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4.12 AVERAGE
4.12 AVERAGE
adventurous
informative
inspiring
She has the juice!! My second Didion essay collection and I am bowled over anew. There will never be another Joan.
I think my favorites were the Vegas weddings essay, On Keeping a Notebook and On Self-Respect, the titular essay, Rock of Ages, and Goodbye to All That.
I think my favorites were the Vegas weddings essay, On Keeping a Notebook and On Self-Respect, the titular essay, Rock of Ages, and Goodbye to All That.
this book was first published in the year my mother was born. at 23, i picked this up for the first time, and i have a feeling i'll be coming back to it over and over again. i want to be able to think like Didion, to see the world through her eyes. most of all i was struck by how tangible Didion's love for the land was. she illuminates a collective yearning for the past and breathes such life into the places that she describes, from the eden-like golden valleys of California to the unexpected beauty in the isolation of Alcatraz. the malevolent dryness of the Santa Ana wind, the fallen mansions of Newport. the sense of wonder from being young in New York—and growing out of it. the personal notes I also loved. there was a fair amount of name-dropping, which makes sense because she was writing about the culture after all, and i think i would be even more attached to this collection had i been born in her generation — nonetheless, after reading these essays, i completely understand why her work is so widely beloved.
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
medium-paced
This is not about the stories. This is practice writing. The stories have no structure. A stream of consciousness type that goes from nowhere to elsewhere. There are beginnings of character development and setting description, but not very good.
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
medium-paced
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
I've been thinking a lot about the canon of great American writers and how being a good writer is predicated on being well-read. I really love Didion's writing style, even though many of the essays went over my head (they're such a snapshot of California in the 60s, which doesn't really have resonance for me). I especially loved the last essay about her time in New York.
P.S. I owe Didion a great debt for writing one of my personal seminal texts on understanding grief ("My Year of Magical Thinking"), just as I look to Sally Rooney to explain the neurotic, contradictory nature of young aspiring-intellectual women.
P.S. I owe Didion a great debt for writing one of my personal seminal texts on understanding grief ("My Year of Magical Thinking"), just as I look to Sally Rooney to explain the neurotic, contradictory nature of young aspiring-intellectual women.
challenging
dark
informative
slow-paced