There was much debate in my head before starting to read Sheila Heti. The New York Times once described her as a writer “known for the clarity and ardor of her sex writing.” For that, I thought, we already have Sally Rooney—who, to me, is like a female Salinger boldly exploring the nuances of desire, and what could be better than that? “Sheila Heti may not be called the voice of a generation” as Adam Kirsch says about her in the New Republic, but I always knew I would eventually read her. Something about her world kept calling to me—first, her voice when I heard her on her weird but very satisfying Podcast, and then the fact that we live in the same city and her tempting book titles: “How Should a Person Be?” and “Motherhood”.
Reading her work feels like stepping into a part of her brain. Her novels and characters are really close to her life and much of her work is introduced as auto-fiction. Reading her is addictive. The philosophical thoughts and mumbling and questioning and reasoning and honest thoughts. You will want more of these simple and flowy sentences that are beautifully crafted and meticulously edited. As you read, it becomes clear: achieving this kind of powerful prose requires immense time and effort on the page.
She writes: “I have started playing Tetris, which feels halfway between writing and drinking.” She has a sense of humor and playfulness that makes reading her a truly enjoyable experience. She plays with words and characters when she writes. For her “Alphabetical Diaries” which she calls her procrastination project while writing other books, she puts her decades of digital diary in a spreadsheet and sorts them alphabetically. The alphabetical arrangement allows for unexpected juxtapositions of thoughts. This playful yet profound exploration reveals how language and form affect self-expression and the way we record our personal experiences against time, can form a whole new device for self-discovery.
“Fear at base. Fear of not being able to justify myself, or of not being productive every moment of the day; an inferiority complex that manifests itself in the sense that I must always be justifying my existence by thinking. Feel like there is something else I should be working on. Feeling an inability to work as much as the energy inside me allows. Feeling anxious these past few days, in part because of Pavel talking about moving in together, and in part for reasons I do not know. Feeling overwhelmed and bad. Feeling very anxious and depressed, like I wanted to cry all day, and I couldn’t remember how long I’d felt this way for. Feeling your personality infusing and soaking into everything you do this contributes to a lack of charm in life. Feelings aren’t a choice. Feelings aren’t the most important thing, but rather doing the important things that need doing, but all of that is thrown to the wind when I’m in a bad mood.”
In Motherhood which is an exploration of the question of whether or not to become a mother, Sheila Heti writes a deeply personal, semi-autobiographical novel, in which the narrator, much like Heti herself, grapples with the societal, emotional, and existential questions of motherhood. Again, playfulness is a charming part of the narrative. The narrator asks profound questions from the coins and the help of the ancient book of I Ching which answers only in YES or No.
“So the essence of happiness and joy is the feeling that one belongs to the world? -yes”
It’s a very personal yet familiar book for any female reader, whether she is a mother or not. It’s the question that sometimes is even hard to ask. Heti says: “Whether I want kids is a secret I keep from myself—it is the greatest secret I keep from myself.”
Sheila Heti writes with raw honesty and is bravely vulnerable in writing and in doing so, she talks about identity, sex, and life in a way that feels true. Is this how living is supposed to be? How can I lessen the suffering of being a human? and all these fundamental philosophical questions of life. Yet, after reading her books, it seems it all comes down to a single but essential question: “Am I being loved?” or “Am I being loved enough?”
“Pure Color” the latest novel of Sheila Heti, is less auto-fiction and more imaginary and uses a blend of allegory and metaphor to tell the story of a girl who is coming to terms with grief and loss and life itself. It’s filled with beautiful descriptions like this:
“There was nothing show-offy about friendships then. Your friends were simply who was around. It didn’t occur to anyone that it could be another way. If you liked your friends, that was okay. If you didn’t like your friends, that was okay, too.
We were fine with living our mediocre lives. It didn’t occur to anyone that we could have great ones. That was for people far away. Our lack of awareness of the scope of the world kept us from any great falseness.
It was enough to know just four or five people, and to have slept with two or three of them. Was there anything else to be ambitious for? Just an imagined immortality-a sense of one’s own greatness, which could in no way be tested.”
I spent an entire month reading her, which felt like being inside her head and it’s not a bad place to be. It was a much more familiar place than I had anticipated. Now, whenever I feel the unbearable lightness of being, it’s comforting to know her book is by my bedside, offering the wisdom and encouragement I need:
“Don’t be afraid of becoming more conscious and more aware-you can’t stay unconscious, you must use as much of your brain as possible; besides, if there isn’t an unconscious, you’re doing yourself a disservice by not thinking. Don’t be afraid of not having money come. Don’t be covetous. Don’t be fatalistic. Don’t be frivolous. Don’t be miserable. Don’t be scared. Don’t be so impressed with yourself, but do the good work. Don’t become like the pathologists, thinking you’ve seen the insides of people, and that the outside’s prettier. Don’t check your email in the mornings or do any other work in the morning apart from typewriter work. Don’t commit to anything. Don’t confess or complain. Don’t contribute to any project unless you’re genuinely excited about it. Don’t delude yourself.”
Sheila Heti is the author of 7 books including the novels Motherhood was short-listed for the Giller Prize and Pure Colour which won the Governor’s General Award.
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