Teodora’s Book Reviews: “Be Prepared” by Vera Brosgol (First Second Books, 2018)

Summer camps may easily be gold mines of bizarre and humorous events, as literary / cinematic pieces have demonstrated time and again. Vera Brosgol’s graphic novel Be Prepared (2018) announces the same atmosphere, which is most certainly eccentric, almost chaotic (despite the rules that are never absent within camps) – and yet, the book manages to stand out due to the author’s cultural angle. What the readers receive is the unfiltered perspective of a nine-year-old Vera (since the featured recollections are inspired from Brosgol’s real-life childhood), who has moved from Russia to America at the age of five and struggles to fit not just in American sisterhoods, but also in a taxing Russian summer camp. The fact that Brosgol draws significant inspiration from her own experiences as a young immigrant and camper gives the plot a particular charm which cannot be reproduced that simply. There’s a curious mixture of absurdity and solemnity throughout young Vera’s accounts, all engulfed by the incentive expressed as “Be Prepared” (which turns out to be the camp’s mantra, as well) – but inevitably, a question arises: what is Vera supposed to be prepared for?

The introductory part of the story features our protagonist attending birthday parties hosted by American friends, celebrations that cannot be complete without expensive toys, gift bags for guests, stuffed-crust pizzas and elaborate Carvel ice-cream cakes. Vera clumsily participates in playtime sessions and sleepovers,

and learns that a personal drawing as a birthday gift does not qualify as a top-tier present.

When her birthday is around the corner, she believes she “[has] the recipe down” (Brosgol 5), only to discover that, with her mother’s contribution, her party cannot help but come forth as a totally distinct event for her American friends, dredged with Russian touches (a Medovik tort or kvass as a predominant beverage) and devoid of anything that is normally deemed as lavish.

It is an anticipated picture of a foreign child, coming from a poor background and having divorced parents, unable to keep up with the local standards or even have their culture understood by the locals. The clash of American and Russian views prompt Vera to sign up for an ORRA (Organization of Russian Razvedchiki in America) summer camp, where she envisages making friends just like her and no longer feeling “all weird and different” (41). The build-up until the camp is crucial, for we witness a confident Vera, once again preparing everything down to the last detail, in advance, unaware that the external Russian – American collision of outlooks is about to develop into an internal conflict. The “transition” occurs in a brief but pivotal manner, with the girl casually claiming “It really felt like entering another country.” (43), upon reaching the campsite, coming across as “a little pocket of Russia, a familiar place in a strange land” (31), besides other retreats for immigrants across the United States (for instance, Russian Orthodox churches).

The most striking revelation for Vera is that she is neither fully Russian, nor fully American, feeling misplaced in what was supposed to be “her community”, among her “kin”. In an article entitled “A Socio-Biological Perspective” (exploring nationalism), sociologist Pierre van den Berghe proposes the notion that cultural clues, such as language, or “the most trivial differences of accent, dialect, vocabulary […] could be used far more reliably to assess biological relatedness or unrelatedness than any physical phenotype” (van den Berghe 101). Vera goes against one such belief in an amusing but similarly disheartening case, when she notices that the children at the camp have “bad teeth like [her] and [her brother] Phil”, allowing her to blend in (Brosgol 96) and ultimately feel “at home”. Contrary to van den Berghe’s idea, walls are built up precisely when minor cultural dissimilarities emerge, in fact; Vera realizes that, in Russian, she has “the reading skills of a five-year-old” (despite her understanding the language), but her camp mates are convinced she is faking everything, given that “[her] accent is fine” (84).

The distance between the protagonist and the other children grows the more Vera comes to terms with the fact that her migration to America has mostly alienated her from Russian traditions, hence her accentuated inner turmoil. Split between two cultures, she finds herself in a camp where speaking only in Russian and attending weekly church services are mandatory, and singing sessions equally include traditional Russian songs and the tunes of American songs.

What helps Vera build resilience is her mature acknowledgement that “Russians are bred for suffering”, according to her history classes (141-143). Our character fascinatingly places her own version of suffering in a larger context, related to her heritage, all occurring within a process discussed by anthropologist Michael D. Jackson in an article called “Myths / Histories / Lives”. He refers to the “transformation of particular subjective experience into a universalized and transsubjective category [which] enables one to grasp and control a situation one experienced first in solitude and powerlessness” (Jackson 140).

In Jackson’s view, “it is easier to act as one of many who have been victims of a historical wrong than it is to act as the isolated and sole victim of a personal slight” (140); it helps to believe that one’s personal suffering is and has been shared by others – and this is illustrated by Vera, who admits that “it felt strangely good to see someone else suffer a little” during her time at the camp (Brosgol 153). It is important to mention that the girl’s association of her seemingly trivial hardships with tribulations in Russian history does not minimize the latter. What we are rather exposed to, as readers, is Vera’s compelling survival mechanism during a one-month camp, wherein she alternately tackles the effects of age gaps, gender differences and positions of power.

Vera Brosgol’s Be Prepared never employs a didactic tone, in the end, which is a refreshing approach. One of the graphic novel’s biggest (and most defining) merits is its realistic take on how a child processes an inconvenient period of time and immediately rejoices once the momentary burden is lifted. Nevertheless, the secluded summer camp (simulating life’s trials) provides Vera with the opportunity to feel both inferior and superior, both taken aback and strong in certain groups, to explore her Russian-American identity and to comprehend (at least in preliminary terms) that, most frequently, homogeneity tends to go beyond cultural barriers and can actually reach the realm of core emotions, feared, cherished and exhibited universally the same.