Manguso’s Diary Dialogue
ONGOINGNESS: THE END OF A DIARY by Sarah Manguso
At the time this book/essay was released, Sarah Manguso���s diary contained about a million words. To write a book about her diary, she determined she would either have to include it all ��� events cannot be separated, cannot be brought out of the blue with no foreshadowing or follow-up ��� or none of it. At 95 pages long, obviously, she left it out entirely. And so becomes maybe the first personal autobiography about a diary that includes not one piece of the journal itself.
It���s a quick read I finished in an hour, many of those 95 pages not even halfway filling the page. Whatever. Manguso has no need to prove herself worthy of writing some mammoth book; she instead knows how much of the time, fewer words can be so much more poignant.
Manguso starts by explaining her writing habits. Much like any young girl, her first diaries were gifts, left empty save the drawings printed in each corner. Sometime in her teens, it just flipped. She began to write compulsively, multiple times during the day. There was (is?) something inside her that never wanted to forget a moment, and if her memory couldn���t contain it all, she hoped her diary could.
The fascinating thing about measuring history through a diary, as Manguso finds, is what, looking back, was worthy of note that day and what was omitted. The things that foreshadow future events are so often not noted, not written down, maybe even, not consciously acknowledge. The stuff that does make it in, that does seem so important in the moment, is often left at that day, never to be of importance again. It���s a fascinating thought ��� what happened today that seemed inconsequential that will mean all the difference in a week, a year?
Manguso often catches herself reflecting on her diary, wondering why she continues it even today. If she doesn���t capture every moment and every angle of every moment, what���s the point of catching any at all? ���And then I think I don���t need to write anything down ever again,��� she writes. ���Nothing���s gone, not really. Everything that���s ever happened has left its little wound.���
After becoming pregnant and giving birth to her first child, Manguso both finds frustration and relief from her diary. She hates what people call ���pregnancy brain,��� the way it seems she can���t remember events of the day as sharply as she could before. Early on after the baby comes home, her tiredness reducing her days to a set schedule of feeding, diaper changing, holding, she realizes her own mortality, as many new parents do. And so begins a renewed need for the diary, a capsule to hold together the person she was even after she passes.
I don���t know how else to describe it. It���s an eloquent diary entry about a decades long record of a woman���s life. It���s written with passion and anguish, frustration with and love for her own work. It���s incredible.
