Reader Response to “The Man Who Invented the Calendar” by B.J Novack

             I thought this piece was very quirky and fun. I cracked up more than several times. I love how on January 3^rd someone said they would “organize his whole life around” the calendar because that’s obviously what we do. We are constantly looking ahead to future dates and without a calendar that would be impossible. I think we take for granted how much we organize ourselves around time.

            I like that each date reads like a diary entry yet at the same time offers important information for the story if it can be called one. Speaking of, I viewed this as more of a fun writing piece rather than a story, although it can be argued otherwise because of the progression of the making of the calendar. The Alice character makes it more like a story and makes the narrator a little more reliable in my opinion.

            February 14^th was absolutely adorable and genius. But what I adore even more is the “so cold” right after. I imagine lonely lovers and half-priced boxes of chocolate everywhere. What struck me was when the narrator tells Alice he is busy till August and she says “What’s August?” I can’t imagine someone telling me they’re busy and not knowing exactly how long it’ll be until. That’s kind of agonizing to think about. It only solidifies what I said before about the necessity of tracking time.

            I can’t comment on everything that made me laugh, but shout out to using “November 18^th”, my birthday somewhere in there. Back to the genre of this piece, there are a lot of story elements to it. The character has a distinct voice. We get little asides from him and some emotional turmoil with his relationships to Alice and Jane. He is doing something, not nothing. He’s making this calendar. But it also feels ethereal in a sense and I feel distant from the actual characters. It’s more like make believe if anything. That’s not to say I didn’t like it. The ending gives the reader a good message: “So this year wasn’t everything I hoped it would be, and I didn’t get all the months I wanted. But, when the New Year starts, I’m going to wake up every day at dawn and get to work.” It doesn’t exactly wrap up things completely while at the same time offering something news. It left me satisfied and this made it more of a story for me. The ending wasn't expect either. It’s hard to say what genre this would be exactly, but I think what matters most is that I loved reading it.