Slackjaw by Jim Knipfel

"What I thought would be a story about one man's slow descent into blindness and how he adapted, turned out to be more of a story about his life, the poor decisions he made, the relationships he ruined and the abject misery that he struggled with, the blindness was more of an aside. I appreciated Knipfel's sardonic wit but his stubbornness and pride left him in a lot of unfortunate situations. He was a frustrating person to read about."

2 Stars

Pros: Knipfel's sardonic voice brings some levity to an otherwise tragic situation/I like that he was contrary from a young age, though at the same time, he made a lot of bad decisions that didn't help his situation any.

Cons: This book turned out to be more of a timeline of how Knipfel's poor decisions impacted his life, while he slowly went blind. The blindness felt like more of an afterthought/Knipfel's struggles with major depression and alcoholism were profound but he didn't really seem to want to get help with any of it, so, it's horrible to say but, a lot of the time when he would stumble into a catastrophic setback, it was of his own doing.

Full Review

From an early age, Jim Knipfel knew his eyes were bad. He just didn't know quite how bad they were. Or that by the time he was thirty, he would essentially be completely blind. He struggled from a very early age with depression and as he got older, alcoholism, which a lot of the times ended up with him in the hospital. Blackouts would lead to collapsing in the streets, seizures, bashing his head open on the sidewalk and going missing for three days, multiple suicide attempts. After awhile you would hope he'd put two and two together but he never seemed to manage to do so.

It took him a long time to even listen to his doctors and finally get a cane so he could move around more easily. It wasn't until the end of the book, after a life time of accidents, hospitalizations and overall, abject misery, that he finally did buy and learn how to use a cane. And it was with that realization, that wow, this cane makes things a lot easier, did he seem to start to realize that maybe, listening to the doctors, wasn't a bad idea.

There were points where I liked Knipfel's scathing wit but there were also times where he would find himself in bad situations and I just didn't feel sympathetic because, a lot of the time, they were situations of his own making. He wouldn't listen. He wouldn't accept help. He was too proud and too stubborn and he ended up pushing a lot of people away. I understand wanting to be independent but at the same time, it's not a weakness to ask and accept help sometimes.

Comments

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