Reviews

A Book of Common Prayer by Joan Didion

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man_duh's review

emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

My long overdue introduction to Joan Didion didn't disappoint. From the first page, I felt swept up by the intricate sentences she weaves, carried off into the fictional country she had created. It was gems like "student of delusion" and "make conversation by day and avoid it in the dark" that kept me entranced with the slow pace of the first part of the book, but once let into the mysterious backstory of Charlotte I was absorbed. Brilliantly written to feel like you knew just enough about the characters as Grace, the narrator, did and ending with the perfect closing line to encapsulate that feeling.

Didion's style and repetition of phrases play out like the inner working of the mind, holding onto what the narrator wants to hold onto and contemplating the rest.

A great introduction the author's work.

Content Warnings

emilycm's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

"i understood what warren bogart could do to charlotte douglas because i met him later, once in new orleans: he had the look of a man who could drive a woman like charlotte right off her head. i have no idea what i mean by "a woman like charlotte." i suppose i mean a woman so convinced of the danger that lies in the backward glance. i might have said a woman so unstable, but i told you, charlotte performed the tracheotomy, charlotte dropped the clinic apron at the colonel's feet. i am less and less convinced that the word "unstable" has any useful meaning except insofar as it describes a chemical compound."

solid 4.5 stars from me. don't know if i have anything in my heart to rate a didion work lower (sorry, does that make me insufferable and pretentious, yes but i don't care!). this definitely jumped on my list of favorite didion works, especially since i am still getting through exploring her novels. i would say this is a more complex (if that's even possible) play it as it lays, with a rich mixture of what makes didion so brilliant, that is her reporting style of writing.

at least 20 pages in, i was unsure if i was going to click with this. with didion's voice of clarity and authority ringing through the writing, almost like she was narrating it in my internal monologue, i was finally truly gripped when it reached the point of dialogue. the description of these characters comes through in their dialogue. charlotte is defined by her own set of dialogue outside of grace's observations and characterization of her. but even then, as typical with didion's writing, the dialogue can be vague and can be convoluted so as we are to understand that there are double meanings, and perhaps what is being said is not always what is meant or what was actually said.

it's what i love most about her novel writing. the female protagonists are wallowing in this desolate state, and there is yet something alluring about them. she never quite carves out their image. leaves it ever so unfinished that you're left with the last lines of the book wondering about the charlottes out there right now.

Content Warnings

bc_303's review

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3.0

Rambling book told from the perspective of a US expat Grace from Denver who is the widow of a Latin American Dictator from a fictional country Boca Grande.

She tells the story of Charlotte, another US expat who is completely delusional, living in Boca Grande for a year. The story of Charlotte's life is discordant, and never lines up. Charlotte is married twice and has a communist daughter who bombs a plane. It's a sad book.