French Milk

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French Milk was created when she was still figuring out who she was as an artist, and the work is much less sure of itself in comparison to her later illustrations. I hope to goodness she's done a better job of it this time and has gained a little more self-awareness in the years since French Milk was created. It's not as easy as it looks, and it's not about a 20-something girl who was moaning the whole way through.

What I found instead was a collection of drawings and photos of what Knisley ate and bought while living in Paris for 6 weeks with her mother. For all her posturing about Oscar Wilde being a huge inspiration, she doesn't really talk about why she admires him so much (she also misquotes Wilde's last words). I tried to refrain myself from reading the book in one sitting, as I knew that I would want more and more of it. The food was probably the most interesting part, mostly because it was all kinds of disgusting (nothing but foie gras and oyster). She likes books, sewing, bicycles, food you can eat with a spoon, manatees, nice pens, costumes, baking and Oscar Wilde.I really liked the travelogue elements of this graphic novel, where the author visits art galleries and fairs.

While I understand that this is a tumultuous time period in people’s lives (being that I am only in my late twenties), it is often hard to feel sympathy for Knisley because she just doesn’t seem to realise just how many great things are happening in her life. For more than a month, they toured the City of Lights from their fifth arrondissement flat, exploring museums and cafes, taking photographs, eating pastries and drinking French milk, which Knisley says is sweeter than its American counterpart; she compares it with the “influence we take in from our mothers.

and then like a page later she talks about how americans are all fat and ugly and how that's a culture shock for her. That’s an awful lot of long-life liquid, especially when considering that France is Europe’s second largest producer of milk after Germany (French cows produce a whopping 780 litres of milk every second). I remember one sentence where Lucy says, and here I'll paraphrase, "Isn't it super weird that I feel like an independent adult when I'm alone but when I'm with my ma I regress and become akin to a wee infant? lucy is a better artist than i am, so i'm not going to cast too many stones here, but considering that this was a fully-illustrated diary documenting a trip to one of the most visually sumptuous cities in the world. This is not true of French Milk which is largely focused on Knisley’s personal fears of inadequacy and change.