Dora: A Headcase

This is extraordinary and beautiful. I can see how it may not be everyone's cup of tea -- kind of the same reason why, say, Virginia Woolf is not everyone's cup of tea. There are writers who are utterly and unflinchingly original. This is nothing if not unflinching. It doesn't hold anything back. It says what it has to say and it doesn't mince words.First of all, a suggestion: read Freud's /Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria/. Your reading of this book will be all the richer and fuller.Also: don't listen to Chuck Palahniuk. You cannot possibly compare this book to a boybook. There is a quantum leap in operation that prevents comparison. This is a girlbook (NOT a girlybook) through and through. Also, honestly, i wouldn't know what book to compare it to. It's its own very lovely, very shocking book.Lidia Yuknavitch has clearly studied the heck out of Freud's most famous case study. Two of Freud's major faults in his treatment of Dora are a. silly interpretative moves and b. not believing Dora. Yuknavitch tackles those faults head on. She leaves all the interpretations intact (all Freud's quotes are from the Analysis) and puts them in front of a very sad but extremely spunky, tough, and angry 16 year old (am i getting the age right?). The circumstances of Ida/Dora's life are pretty much the same in the two works, with full update to the 21st century in Y's rendition: super sad mother who's given up on life and daughter, super self-involved father engaged in unsavory affair, shocking turn of events in which the father basically sells the daughter to his lover's husband in order to keep things quietly humming along.This whole drama, in Freud's analysis and in Yuknavitch's rendition, is reproduced on Dora's body. Dora has problems with her voice, which comes and goes at will. In a great line (in Y's book) Dora says, "My silence? It's what kept the house in order." And here let me say that I love the way Y deals with the silencing of girls who know and feel "too much." Yes, Dora loses her voice (then gets it again, then loses it again, etc.), but she doesn't go down. She fights back by incessantly recording other people's voices with a super duper digital recorder, and by creating films in which the voices of others (stupid voices, ordinary voices, regular city noise, etc.) form the soundtrack. When she does have her voice, Dora is the most mouthy, offensive, obscene teenager you've ever met. This has shocked some readers, especially given the fact that the book is written in Dora's voice so the offensiveness is not only between quotes but also in the narrative.But that's how Dora speaks. That's how dora gets mad. That's how dora fights the manipulation of adults and Freud's relentless attempts at subjugating her sexuality in the name of a sexist view of things in which penises are very powerful and attractive objects and vaginas are very meek and passive objects. Dora is not politically correct. Not even close. Dora is sixteen and hurt and angry.Dora also cuts herself. Her cuts are not just injury: they are writing. She writes a new body on her own body. She writes her voice on her body. She doesn't have much to make herself heard, at least to herself, and, whatever she has, she uses it to the max.Dora has a wonderful girlfriend whom she adores but with whom she can't make love, or even make out, because the terrible "transgression" of expressing a woman-on-woman, or simply a female sexuality causes her to pass out.In the meantime, Freud is not completely awful. After all, he's the only adult in authority who pays any attention at all (though Dora has a little posse of great, queer, allegedly “marginalized” friends who are family and salvation and home). So there are some nice moments between Dora and Sig, alongside some entirely cringe-making moments which you might or might not be able to endure.As someone who loves psychoanalysis i was happy to see that it wasn't entirely thrown under the bus. Freud (the real-life guy) really messed up with Dora, but psychoanalysts (some of them at least) have learned a thing or two between then and now, and they are some of the few mental health professionals who still listen, and pay attention, and hear you.Underneath all of Dora's spunk, or alongside it, there's a ton of pain: the pain of abandonment by her parents, the pain of denial of her sexuality, the pain of the utter silencing of her self. I have the impression one or two or a thousand girls and boys might find themselves in Dora and say, with her, “F&$# yeah!” Cuz kids nowadays, and perhaps always, need all the help they can get.Here's a really excellent word of advice, straight out of Dora's mouth, for every adult who finds him or herself in a position of helping kids, especially girl kids, and maybe girl non-kids too: "Um, brainbuster? Next time you work with a female? Ask her which city her body is. Or ocean. Give her poetry books written by women. Like Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton and H.D. and Adrienne Rich and Mary Oliver and Emily Dickinson. Let her draw or pain or sign a self before. You. Say. A. Word."Finally, i want to say that this book's language will bring tears of joy to your eyes. Also: it's really hilarious. Like, LOL hilarious. And heartbreaking. And still hilarious.

Taking Sigmund Freud’s patient Ida Breur aka “Dora” into the twenty-first century, she is given a modern twist as being a defiant seventeen year old who adopts the name ‘Dora’ because of the Dora the Explorer purse she always keeps her Zoom H4n in to record the world around her putting her own twist on things. Between Dora and her three comrades, Little Teena, Ave Maria, and Obsidian, they perform ‘art attacks’ to stir up the mundane of everyday life, live in the glory and pain of adolescence and in doing so, form a family that goes beyond blood.Lidia Yuknavitch’s story she gives Dora to tell is unlike anything I have ever read, mostly because this is not your typical coming-of-age story. Even if you are not, or were not, a teenager plunging into anarchy against your parents and the entire world, everything Dora says and describes makes sense. The bold and blunt context Dora uses to tell her story is fierce but with a passion to show the world that being a teenager is not ‘a phase’ that will go away with time and Yuknavitch, like Palahniuk, is not afraid to yell at society through their characters and tell everyone how everything really is.Part satire of psychology and all the fast-paced adventure of finding yourself you can handle, the only small issue with this novel is the pace. Yuknavitch moves very quickly and sometimes you may have to catch your breath and re-read some parts to keep up, but if you are quick on your feet and can keep going without hesitation, you are in for a wild ride.There are not enough words to describe how extraordinary and important this book is in today’s world, but author Vanessa Vesselka has made an interesting observation that shows how important Dora: A Headcase is. She says, “In twenty years, I hope to wake up in a world where Dora: A Headcase has replaced Catcher in the Rye on high school reading lists for the alienated.” Believe me, I hope I wake up to this world one day as well, because this novel could serve to be one of the most important pieces of literature anyone will ever read, especially teenagers. Some teachers may think that this book is advocating teenage rebellion (which it is not), but the significance is there. Through Dora: A Headcase, Yuknavitch brilliantly shows how love goes beyond words, self-expression goes beyond art, and if the world is not ready for you, tell them to make room because you’re coming anyway.

Dora: The Headcase is the Clockwork Orange of 2013, with the visual aesthetics of Japanese manga and Korean pop-music videos. Fiercely modern, the novel screams avant garde, yet has the timelessness of classics. I put my copy on the shelf with Kurt Vonnegut's Catch 22, Orwell's 1984 and Zamyatin's We.America. Now. The posse of misfits fights the establishment. Brutal, cerebral, violent, Yuknavitch's anti-heroes laugh at the male-dominated world: its history, traditions and laws. Laughing is hardly enough. Art attacks follow at a breathtaking speed. Not enough. Lovelorn, hateful, desperate, Dora literally--and symbolically--sets the world of her parents on fire.Fathers and Sons? Well, not exactly. The central metaphor of the novel: a penis--of Gargantuan proportion--throbbing in the familiar funeral frame of a Youtube video. The male protagonist: Dr. Freud. Fathers, yes. But not sons. Meet the Daughters of Lilith.Provocative, ruthless, vivid, and lyrical, this novel IS an art attack. It delivers a shock. It exposes absurdity. It leaves the reader gasping for air, asking, "Why?" Much needed. I salute this novel and look forward to more books from Yuknavitch.

Hilariously funny at times. Lovingly intimate connecting relationships sensitively scribed. Adolescent rebellious independence at its best narrated with a climax that I can only describe as beautiful

Another grest release from Lidia. It was even better than anticipated.Definitely one of My favourite writers.I highly recommend her 2011 release The chronology of water one my all time favourites.I you like Lidias previous works then I recommend this one as her usual quirks are here.Cannot wait for her next release!

You never really know what to expect when a book received a lot of praise and you're about to read it. Is it good promotion?I read Dora: a headcase and I would definitely recommend it for its unique style.Dora is what could be nicknamed a "troubled teenager". She's rebellious and a spirit of its own kind. And yet, this is not a depressive story about the impossibility to manage her. On the contrary it's a story about how she sees the world and it's quite funny.

Amazing!

Unnecessarily vulgar and very disappointing