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A review by petersonline
The Folded Clock: A Diary by Heidi Julavits
5.0
Heidi Julavits is an author I've always felt guilty about not having read sooner. I always see her books in used bookshops and consider picking one up, but am never sure where to begin. One day, at Henderson's, I decided I would do with Heidi Julavits's books what I did with Catherine Lacey's books: start from the most recent one, and work my way backwards. When I looked under the "J's" in the bookshop, searching for "Julavits," I saw the beautifully intricate spine (designed by one of my favorite artists Leanne Shapton) of her more recent book from 2015 entitled "The Folded Clock." I perused the back cover to see what it was about, wondering why it was shelved under "fiction" when it sounded like a memoir. Julavits, often a novelist, wrote The Folded Clock as her first attempt at a memoir-esque book. However, with Heidi Julavits, things are never done conventionally. The Folded Clock is billed as a "diary" and is exactly that, a diary that documents two years of Julavits's life.
When I first saw that this was what The Folded Clock was about, I am loathe to say that my first thought was...why should we care? Julavits is an interesting, accomplished author, but I wasn't sure about how fun it would be to read her diary entries from two years of her life. I was so, so unbelievably wrong. The Folded Clock is a wildly good book and Heidi Julavits is the kind of person I would want to hang out with. I could have read her diary entries for hundreds of pages longer.
The Folded Clock joins a long line of books that touch on "the monotony of daily life," but I feel that this book, so elegantly and beautifully rendered, does it very well. In one of the first entries, Julavits talks about a burgeoning crush she had on a guy who worked in the barn by her studio in Maine. She writes that, "...this crush had no basis in reality or in my imagination; it had so little basis in either realm that I couldn't even fantasize about a next move. He was just a fun reason to go to work each day". This resonated, as I often develop minor crushes with never any intention of acting on them, it's just a way to make a dull existence somewhat more interesting. This is a common theme throughout The Folded Clock: Julavits doing little things to try and make her daily life more exciting. On the flip side, she also reaches points of acceptance of how boring, and often tiring, life can be. Another one of my favorite passages came in the latter half of the book, in which Julavits was talking about feeling annoyed that her kid woke her up in the middle of the night because he was crying. The annoyance, she writes, stems from the fact that, "the day had been too long; there had already been too many phases." She continues on to say that, "There was the cleaning phase, during which I organized lightbulbs ....There was the Enforced Outdoor Fun phase, people dragged unhappily around the harbor on a kayak." I felt this was a meaningful way to discuss a day having been too long. Sometimes certain days have too many phases: you do a lot of stuff, but none of it was very stimulating or fun, so you go home feeling tired and a little bit sad.
Heidi Julavits has a Rachel Cusk-esque way of describing situations, which made me laugh out loud while reading The Folded Clock on multiple occasions. In one scene, Julavits attends a Virginia Woolf reading. She writes that, "For some reason, this reading was held at a law school. At the front desk I was asked by an old woman holding a hand-written sign that said 'Virginia Woolf,' as though she was a chauffeur picking up Virginia Woolf at the airport". I felt the same way reading The Folded Clock that I do when I read work by Rachel Cusk, each experience I have in daily life becomes seen through the lens of Julavits or Cusk, meaning that I'm more remarkably judgmental, and therefore more hilarious. While reading The Folded Clock, I started a game with one of my friends. The game was that each time someone walked into the room, we had to create a sentence in our heads about them that would touch on just how funny and bizarre random strangers can be. Reading the work of Rachel Cusk and Heidi Julavits has solidified the fact that meditative, people-watching books are some of my favorites to read.
One of my favorite things about The Folded Clock, and Heidi Julavits in general, is the fact that Julavits unapologetically owns her "bad" qualities. Never in The Folded Clock is there a half-hearted acknowledgment of her privilege to be found (acknowledgments that, when done by white authors, always feel lousy) and never is there over-the-top self deprecation that feels less genuine and more just a sad attempt to be funny. Julavits writes her unfiltered truth in The Folded Clock, and it makes for an extremely authentic book.
All of this being said, one might not enjoy The Folded Clock if they don't enjoy narration by Heidi Julavits. You will know right from the beginning if this book will be for you, and if you don't connect with Julavits or her style, you may find this to be boring or irritating. However, if you are a fan of the scalpel that writers like Rachel Cusk, Lauren Oyler, and Catherine Lacey take to the weirdness of modern life, you will love The Folded Clock.
When I first saw that this was what The Folded Clock was about, I am loathe to say that my first thought was...why should we care? Julavits is an interesting, accomplished author, but I wasn't sure about how fun it would be to read her diary entries from two years of her life. I was so, so unbelievably wrong. The Folded Clock is a wildly good book and Heidi Julavits is the kind of person I would want to hang out with. I could have read her diary entries for hundreds of pages longer.
The Folded Clock joins a long line of books that touch on "the monotony of daily life," but I feel that this book, so elegantly and beautifully rendered, does it very well. In one of the first entries, Julavits talks about a burgeoning crush she had on a guy who worked in the barn by her studio in Maine. She writes that, "...this crush had no basis in reality or in my imagination; it had so little basis in either realm that I couldn't even fantasize about a next move. He was just a fun reason to go to work each day". This resonated, as I often develop minor crushes with never any intention of acting on them, it's just a way to make a dull existence somewhat more interesting. This is a common theme throughout The Folded Clock: Julavits doing little things to try and make her daily life more exciting. On the flip side, she also reaches points of acceptance of how boring, and often tiring, life can be. Another one of my favorite passages came in the latter half of the book, in which Julavits was talking about feeling annoyed that her kid woke her up in the middle of the night because he was crying. The annoyance, she writes, stems from the fact that, "the day had been too long; there had already been too many phases." She continues on to say that, "There was the cleaning phase, during which I organized lightbulbs ....There was the Enforced Outdoor Fun phase, people dragged unhappily around the harbor on a kayak." I felt this was a meaningful way to discuss a day having been too long. Sometimes certain days have too many phases: you do a lot of stuff, but none of it was very stimulating or fun, so you go home feeling tired and a little bit sad.
Heidi Julavits has a Rachel Cusk-esque way of describing situations, which made me laugh out loud while reading The Folded Clock on multiple occasions. In one scene, Julavits attends a Virginia Woolf reading. She writes that, "For some reason, this reading was held at a law school. At the front desk I was asked by an old woman holding a hand-written sign that said 'Virginia Woolf,' as though she was a chauffeur picking up Virginia Woolf at the airport". I felt the same way reading The Folded Clock that I do when I read work by Rachel Cusk, each experience I have in daily life becomes seen through the lens of Julavits or Cusk, meaning that I'm more remarkably judgmental, and therefore more hilarious. While reading The Folded Clock, I started a game with one of my friends. The game was that each time someone walked into the room, we had to create a sentence in our heads about them that would touch on just how funny and bizarre random strangers can be. Reading the work of Rachel Cusk and Heidi Julavits has solidified the fact that meditative, people-watching books are some of my favorites to read.
One of my favorite things about The Folded Clock, and Heidi Julavits in general, is the fact that Julavits unapologetically owns her "bad" qualities. Never in The Folded Clock is there a half-hearted acknowledgment of her privilege to be found (acknowledgments that, when done by white authors, always feel lousy) and never is there over-the-top self deprecation that feels less genuine and more just a sad attempt to be funny. Julavits writes her unfiltered truth in The Folded Clock, and it makes for an extremely authentic book.
All of this being said, one might not enjoy The Folded Clock if they don't enjoy narration by Heidi Julavits. You will know right from the beginning if this book will be for you, and if you don't connect with Julavits or her style, you may find this to be boring or irritating. However, if you are a fan of the scalpel that writers like Rachel Cusk, Lauren Oyler, and Catherine Lacey take to the weirdness of modern life, you will love The Folded Clock.