Alphabetical Diaries, Sheila Heti, 2024
(Posted here is a shorter than normal review from my Goodreads because I want to use the space to play with my favorites of Heti’s confessional statements as experimental writing prompts. Alphabetical Diaries is, I’m sure for many as much as for me, one big opportunity for reflection).
Alphabetical Diaries!!
She says something at some point about her desire to transcend, to break rules of time and space, which is exactly what this book (memoir?essays?list of statements?) seeks to do (and does!). Statement after statement, in alphabetical order (alphabetical chronology), we are given the full mind of the artist – full with compulsive thoughts, heavy with imposter syndrome, intrusive negative self-talk, self-aware vanity, you know, all the artist things – without the bounds of time.
She indicates she’s somewhere in her early 30s, then later there’s something about 27. She references being at a residence, and also living with her boyfriend, and at another point, her other boyfriend, also at her parent’s house, also by herself. In one sentence it’s about to be fall, and in the next July is right around the corner. It’s really incredible, the amalgamation of time, specifically in how she experiences love and relationships (which is definitely the majority of the content) overlapping one another, accurately representing how thoughts and feelings stack upon themselves and float in a warped sorta spherical space that feels as if you’re going backward and forward.
Tonight I had a goal of reading 70 pages before midnight and it felt like so little, and once I had about 20 left, it felt like I had hours to go, and then I became anxious and the noises outside my door became itchy and I was wondering where the anger was coming from, and then I sorta laughed a little because that is exactly what the book is doing – expressing the anxiety of art and time and wondering if you’re adequate enough and feeling like you’re falling behind and becoming overwhelmed with everything at once, even things that don’t directly connect and that you definitely don’t need to fixate on.
This could be called diary of incredible artist with imposter syndrome who is highly critical of others yet desperate for romantic connection, and is determined to self-sabotage as well as break the pattern of her thoughts that will determine her self-sabotage.
No negative notes here! This is on a short list of books I would actually recommend!! Objectively a rewarding read. And I hear she writes NOVELS too?!
Her Quotes & Mine
A man who could physically kill me in under a minute is a man who is easy to sleep beside (p. 6).
A man who doesn’t know woman’s fear, but he’s researched it, maybe he’s seen it. A man who isn’t part of patriarchy. A man who didn’t catch the moment – we wrestled, we were playing, we really were playing. He was angry and I could feel it, some unconscious force. A man breathing on my back, I have my head in a pillow.
A radical sympathy with all people based on their integrity as becomings, not beings; as people who experience the potential freedom of their own souls, so to radically know that people experience themselves from the inside, and not one person alive has ever experienced themselves from the outside (p. 7).
A radical calling to allow yourself grace. A radical forgiveness, you were really just twelve. A radical change from first person to third. A radical wonder, why was that so? A radical homework, ceaseless and tall.
A tendency to idealize the past – that’s me (p. 7).
A tendency to believe you’re the total of what you’ve felt. A tendency to believe in stitches – grip hard, seal your skin over it, let it indent first and then the flood, bleed slow and then at once, buy a bandaid and a greeting card, you’ll feel better later, that’s what they’re there for.
Because I had love until this weekend, I didn’t think money was important (p. 21).
Because I’ve only just figured out money doesn’t matter to me, not totally. Because I prefer to pay the dinner check. Because I don’t want people to have done me favors. Because I don’t believe I’m valued. Because I really want to be, want to be shown I’m valued, want to be worth being valued, want to be worth the dinner check. Because, anyway, it’s romantic to choose no money if with its lack comes love. Because if money is reward, love is a bigger one. Because I’ve said all this, I must also say sometimes love isn’t a choice, and in that case, hey, there’s always money.
..don’t try to gain attention from the world the way you did in the seventh grade, when the teachers asked everyone if the older kids gave us alcohol at the cast party, and you lied and said yes (p. 31).
Don’t let them disregard your need for attention. Don’t forget, don’t you ever forget, you deserved it, twelve, you deserved attention.
Fiction and nonfiction together, because the imagination is more amazing than anything in life, and life is more amazing than anything you can make up (p. 45).
Fiction and nonfiction together – you were afraid, and I was too; the downfall was subconscious.
Great literature: the only thing on earth that doesn’t scare me. Greener pastures, read every day, Grow my brain and my knowledge. Grow out bangs. Grow up (p. 52).
Grow up. Grow up. Grow into that person you are, that itch under your skin, dirty skin, dirty skin, redundant skin, these bodies, be rid of these bodies, they can only ever see the change in bodies. Grow inside out. Grow shorter, if that’s what it takes.
Had a dream the night before I bought this new bed that the reason I was short and had stayed short was because I was still sleeping in my childhood bed (p. 53).
Had a dream I was somewhere at a dinner party. Had a dream my coworkers didn’t want me back. Had a dream he told me he’d stay – there it is again, the degrading obligation of men. Had a dream they asked for a threesum, but then he took me on his own. Had a dream I was alienated at the head of that dinner party, that’s all I remember of it, my dinner, my family, my alienation.
Had a notion this is symbolism – I feel small because I sleep in the bed I shed blood in.
Had a connection to my rabbit: they said buy the bigger cage so she wouldn’t stay so small.
I apologized to him, and now there is just the rest of my life (p. 70)
I let him believe that of me, and now there’s someone out there, believing that of me.
I once said to someone, I know who I’m in a relationship with because that’s the person I’m thinking of breaking up with (p.81).
I once said to someone that’s a loaded question – I was proud of it, somehow. Somehow it stuck. I once said to someone I don’t want to share this with you, it’s been mine for so long – he had asked how I was feeling, and I felt my ownership in its unequivocal measure.
I once said is that really it? whispered across a parking lot, a lot of black space, I didn’t mean to, I really didn’t mean to, but it was right there, burning on my tongue like the hot soup his father likes, and he laughed a little, he was nervous, he said yes, he drove away.
I wish I could think about other things – God, spirituality – but I am suffering by Lars, so I am thinking about Lars (p. 93).
I wish I read that book he leant me.
Kneeling in the pew at church, I start my prayers “I wish.” I told this to my sister, told her it would do double, was very sure it would.
I said make a wish, and he kissed me on the cheek, naturally, and then he processed it, why a scene would be directed in that way, and he had me know he didn’t wish a thing. Empty, sad – he didn’t wish a thing.
I wonder if he and I will argue for two or three more years, and then there will be something good (p. 93).
I wonder if this is just the means to the end – I wrote that somewhere, the means to the end. The overdose would be the means, the sobriety would be the end.
If I went back to him now, I would be stifled, I know I would, and I would still be in the same place, and I would make the same decisions, and I’d break up with him again (p. 96).
If I went back to him now, I’d be better. I’d be better, God, it’s so easy to believe I’d be better.
If you cannot love the ugliness that comes from within you, then you cannot make art (p. 97).
If you cannot love.
If you cannot love the time you screamed “I don’t want your help!” Her mouth fell downward, she looked at the stairs, she walked to her bedroom, and that’s where she stayed.
If you cannot love the question, so simply stated, right from the severance, does that ever make art worth it?
It is a question of metabolism, writing, of being able to sit in one place (p. 101).
Metabolism. It is all a question of metabolism.
It is not that a relationship with him is wrong, it is that this relationship with him is wrong (p. 102).
This one – I was formidable and then I let him reach me, forgetting he was interested in only the formidable.
This one – the writer talks too much, a lot of it is fluff.
This one – being human, being measured like his food, am I healthy enough, am I bright?
This one – he told me early on that he liked my question, that his blind spot was object permanence, and then we were apart for a while, and I became something else to him, something not in the forefront, something quite impermanent.
This one – I would not be open in that way, not in the way he wanted.
It was true that when I woke the next morning, it wasn’t as though the thought of him was in my head, but rather that my head was in the thought of him; the thought of him was bigger than my head (p. 106).
It was truly a cloud, they make cartoons of this sort of thing, a head in the clouds, Mufasa, you’ve been up there too long, your head is in the clouds. We rewinded it again, my little sister and me. Chocolate milk in orange sippy cups. Even dad laughed.
It’s okay to describe the little pleasures of modern life, like the nice thing about a sandwich (p. 108).
The quick walk to the car at 8 in the morning. It’s windy and there’s dew on the grass, but the sun is high in the east and you crossed your lawn to walk to the bus stop for all of grade school, and you remember it keenly, so here, for this moment, that’s where you’re going.
Oh, how beautiful he looks playing Scrabble! (p. 137).
Oh, how the rain pelted the glass room, how we sat foggy inside, there was humidity and there was smoke, and there was a generous lacing of the air with his breath. We played like it mattered, but I think it was pretend: he kept sipping from his cup, the brittle blood of Christ. He stood and said shit, then he sat back down. He was higher than I’d seen him, it was hard for me to look. And he won that game of scrabble – 10 whole points in the small word sex. When later he remembered it, he recalled only that I smoked, the piece that mattered most.
People sure are very awkward and vulnerable when they are falling in love with you (p. 147).
People sure are inquisitive at first, curious, aroused by the concept of very dark thoughts. People sure belittle you – they believe you are their own conception, they don’t believe you. And then your darkness is no longer a thing they will be gentle with, it’s a thing they want to squash, but then they realize they’re not big enough to, and sometimes I think that’s it, you know, that I’m imperturbable, won’t ever compromise on sadness. It makes people think they’ve failed, think they can’t ever fall in love with me, think I won’t ever allow it.
People sure are what they miss about their pasts when they’re falling in love with you, and then they discover you aren’t their past, and then they make you that.
People sure are falling in love with you.
The more I enjoy music, the more I want sex (p. 170).
The more I meet him in the back room. The more I distance myself. The more I make him angry. The more I become angry. The more I think of fairy tales. The more I write. The more I practice stamina. The more I starve. The more I keep on going, keep on going, another chapter, another shift, another book, another edit, another run, another walk, another, another, another. The more I remember that word resilience. The more I watch myself a movie, cuddled into blankets, imagining, reminiscing, two of the same.
Then I went home in a cab, and I felt that this travelling and touring were not good for me, because it put me around people who were admiring of me, which felt corrupting or bad (p. 176).
Then I went home as the sun was rising. Then I sat in the parking lot, I really shook my head. Then I stayed on the staircase, wrapped in a thrifted scarf.
Thinking about lovers is a form of vanity, another form of thinking about oneself (p. 183).
There was a nice moment today, I must admit. I was older by some years, he was mostly the same. It was all very serious, but then I made a suggestion, lowly, rhetorically, while about to leave the room, and after some seconds he suggested something different. He was smiling at the screen. I hadn’t noticed he’d been thinking, had been building on my thought. I was jarred by this, not often that I’m heard, not often that I’m given an extension of time, see this is what I mean, this is why I’m sorry. And then I built off that, I made a joke, it was meant to be witty but not very funny, and he laughed. He tried to say something more, but laughed too hard, and there we were, me holding the door handle, him bobbing the chair. He was gentle. He laughed out a bye danielle, somehow important, so he wouldn’t miss it.
This is just my heart. This is not helpful, writing like this (p. 184).
This is just my heart. This is not wrong, to be full of my own heart. This is just my heart. This is not sweetness, I’m not sure it’s kindness, this is just my heart. This is just my heart. This is not stamina, this is not fair. This is just my heart. This is not to be ashamed of, and I won’t be again. This is just my heart. I should never have been sorry for having the better heart. I have the better heart. You know I have the better heart.
Vig felt I was not giving him what he needed, asked for, the space he needs to decompress, be by himself, without me trying to connect with him (p. 192).
Vig felt I was not fun enough, not mysterious enough, not daring enough, not sexy enough, not risky enough, not good enough. Actually, I guess I’m not sure what Vic felt, I guess I never asked.
I have my head in a pillow. Without me trying to connect with him. Without me trying to connect with him. What a burden that was, god forbid I reciprocate, god forbid I consent.
We turned into particles and fell to the beach as particles, sparkling (p. 200).
We turned into rain water, we were naked, I was lumped in your lap as if in utero, you’re a man but you were my mother, and I was fooled by the sound of the shower into thinking we were cleansing.
You are finding this gradual evolution and changing the most interesting thing about life, and where life truly lies, to see that there is forgiveness and things continue through time, and that there is strength in bonds which persist through so much, and when one thinks that one’s relationships have completely been shattered, often they turn out unshattered and still to strongly exist. You are fine. You are just sitting here. You are not an example to anyone. (p.209).
You are not an example to anyone. Just play it by ear. You are just sitting here, eating dinner. You are fine, you are going to continue through time. The relationships don’t need to strongly exist, but yes, there is strength in bonds, you’ve lost some, just some, just one or two. To see that there is forgiveness, to see it where? And where life truly lies, it is comfortable, it is warm. You are finding this gradual evolution back to who I was. I liked her, there, alone, an artist, unjudged.
