Commonplace Book: Sheila Heti

I keep three public journals that I post on my blog and Instagram. One journal is a weekly junk journal focused on books bought and books read. The second journal is a daily (or six day) record of my index card art. The third journal is a book of first lines of books I am reading.

I bought this handmade journal from Stacy Carpenter @journalasyouwish 

As can be seen, these two pages include my entry into the #100dayproject and the first line from Sheila Heti's Alphabetical Diaries (AD). The line is

A book about how difficult it is to change, why we don't want to, and what is going on in our brain.

AD is the journal Heti kept over a ten year period, arranged in alphabetical order.

I am about halfway through AD and find it far more compelling than I expected. Heti talks about her sex life, her quest for meaning, the nature of art, the value of writing and publishing, and other topics. Because the book is in alphabetical order not chronological order characters appear in one sentence, sometimes several in a row, sometimes not to be seen again for pages.

Some describe haiku as a poem with two images out together that cause the brain to create a third image by considering the two together.

AD is one of those experimental books that will live in my brain for years alongside Gass' The Tunnel, DFW's Infinite Jest, Nabokov's Pale Fire, and Markson's Wittgenstein's Mistress.

Do you enjoy experimental fiction? Tell me about what you are reading now.