Response to "The Man Who Invented The Calendar" by B.J. Novak

This story was hilarious and extremely creative.  I love when writers can kind of gawk at these societal constructs that we have in place and turn them into well-told stories.  Personally, I would probably never think to write about how a man would go about inventing the calendar (pretty sure I don't even know who invented the calendar...).  But the concept of time has always been of particular interest to me, so I really enjoy how Novak played with it in this story.

I was laughing out loud by the time I got to the end of the piece, where our narrator claimed there were going to be several more months after December.  I also loved that our narrator explained the origin of several holidays such as Valentine's Day and April Fool's day and that they were based on events that were happening to him on those particular days--so for Valentine's Day, he was on a date with a woman and she appeared to be the one to create the meaning behind that particular day, and on April Fool's Day, everyone around him was cracking jokes and pranking each other.  I also love that the narrator was thinking about creating the clock in addition to the calendar; this is another example of Novak playing with the concept of time.

I've read a few stories that are written in this type of format - starting with a date, followed by a series of chronological events, like diary entries.  I think these kind of stories are either a hit or miss with readers, and I happen to really enjoy them.  Again, they play with the concept of time in a sense that you always know how much time or how little time has passed based on what day the events took place, and I think it makes for a unique type of storytelling that is actually easier to follow. Often times when I read stories, I'm not sure how much time has passed or what season it's taking place in, and this unsureness can be removed when using this technique.

Overall, I found the story enjoyable. I do have a couple of questions: what is the narrator referring to when he explains that Jane is sacrificed to the Sun God? And what is the deal with the poisonous berries?