept, looking back at the “demons” that shaped her young life and who she would become.

Since it‘s my last of 16 glorious days off work I‘ll count this as my #vacationread for #BBRC #YeahBaby.

I don‘t want to go back! 😢 I‘ve loved this relaxing reading time.

LibrarianRyan Yeahh. I get it. I went back to work last Thirsday. Off did I drag 4y
38 likes1 comment
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megnews
One! Hundred! Demons! | Lynda Barry
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Why are we so moved by stories? Tales of things that never happened told by people we‘ve never met? How does a story come so alive?
What makes us want to hear them even when their endings are sad? When we finish a book, why do we hold it in both hands and gaze at it as if it were alive?
A book...a magic lantern inside capable of conjuring worlds.

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Bookwomble
One! Hundred! Demons! | Lynda Barry
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“This ability to exist in pieces is what some adults call resilience. And I suppose in some way it is a kind of resilience, a horrible resilience that makes adults believe children forget trauma.”

[Yep, the pictured panel and the quote are different - two quotes for the price of one!]

Weaponxgirl This just hit me hard. I work with children and what some of them go through...such a big conversation to be had about how the term resilience is used. 5y
Bookwomble @Weaponxgirl Hmm, it's a loaded word and a thorny concept to be throwing around people who've experienced trauma, especially children. 5y
Weaponxgirl @Bookwomble I agree. Whilst doing my diploma we have a whole section on helping children build resilience which is a good thing. Helping them be able to experiment, experience new things and get thing wrong in a safe supportive environment is only a good thing. 5y
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Weaponxgirl @Bookwomble but when people use it as a pass whilst saying children are resilient is a awful thing to do to anyone especially a child. It is not a word I would ever use around them and it is not a cure all. Nothing is and trauma should always be dealt with by professionals and should be ongoing. 5y
Weaponxgirl I get so frustrated when things are misused so as to be harmful. 5y
Bookwomble @Weaponxgirl I think the idea of "building resiliency" may come from a CBT approach to trauma, which has a tendency to centre the issue in the affected person rather than processing it as an experience of a harmful external phenomenon. But I'm biased as I'm a counsellor working in the person-centred approach. 5y
Weaponxgirl @Bookwomble ah ok, I‘ve not been trained to use it as a counselling process (not my area) just as a general concept of helping build self esteem and helping prepare young people for life as a general concept. Sorry for my confusion on the issue. 5y
Bookwomble @Weaponxgirl Oh, please don't apologise, I wasn't suggesting I know better than you 🙂 I think you were spot on in saying that building reliance is important, and that it can go wrong when used without due consideration for the individual. The tendency to manualise therapy as a one-size-fits-all remedy is an unfortunate neo-liberal tendency, allied to blaming the oppressed for their own oppression. 5y
Weaponxgirl @Bookwomble I just honestly didn‘t know it was used in counselling at all so at that level I can see it becoming a much more damaging prospect of like you say putting it on the individual and demanding they be more resilient. Rather than as I knew it as a general concept of trying to help give them as many tools as possible for dealing with life and helping them build self confidence wherever possible. 5y
Weaponxgirl Thanks for making me think about it, it‘s good to think about these things in a different way and can only ever make you better at your job when you are working with people. And I completely see where you are coming from with blaming people from their own oppression, it‘s something I work very hard to not do. Empathy for me in my role can be both a essential blessing and a curse. 5y
Bookwomble @Weaponxgirl It sounds like the children you work with are lucky to have somebody who cares ado deeply 😊❤ 5y
Bookwomble "So" not "ado" ? 5y
24 likes12 comments
review
Bookwomble
One! Hundred! Demons! | Lynda Barry
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Pickpick

Lynda saw a Zen Buddhist scroll showing 100 demons and, being a cartoonist, decided to paint her own. Though there are far fewer than 100 in her book, the demons she highlights are probably familiar to most people, even if they haunt us in different ways. Mostly, they attacked her in childhood, and often emanated from abusive adults. The demon of reliance is a poignant story, the demon of dogs a hopeful one, with a spectrum of others between 3.5🌟

jmofo Her books are such trips. I always feel like I have trespassed into someone‘s mind. 5y
Bookwomble @jmofo This is my first book by her, which I bought on a whim and am glad I did. What else world you recommend? 5y
22 likes2 comments
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AdeleReads
One Hundred Demons | Lynda Barry
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For my birthday, my husband gave me this lively, sad, sweet, weird, and darkly comic graphic novel about the power of art in battling life's "demons". One review described it as "part memoir and part creativity primer"—so true, and so far it's SO good!

ValerieAndBooks I have this one -- from 15 years ago! Now I want to re-read. Hope you enjoy! 7y
34 likes1 comment
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RealBooks4ever
One Hundred Demons | Lynda Barry
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#ComicsByWomen #AndItsAugust Love Lynda Barry's work! 💜

rubyslippersreads Digger looks really cute too. 😀 7y
RealBooks4ever @rubyslippersreads Who can resist a wombat?! 😄 7y
24 likes1 stack add3 comments
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Jokila
One Hundred Demons | Lynda Barry
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LindsayReads
One Hundred Demons | Lynda Barry
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Oh, Littens. How can I possibly choose just one fave graphic novel? Or even 5? 10? I'm not even going to consult my comics backlog. I am long overdue in confessing my deep, deep Lynda Barry love (I have a tattoo to prove it). She introduced me to a whole new way of storytelling, both generally and within the graphic novel format. Her attitude is my everything. #favegraphicnovels #booktober

Betty Tell me more about your tattoo 7y
LindsayReads @Betty I have a near-sighted monkey from her newer books on the creative process. 🐵🐵 7y
27 likes1 stack add2 comments
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Kosugi
One Hundred Demons | Lynda Barry
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After struggling through my last book, I've decided to go a little "lighter". I dug Barry's "Cruddy" but haven't read any of her cartoon books before. Klosterman usually fills my need for snarky, pop culture laden essays.

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Boomerv
One Hundred Demons | Lynda Barry
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This book makes me want to sit down with a pen and my journal and do some memory recall. I can feel the healing powers of art and self-reflection as I flip through this amazing book.

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