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A review by jdscott50
The Folded Clock: A Diary by Heidi Julavits
5.0
A writer's diary is a multi-faceted story. On one hand it is the daily account of events, on the other it is a touchstone of memories, a wellspring of inspiration. A single event leads to a memory, which leads to a story. Where it all leads often the writer doesn't know.
Heidi Julvatis's new memoir The Folded Clock is a series of short diary entries with topics ranging from the art of creation, parenthood, dating, and seemingly random events. The reader gets to see her inner self, unvarnished. We can see how her writer mind works, taking ("stealing") ideas from the everyday and working them into her stories. Even the title of the book comes from her daughter. We also see her life as a lover, as a wife, as a parent, and as a daughter. We see her inner guilt, her selfish side. It is all revealed in short snippets told over a period of two years. The timeline of the entries does not seem to matter. Collectively, the reader is treated to see life through the author's eyes.
The short entries range from nuggets of wisdom, insecurity, and a key to creativity. Each entry could be fleshed out into a short story or a book and it is a fascinating insight to the creative process. Having read two of her novels (The Uses of Enchantment and The Vanishers) one could pick up pieces of the diary stories and how they were woven into the narratives. One could compare this to Dorris Lessing's The Golden Notebook in all that it reveals.
Favorite Passages:
I have stolen names and I have stolen titles, two at this point; I intend to steal more. (I will at a future point, steal the title of this book from my daughter. We will be at a lunch following a visit to an Egyptian museum in Berlin; we will have bought a book on hieroglyphs. We will be trying to learn the picture letters, one of which is based on a drawing of folded cloth. "folded clock?" My daughter will ask. "Folded cloth," I'll correct. And then I'll pickpocket the accident.) p38
I acted sad because I was sad. Our tree would never be the same. It might even die. The damage wasn't insignificant. I wanted to be the conduit of sadness—and of the appreciation of passing time and mortality—by interpreting the significance of the loss of the tree for my kids. I could tell this wasn't happening. I could tell they were more interested in my reaction to the tree. I thought ahead to a point in time when this behavior might become symbolic of who I was or, depending on my life status, am. I do not think it unwise to view all children as future tattletales. Such a perspective forces you to better (and with greater care) behave, lest your conduct be chronicled later and prove revealing in ways you did not intend. If and when my daughter told her own children about her memories of the big hurricane, maybe the only takeaway she'd recall would involve me. I was the object lesson. My mother, she was undone by the possible death of a tree. P.95
She's episodic, I'm narrative. I see connections everywhere. Life is one big plot trap. She's a woman who has lived many fantastic yet disparate and self-canceling lives. She's a rebooter, a category shape-shifter. I entered a track in my twenties and stayed on it and on it. She's my occasional fantasy; I don't know if I'm hers. But I suspect this is why our relationship is strained occasionally. We remind each other of who we aren't. P167
The people in our house were my fault. Our fault, but really, my fault. I'm not being a martyr. I'm speaking realistically, in a manner reflecting the consensus reality of the situation. No men at this party were standing around talking about quitting their jobs to they could be a part of—sorry, live—their children's lives. No men listening to these men were thinking defensively to themselves, Fuck off, or after a moment's reflection, You're so right, actually. No men would be writing about these conversations tonight in their diaries. My husband would absolutely write about these issues in his diary tonight if he kept one. He worries about and buys all of our children's dothing—the pants, the underwear the sneakers, the socks. He keeps constant tabs on who needs what, and then he buys it. But to the greater world, these pantsless children reflect more poorly on me than they do on him. Women are responsible for the people in the family having pants. P218
Heidi Julvatis's new memoir The Folded Clock is a series of short diary entries with topics ranging from the art of creation, parenthood, dating, and seemingly random events. The reader gets to see her inner self, unvarnished. We can see how her writer mind works, taking ("stealing") ideas from the everyday and working them into her stories. Even the title of the book comes from her daughter. We also see her life as a lover, as a wife, as a parent, and as a daughter. We see her inner guilt, her selfish side. It is all revealed in short snippets told over a period of two years. The timeline of the entries does not seem to matter. Collectively, the reader is treated to see life through the author's eyes.
The short entries range from nuggets of wisdom, insecurity, and a key to creativity. Each entry could be fleshed out into a short story or a book and it is a fascinating insight to the creative process. Having read two of her novels (The Uses of Enchantment and The Vanishers) one could pick up pieces of the diary stories and how they were woven into the narratives. One could compare this to Dorris Lessing's The Golden Notebook in all that it reveals.
Favorite Passages:
I have stolen names and I have stolen titles, two at this point; I intend to steal more. (I will at a future point, steal the title of this book from my daughter. We will be at a lunch following a visit to an Egyptian museum in Berlin; we will have bought a book on hieroglyphs. We will be trying to learn the picture letters, one of which is based on a drawing of folded cloth. "folded clock?" My daughter will ask. "Folded cloth," I'll correct. And then I'll pickpocket the accident.) p38
I acted sad because I was sad. Our tree would never be the same. It might even die. The damage wasn't insignificant. I wanted to be the conduit of sadness—and of the appreciation of passing time and mortality—by interpreting the significance of the loss of the tree for my kids. I could tell this wasn't happening. I could tell they were more interested in my reaction to the tree. I thought ahead to a point in time when this behavior might become symbolic of who I was or, depending on my life status, am. I do not think it unwise to view all children as future tattletales. Such a perspective forces you to better (and with greater care) behave, lest your conduct be chronicled later and prove revealing in ways you did not intend. If and when my daughter told her own children about her memories of the big hurricane, maybe the only takeaway she'd recall would involve me. I was the object lesson. My mother, she was undone by the possible death of a tree. P.95
She's episodic, I'm narrative. I see connections everywhere. Life is one big plot trap. She's a woman who has lived many fantastic yet disparate and self-canceling lives. She's a rebooter, a category shape-shifter. I entered a track in my twenties and stayed on it and on it. She's my occasional fantasy; I don't know if I'm hers. But I suspect this is why our relationship is strained occasionally. We remind each other of who we aren't. P167
The people in our house were my fault. Our fault, but really, my fault. I'm not being a martyr. I'm speaking realistically, in a manner reflecting the consensus reality of the situation. No men at this party were standing around talking about quitting their jobs to they could be a part of—sorry, live—their children's lives. No men listening to these men were thinking defensively to themselves, Fuck off, or after a moment's reflection, You're so right, actually. No men would be writing about these conversations tonight in their diaries. My husband would absolutely write about these issues in his diary tonight if he kept one. He worries about and buys all of our children's dothing—the pants, the underwear the sneakers, the socks. He keeps constant tabs on who needs what, and then he buys it. But to the greater world, these pantsless children reflect more poorly on me than they do on him. Women are responsible for the people in the family having pants. P218