Word: raina
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Anoushka Shankar Rise With a Grammy nomination in 2003, sitar prodigy Anoushka Shankar, daughter of Ravi, has already made her mark on Indian classical music. For her fourth album, Shankar has allowed Midival Punditz's Gaurav Raina, acting as producer, to jettison the traditional sound of her earlier work in favor of something altogether less orthodox, just as her father teamed up with Beatle George Harrison a generation ago. The album's anchor remains Shankar's dreamy sitar, but it also draws on electronica, jazz, rock, and African rhythms. Best track: the mesmerizing...
...falling in love feels like. The narrator, Craig Thompson, grows up in rural Wisconsin in a devout Christian family. Craig's childhood is one long bout of fear--of bullies, hell, the baby-sitter who molests him and his little brother--until, at a Christian winter camp, Craig meets Raina, a doe-eyed outsider from a troubled family...
Blankets' charm and strength are that, like a love-sick teenager, the book is not embarrassed to be earnest about either Craig and Raina's romance or their religion (in one panel, hormone-drunk Craig sees Raina as a vision from Song of Solomon). As their affair gets complicated, so does the novel, becoming a bittersweet meditation on family, faith, loss and memory...
...when demons shoot out of Craig's mouth during a purging of his childhood drawings. The layouts carry through this playful variety with every conceivable kind of design. The comforting hum of a basement boiler wraps around a room and hugs it with warmth. Later when Craig departs from Raina, in a typically poignant image, the car he's in plummets off the edge of the world...
...remaining third of the book follows the denouement of Craig and Raina's relationship. Even before he departs Craig senses Raina distancing herself. As the springtime thaws the blanket of snow, Craig struggles to find himself. He must figure out how to deal with the loss of Raina. He must decide what to do with himself after high school. And both of these are tied into his reconciling the Christian doctrine he was raised on with the realities of his experiences and interests. Unlike less thoughtful depictions of such choices, the answers are not patently obvious. Thompson has carefully...