Alphabetical Diaries

 
 
Alphabetical Diaries

by Sheila Heti

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

2024

 

 

The basis of Shelia Heti's Alphabetical Diaries is a real diary she kept for about a decade. But that original document was doubly transformed. First by a Dada-like game of putting every sentence in alphabetical, rather than chronological order. And then by curating and editing, until however long 10 years of diary entries is has been chopped down to a slim 200-page volume. It reads a bit like poetry. Both because it consists of only Heti's favorite sentences. And because it's so utterly unlike any traditional narrative, because the sentences arrive in a succession whose logic is utterly divorced from time order.
 
There's a book about writing I like, Artful Sentences by Virginia Tufte, where she picked out hundreds of well-written sentences from literature to use as examples. Heti's book is a little like that, too, except without any meta-commentary on her choices. Without any instructional purpose.
 
What emerges from Alphabetical Diaries is a very attenuated, highly asynchronous look at the life of Shelia Heti. I sort of presume that her selections hit the high points, and cover the most important events of her life during this time, and not just the ones that sound best. But I don't really know that for sure.
 
She writes a lot about two tumultuous, on-again off-again relationships she had with men, Lars and Pavel, both of whom she seems to have been unable to either make it work or decisively break up with. I don't know if those are pseudonyms. She also has a couple other boyfriends, and I think at least one girlfriend. Or maybe just fling with a woman. When she writes about sex, she's very frank. In a way I'd probably find embarrassing if I knew her, but that I find admirable in a writer. She talks about occasions that were very nice, and a few that seem to have troubled her. She repeatedly mentions one time (or more?) when she was tied up, which seems like it was both. In Stephen Moore's histories of the novel as an artform, in his summaries of various books, he always talks about the treatment of sex, as though that's one of the key markers of literary merit. I feel like I'm doing that here too. But it's obviously important to Heti (and to a lot of people, especially in their late 20s and early 30s) so it makes sense that it's an important part of the book.
 
Heti writes about her writing. About having trouble finishing a book, about the books she wants to write. She writes about what sort of author she wants to be. What kind of person. How she wants to live. She writes about a man named Lemons who is either her publisher or editor or agent. She writes declarative sentences. Instructions to herself. She writes about money troubles. She writes a lot of sentence fragments. A noun phrase. A different noun phrase. A particularly evocative or surprising noun phrase. That stand alone here with no context. And then she writes longer sentences, the kind I often like myself, that pile clause on top of clause, and that can hold a whole little narrative within it, with a setup and conclusion all there together, still in the same sentence, which is practically the only way you can get a complete anecdote in a book like this.
 
Chapter I is the longest, more than twice the length of any other. Which isn't surprising, really. It'd be longer, but Heti often forgoes the starting pronoun in sentences where she's the subject. So she'll say something like, 'went to the beach,' instead of 'I went to the beach.' Which is how a lot of people write their diaries, I think. A is second longest, I think, and the T chapter is probably third.
 
I really enjoyed this one. I know I'm kind of a sucker for a good gimmick. But this is a really good gimmick! A good idea, executed well. I also kept thinking, as I read it, how very normal Heti's life sounded from the outside. Even as she kept worrying that she was doing something wrong. I worry about that myself, all the time. And it made me wonder how my life looks from the outside. If it looks normal too?

 

 

A different noun phrase. A good idea, executed well. A is second longest, I think, and the T chapter is probably third. A noun phrase. A particularly evocative or surprising noun phrase. About having trouble finishing a book, about the books she wants to write. And because it's so utterly unlike any traditional narrative, because the sentences arrive in a succession whose logic is utterly divorced from time order. And it made me wonder how my life looks from the outside. And then by curating and editing, until however long 10 years of diary entries is has been chopped down to a slim 200-page volume. And then she writes longer sentences, the kind I often like myself, that pile clause on top of clause, and that can hold a whole little narrative within it, with a setup and conclusion all there together, still in the same sentence, which is practically the only way you can get a complete anecdote in a book like this.

 

Both because it consists of only Heti's favorite sentences. But I don't really know that for sure. But it's obviously important to Heti (and to a lot of people, especially in their late 20s and early 30s) so it makes sense that it's an important part of the book. But that original document was doubly transformed. But this is a really good gimmick!

 

Chapter I is the longest, more than twice the length of any other. 

 

Even as she kept worrying that she was doing something wrong. 

 

First by a Dada-like game of putting every sentence in alphabetical, rather than chronological order. 

 
Heti writes about her writing. Heti's book is a little like that, too, except without any meta-commentary on her choices. How she wants to live. 

 

I also kept thinking, as I read it, how very normal Heti's life sounded from the outside. I don't know if those are pseudonyms. I feel like I'm doing that here too. I know I'm kind of a sucker for a good gimmick. I really enjoyed this one. I sort of presume that her selections hit the high points, and cover the most important events of her life during this time, and not just the ones that sound best. I worry about that myself, all the time. If it looks normal too? In a way I'd probably find embarrassing if I knew her, but that I find admirable in a writer. In Stephen Moore's histories of the novel as an artform, in his summaries of various books, he always talks about the treatment of sex, as though that's one of the key markers of literary merit. Instructions to herself. It reads a bit like poetry. It'd be longer, but Heti often forgoes the starting pronoun in sentences where she's the subject. 

 

Or maybe just fling with a woman. 

 

She also has a couple other boyfriends, and I think at least one girlfriend. She repeatedly mentions one time (or more?) when she was tied up, which seems like it was both. She talks about occasions that were very nice, and a few that seem to have troubled her. She writes a lot about two tumultuous, on-again off-again relationships she had with men, Lars and Pavel, both of whom she seems to have been unable to either make it work or decisively break up with. She writes a lot of sentence fragments. She writes about a man named Lemons who is either her publisher or editor or agent. She writes about money troubles. She writes about what sort of author she wants to be. She writes declarative sentences. So she'll say something like, 'went to the beach,' instead of 'I went to the beach.'

 

That stand alone here with no context. The basis of Shelia Heti's Alphabetical Diaries is a real diary she kept for about a decade. There's a book about writing I like, Artful Sentences by Virginia Tufte, where she picked out hundreds of well-written sentences from literature to use as examples. 

What emerges from Alphabetical Diaries is a very attenuated, highly asynchronous look at the life of Shelia Heti. What kind of person. When she writes about sex, she's very frank. Which is how a lot of people write their diaries, I think. Which isn't surprising, really. Without any instructional purpose.

Gretel and the Great War

 
 
Gretel and the Great War

by Adam Erlich Sachs

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

2024 

 

 

Gretel and the Great War is a mosaic novel, a series of tales that are halfway between chapters and short stories. The conceit is that a mute young woman was found wandering the streets of Vienna in 1919, in the aftermath of the war and the flu, that she was checked into an asylum, and that soon afterward, letters started arriving for her from a different asylum, letters from her father, telling her bedtime stories.
 
Each story tells the tale of a different person, identified only by their profession. There are 26 stories, each associated with a letter of the alphabet, which matches the name of the job, and each is written so that that letter or sound will show up much more than normal. At first, it doesn't seem like the stories have any connection, but soon the characters start to reappear and intersect. It becomes clear they're all part of the same social world, and the stories are being told in roughly chronological order. Almost every story involves someone getting sent to the Sanitarium of Dr Krakauer, where they presumably meet Gretel's father and relate their tale to him.
 
In true fairy tale fashion, the stories are dark but often funny, told in a manner that's playful and irreverent, but that also references any crude subject matter using polite terminology. Most of the stories involve adults caring for children - or rather, adults who have responsibility for children. They are often, in fact, quite un-caring, or else worse, they are too interested, in ways that seem sinister no matter how obliquely Gretel's father describes the nature of their interest. And as is so often the case with fairy tales, there's a moral here. The Vienna described in these tales is a sick society, where people hold outrageous, inflexible ideals, and are eager to commit acts of cruelty to achieve them. It's no wonder they go to war, and after the war, they seem even harsher and more cruel, xenophobic and antisemitic.

 
An architect aspires to design the simplest possible building facade, one that somehow traumatizes the viewer. A ballet choreographer invents a new dance step he claims is more natural than any other, and his wife dies trying to dance it. A choir master performs surgeries on the boys in his choir in his quest for the purest possible sound. He's inspired (rather than warned off) by a woman who tells him about the 'bad things' her own choir master father used to do to her and her brothers. A playwright demands such intense lighting for his play that it burns the theater down. A Serbian man wants revenge for feeling snubbed and disrespected by the ethnically German majority. Over and over people's obsessions cross paths with the theater, the concert hall, the Duke and Duchess, and their beloved youngest daughter. (Also, just about every adult in the book wants to fuck, and only rarely with their actual spouse.)
 
Gretel's mother first appears in the M story, and like many of the people we meet, she reappears later. She's a singer and aspiring actress who abandons her husband and daughter in favor of her art. Gretel herself appears in a few of the later stories too, although I don't think we find out quite why she can no longer speak. Several of the characters seem to similar to each other, and since none of them have names, it can be a little hard to keep track of them, to tell who's the same person back again, and who merely has a backstory that mirrors some of the details of somebody else's. A good portion of the book consists of stories within stories as well, tales told by character in a chapter that might be as important, or even more so, than the main story of the chapter.
 
The silly, obsessive behavior of the characters, the playful sing-song narrative voice, the word games being played with letters and sounds, all of it acts like the spoonful of sugar to help wash down the realization that these people are insane, that their society, Europe generally, but also Austria-Hungary specifically, had gone mad, that they prioritized ideas over people, that their determination to implement forms of radical simplicity and purity regardless of who got trampled or smashed to achieve it was bound to lead to disaster. Such, at least, is author Adam Erlich Sachs's diagnosis. Nothing quite covers up the underlying bitterness though, especially when I read this while watching my own country succumb to leaders who seem gleeful to inflict human suffering, which they claim will make America 'simpler' or 'purer,' but which will probably only make us smaller, meaner, poorer, with a government that's unable to help anyone who needs it, that functions solely to persecute. In the book, the Great War, when it arrives, seems almost like just another cockamamie scheme writ large, only different because this time it entangles absolutely everyone instead of just a few.
 
In setting, Gretel and the Great War is like a neighbor to Berlin or Children are Civilians Too, although it's organized quite differently than either of them. The playful language in "Gretel," the use of the alphabet and bedtime story as structuring devices makes it unlike other mosaic novels, but oddly similar to Rebecca Brown's The Dogs: A Modern Bestiary, which also uses those devices to leaven some very dark subject matter.

A is for Bee

 
A is for Bee

An Alphabet Book in Translation
by Ellen Heck

Levine Querido

2022

 

 

A is for Bee is a children's picture book where each page shows a single animal associated with a letter of the English alphabet, and a list of names for that animal in other languages where its name starts with that letter.

So 'A is for bee' because it is 'anu in Igbo, ari in Turkish, aamoo in Ojibwe, abelha in Portuguese.'

Each animal is depicted as a print from a woodcut or linocut. Heck also provides an author's note explaining how she ensured that her translations and transliterations were correct, and an index that lists all the languages included in the book, and which letters each is paired with.

Because I know you're wondering, Q is for frog, X is for bear, and Z is for elephant. Our old friend the zebra still makes it in, appearing at letter V.

The Bookstore Cat

 
The Bookstore Cat

by Cylin Busby
art by Charles Santoso
Balzeer + Bray
2020

 

 

I wanted to buy a book for my little nephew, the son of my childhood friend. So what better than an alphabet book that teaches you with drawings of bookstores and cats?

 
In the forward, Busby explains that The Bookstore Cat is based on an old parlor game where you take turns describing the minister's cat with the next letter of the alphabet. So we learn that the bookstore cat is cuddly, intelligent, patient, sleepy, etc. (He's also sometimes bossy, naughty, and zigzaging - he's got some life in him too!)

 
We see a typical day-in-the-life, from the cat demanding breakfast as the shop is opened to getting hugged goodnight at the end of the day. In between, he lounges around the shop, watching the customers, occasionally getting jealous of the attention being paid to a cute dog tied up out front.

 
Charles Santoso's illustrations are a nice mix of cartoony roundness and realistic texture and detail. I don't think they're done in colored pencil, but they have a similar feel. My favorite image is the cat being 'regal' posed in front of a book with a crown on its cover so that it hovers just above the cat's head.

 
Hopefully, my friend's son will enjoy having it read to him too.