Chapter 32: “poem I wrote after my therapist told me to have a drink” – Summary & Analysis
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.
Summary
The speaker recounts a mundane but oddly meaningful incident: losing a block of cheddar cheese in her apartment and posting a Facebook status about it, which nearly receives one hundred likes. Forty‑five minutes later she finds the cheese on her bookshelf. The poem then pivots to a complaint about the physical difficulty of reading while lying down—the books are too heavy to hold up easily.
Key Events
- The speaker misplaces a block of cheddar cheese somewhere in her apartment.
- She writes a Facebook status about the lost cheese.
- The status gains almost a hundred likes, a modest social‑media success.
- After 45 minutes of searching, she discovers the cheese on her bookshelf—a location that suggests a blend of domestic confusion and intellectual environment.
- The poem ends with a reflective observation: reading would be easier if books weren’t so heavy to hold while lying down.
Character Development
- The Speaker: Exhibits a self‑aware, slightly absurdist voice. Her reaction to losing cheese—immediately turning to social media for validation and community—shows a millennial habit of sharing trivial frustrations. The concluding remark about reading posture reveals an honest, unglamorous interiority: she wants to read more but is thwarted by a simple physical limitation.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
- Social Media as Validation: The nearly‑hundred likes serve as a tiny yardstick of relevance. The speaker’s first impulse is to broadcast the lost cheese, not to search for it.
- Domestic Absurdity: Treating a lost block of cheddar as an event worth chronicling underscores the comedy of everyday modern life.
- The Bookshelf as Intersection: The cheese ends up on a bookshelf, blending nourishment (food) with intellect (books), hinting at the messy overlap of mind and body.
- Physical Reading Barriers: The closing lines introduce a recurring motif of text and the body—books are literally heavy, making reading a physical chore, not just a mental one.
Why This Chapter Matters
This short poem distills the collection’s central preoccupations: the search for meaning in trivial moments, the performance of self online, and the gap between aspiration (wanting to read more) and reality (books are too heavy). It’s a microcosm of Cohen’s style—confessional, humorous, and acutely aware of the absurdities of contemporary life.
Study Questions and Answers
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Why does the speaker write a Facebook status about the missing cheese before looking for it?
Answer: The gesture highlights how social media has become a reflexive tool for processing even the smallest frustrations. Posting about the lost cheese turns a private inconvenience into a public performance, and the likes provide instant, measurable comfort. -
What does the final observation about reading while lying down reveal about the speaker’s character?
Answer: It shows a vulnerable side: she has intellectual aspirations but is physically lazy or easily discouraged. The line undercuts any pretension, revealing that even a simple act like reading is governed by bodily comfort. -
How does the setting of the cheese’s discovery (a bookshelf) enrich the poem’s meaning?
Answer: The bookshelf merges the physical (food) with the intellectual (books). It suggests that life’s “misplaced” objects often end up in unexpected, ironic places, and that the speaker’s world—full of reading, writing, snacking—is one where everything coexists messily.