Why do I keep checking out books by Heidi Julavits?
02 March 2016
I have never been a Heidi Julavits fan, starting with her infamous essay when she started The Believer literary magazine, about how they wouldn't be engaging in snark. That essay made me want to be snarkier than ever. And it's so long. It's just so very long.
But, as previously noted, I am a sucker for diaries. So when I saw she had published a new book called The Folded Clock: A Diary, I thought, oh well, I'll check it out. And here's what I got:
"Today my friend is arriving from London to help me pack. I am in Italy, I have been in Italy for a month, working at an art colony, and together she and I are going to a different part of Italy (also work). I am often anxious about traveling alone, so she has been requested to keep me company and prevent me, in theory, from being anxious. What I forget is that she often makes me anxious when I am with her. She has a hunger for adventure so extreme that my usual hunger for adventure becomes, due to reactionary prudence, squelched." (p. 73.)
Getting to work in Italy? Having friends who can come "help you travel"? Hunger for adventure? Clearly this woman and I have nothing in common.* I will not be finishing this book.
*Mr. CR's opinion? "That diary book you've got in the bathroom is brutal."