Ticknor
Ratings2
Average rating3.5
15
Ratings2
Average rating3.5
The A List edition of Ticknor, the first novel by Sheila Heti -- featuring a new introduction by Ben Lerner, author of Leaving the Atocha Station. George Ticknor is trying to reconcile his own failure with the success of his boyhood friend, the famous American historian William Prescott. Ticknor's life has been reduced to a series of awkward meetings, failed dinner parties, and other misfortunes he is loath to own up to. Situated in the complicated and contradictory moments that make friendships both tenuous and difficult to relinquish, Ticknor's fixated thoughts about his and Prescott's dissimilar fates lead him through a litany of rationalizations and recriminations, a psychological maze that is paranoid and harrowing as well as ludicrous and absurd. In George Ticknor, Sheila Heti has created a memorable new hero of Prufrockian dimension. Ticknor is an exquisite singularity.
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‰ЫПI knew I was not as important as Claire, so returning after the funeral I just stood around, wanting to let him know I was there ‰ЫУ standing there with everyone else rushing about. I am not good at those sorts of arrangements, pouring drinks or holding out a hand to a woman to help her from her chair; even sitting in the corner of the parlour with the men, smoking and talking in appropriate ways. I had nothing to say in the appropriate ways. I could not help out because I no longer knew the house, not as some of the others did, or what was needed, or what they might have wanted from me. Several times, though perhaps as few as one or two, he did give me a direct, tired look, but I didn‰ЫЄt know what it meant, whether it was mostly incriminating or not. I cannot go to his house. I can tell he doesn‰ЫЄt see inside me or even care to anymore.‰Ыќ
‰ЫПExhausted and near tears, I went to the mirror. I often go to the mirror when crying, to see how I might look. I wonder whether I‰ЫЄd have any sympathy for a man such as myself. Sometimes I feel I would, and it makes me cry even harder; other times I do not and it fills me with despair ‰ЫУ well, then I weep more pitifully than before. In these ways I find I am able to enjoy myself. The pure times I spend alone are rare.‰Ыќ
