Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.79 AVERAGE
3.79 AVERAGE
Since this book is in large part about where Didion is from, which is also where I am from, I have to roll out the stars. #hometownpride.
“Discussion of how California has 'changed,' then, tends locally to define the more ideal California as that which existed at whatever past point the speaker first saw it: Gilroy as it was in the 1960s and Gilroy as it was fifteen years ago and Gilroy as it was when my father and I ate short ribs at the Milias Hotel are three pictures with virtually no overlap, a hologram that dematerializes as I drive through it.”
― Joan Didion, Where I Was From
“A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his image."
― Joan Didion, The White Album
"California belongs to Joan Didion."
― Michiko Kakutani
Probably 3.5★. Not going to review it much tonight. I liked it in parts, loved it in parts, felt let down by parts, but graded against her other greats ([b:The Year of Magical Thinking|7815|The Year of Magical Thinking|Joan Didion|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327878638s/7815.jpg|1659905], [b:Slouching Towards Bethlehem|424|Slouching Towards Bethlehem|Joan Didion|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327952074s/424.jpg|1844], [b:The White Album|421|The White Album|Joan Didion|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388176868s/421.jpg|682500]), it just doesn't quite hold up. Feels a bit cobbled together, but I'm probably just being picky and petty.
In a 4-part book Didion explores the history and narrative of California, and like she is want to do, she kinda clears the table of myths, fables, and stories that people have constructed around place/time. She loves California, but recognizes in that great big state a bunch of contradictions and flaws that seem to be varnished over every couple of years. She loves California but wants it to be loved WITH the flaws, not with the bullshit. This involves a bit of journalistic deconstruction, revisionism, playful teasing, family history, re-reading of her own past writings, thoughts about death and family, property and family, and always, always California (especially Sacramento).
Anyway, mediocre, messy, meditative Didion is still pretty damn fantastic.
― Joan Didion, Where I Was From
“A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his image."
― Joan Didion, The White Album
"California belongs to Joan Didion."
― Michiko Kakutani
Probably 3.5★. Not going to review it much tonight. I liked it in parts, loved it in parts, felt let down by parts, but graded against her other greats ([b:The Year of Magical Thinking|7815|The Year of Magical Thinking|Joan Didion|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327878638s/7815.jpg|1659905], [b:Slouching Towards Bethlehem|424|Slouching Towards Bethlehem|Joan Didion|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327952074s/424.jpg|1844], [b:The White Album|421|The White Album|Joan Didion|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388176868s/421.jpg|682500]), it just doesn't quite hold up. Feels a bit cobbled together, but I'm probably just being picky and petty.
In a 4-part book Didion explores the history and narrative of California, and like she is want to do, she kinda clears the table of myths, fables, and stories that people have constructed around place/time. She loves California, but recognizes in that great big state a bunch of contradictions and flaws that seem to be varnished over every couple of years. She loves California but wants it to be loved WITH the flaws, not with the bullshit. This involves a bit of journalistic deconstruction, revisionism, playful teasing, family history, re-reading of her own past writings, thoughts about death and family, property and family, and always, always California (especially Sacramento).
Anyway, mediocre, messy, meditative Didion is still pretty damn fantastic.
"Remember, never take no cutoffs and hurry along as fast as you can." Virginia Reed, Donner Party
As a California native I have to agree JD has my golden state, it's rivers and it mountains, as her very blood and bones. Not my favorite work of hers, but I did enjoy the last section where she brings all the data into a nearsighted perspective of her own mythology, memories, loves and losses.
"There is no real way to deal with everything we lose." - Joan Didion
As a California native I have to agree JD has my golden state, it's rivers and it mountains, as her very blood and bones. Not my favorite work of hers, but I did enjoy the last section where she brings all the data into a nearsighted perspective of her own mythology, memories, loves and losses.
"There is no real way to deal with everything we lose." - Joan Didion
JD's stylistic and communicative abilities circa 2002
This was the only Joan Didion book that the library had on the shelf, and ended up not being what I was expecting. The sections dealing with Californian history tended to blur into lists of names that meant very little to me - quite possibly, this would have been different if I were Californian myself.
The sections where Didion speaks more personally, mainly about her own experiences, caught my fancy much more. This leads me to guess that some of her other works might be more appealing to me.
The sections where Didion speaks more personally, mainly about her own experiences, caught my fancy much more. This leads me to guess that some of her other works might be more appealing to me.
Two stars is rather miserly, but not undeserved. The main problem is that the quality of the book is in direct proportion to how directly Didion is writing about herself. In the earlier historical portions of the book Didion is quite awkward in how she integrates the sources into the fabric of her narrative, and whilst I found the use of literary criticism as its own form of story-telling quite interesting, her observations are rather shallow. The last section of the book is quite brilliant and makes the memoir worth reading, despite its stiltedness. This book might be better suited as a dialogue between herself and a reader who already knows and loves California, rather than as a memoir of both Didion and her home state for anyone unfamiliar with Sacramento to read, sadly I fall into the latter category and it does not come off for me.