Ticknor by Sheila Heti
Reviewed by Matthew Tiffany
4.13.07
Maybe that's a brash statement to make, and I would hasten to add that I am, of course, not referring to the "real" George Ticknor. Obviously, I never met the guy. The real Ticknor was biographer of the great historian William Prescott, reportedly a close companion and aide to his works. We have collected volumes of his letters, which would give us some measure of the man—though if we are to judge a man solely on his letters, we're likely to be left with only part of the picture. The Ticknor of Sheila Heti's Ticknor would likely disagree with that—he laments more than once in this compact, internal monologue-style novel about how unlikely it is any of his letters are being preserved for immortality. He makes it clear that he feels his only hope at leaving an impression on this world after he's gone is going to be either the letters—for his own work is a shambles—or, as he notes at the end of part one, "To influence a man... is the only proof a man has that he lives."
He’s actually quoting one Mr. Gardiner, who fills the role in Prescott’s life that Ticknor—a sad-sack of a man, unproductive in letters, selfish and petty in friendship, a loser in love—would like to fill. Mr. Gardiner is held high as Prescott's confidant, advisor, a selfless companion who grows ginger specifically for his friend and, taken with the importance of a notion he gets on the direction of Prescott's work, paces outside his friend's house in the wee hours of the morning until Prescott has risen. He then speaks for half an hour to Prescott in his p.j.'s before leaving, embarrassed by his urgency in sharing these thoughts. His advice, Ticknor believes, set Prescott on the course in his writing that would eventually lead him to become world-renowned. Heti's Ticknor is a man sidelined by his own miserable self-pity, selfish expectations (he is put off by Prescott's treatment of him at the wake for Prescott Sr.) and inability to quit moaning about the hand of cards life has dealt him.
This description probably makes this sound like a book you would skip, but in this case you'd be missing out on a fine novel. The entire story takes place during Ticknor's walk through the rain to a dinner part the Prescotts are hosting, and plot is irrelevant here; what makes the novel worth reading is its close examination of the relationship between one writer and another, one a failure and one an enormous success. During his walk, Ticknor muses on his lifelong relationship with Prescott, piling contradictions on top of contradictions about what he thinks and knows of the man, giving us a picture of someone who knows neither his friend nor himself all that well. Heti's ability to reveal a character through these contradictions and complaints is marvelous, drawing out the character not so much through statements about the man as showing who he is by focusing the reader on the size of the spaces between his contradictions. Reading it, I began to get a sense of more than an unpleasant character at work here; Ticknor's laser-focus on any comment, no matter how trivial, and his ability to read so much ill-will into it where none was intended suggests a personality so out-of-touch as to be mentally ill. Heti does not reveal whether or not this is the case, but he has certainly created an elaborate structure to his relationship with Prescott, of which the latter is doubtless completely unaware.
More than once, Ticknor blames his perceived predicament on a lack of books, as in the opening of the novel:
There were no books when I was a boy. Books were hardly accessible, yet there were some books. That is why I did not develop literary taste. I read what I found and it was for fun. You read mostly for idle pleasure. I did not read for fun, nor was I cultivating my mind. I cannot imagine cultivating anything as a young boy. It is not my fault if I was not an erudite boy. Other boys had books and other boys had libraries. No, the whole country lacked books then. Comparatively few were published here, and they were borrowed with difficulty. There is no possible way I could have read good books.
And so on. We get Ticknor making proclamations, and then chiding himself for those proclamations, and then make qualifying statements. It brings to mind the end of the film Being John Malkovich, with Craig trapped inside the head of a child, unable to exert influence of any sort and so tormented in looking upon those he has affection for and completely unable to do anything about it. This is an entire book of being Craig—or, more precisely, that moment at the end of the film where we get to look through Craig's eyes looking through the girl's eyes. Ticknor seems equally unable to exert any influence on his life. The marvel of this book is that Heti places you directly next to this deeply unpleasant man named Ticknor, and in the end you are thankful that she has done so.