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How should a person be? / Sheila Heti.

by Heti, Sheila, 1976-

House of Anansi Press, c2010.

Personality -- Fiction.

Personality and situation -- Fiction.

Conduct of life -- Fiction.

Character -- Fiction.

Soul -- Fiction.

9781770898233 (2014 trade pbk.)

279 p. ; 21 cm.

How should a person be? For years and years I asked it of everyone I met. I was always watching to see what they were going to do in any situation, so I could do it too. I was always listening to their answers, so if I liked them, I could make them my answers too. I noticed the way people dressed, the way they treated their lovers -- in everyone, there was something to envy. You can admire anyone for being themselves. It’s hard not to, when everyone's so good at it. But when you think of them all together like that, how can you choose? How can you say, I'd rather be responsible like Misha than irresponsible like Margaux. Responsibility looks so good on Misha, and irresponsibility looks so good on Margaux. How could I know which would look best on me? I admired all the great personalities through the ages, like Andy Warhol and Oscar Wilde. They seemed to be so perfectly themselves in every way. I didn’t think, Those are great souls, but I did think, Those are some great personalities for our age. Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein -- they did things, but they were things. I know that personality is just an invention of the news media. I know that character exists from the outside alone. I know that inside the body there’s just temperature. So how do you build your soul? At a certain point, I know, you have to forget about your soul and just do the work you’re required to do. To go on and on about your soul is to miss the whole point of life. I could say that with more certainty if I knew the whole point of life.

Canadian fiction.

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