I am responding to Hyejeong Lim's former blog post:
I was very surprised by the passage on p.19 where she says "We were not a physically expressive family, to say the least. But once I was unacoountably moved to kiss my father good night. Having little practice with the gesture, all I managed was to grab his hand and buss the knuckles lightly as if he were a bishop or an elegant lady, before rushing from the room in embarrassment". I really can not imagine the moment good night kiss to family would be embarrassed and could see the distance of her and father. In here, she refers to him as bishop or an elegant lady. And there are many other passages that show the distance between father and daughther for example in the front, she also says "Dad considered us extentions of his body, like precision robot arms". I don't see any connection in family but it's like they are living with someone they barely know. Growing under cold-hearted father and awkard atomosphere in the house must have impacted on the children a lot.
In the second half of the memoir, I feel more closeness between Alison and her father is reveled once Alison becomes older and is away at college. I feel they share more intimate moments, where they begin to relate to each other on a more intellectual level through literature and letters. I also felt a deep connection between the two of them when they were in the car on the way to the movie and they start discussing their sexuality and the father tells Alison that when he was younger he wanted to be a girl, she also confesses she wanted to be a boy. I don't so much see this connection through what they are saying as much as I do compared to the pictures accompanying them but nonetheless, its there. However, the problem with all of these moments I have described is that they are simply bland intimate moments that last for seconds. I feel as though Alison and her father are consistently trying to relate to one another and share a close relationship but that they can never fully get there. The fact that they never seem to have that incredible bond that lasts really saddens me. However, I do feel that it is these brief moments that become more frequent towards the end of the memoir that makes their relationship intriguing, they always left me wondering if they would ever break through their barrier.
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I agree that the father-daughter relationship did seem to take a turn and it was a turn for the better. I wonder if the first half of the book was Alison's way of coping with her fahter and her childhood. We get such negative images of her father and it makes me wonder if this is a text expressing Alison's deepest emotions and built up anger. In the second half, I feel the relationship picks up because of the maturity level and the intellectual aspect as well. All along, the father was there for Alison. It might not have been the typical father figure, but he was there and cared in his own unique way. I think they had broken the barrier in the car ride by the way they were almost confessing to one another.
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