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3.88 AVERAGE
3.88 AVERAGE
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
masterfully written (of course). the reading experience was a tad too fragmentary and emotionally detached for me to feel really invested, but then again, I suppose that's the point. really enjoyed the post-modern bits where Didion reflects on the writing process and inserts herself as a character
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
An interesting style that I didn’t think could be maintained throughout (having Joan Didion the writer as a character who is narrating the story) but it worked. I am incredibly uneducated about the Khmer Rouge and that time which makes me a poor interpreter of this dense little book on politics, but the regular US politics part I understood enough. Overall, just interesting.
Another Didion gem. I read this in Thailand and it fit.
adventurous
dark
informative
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Joan Didion's "Breakfast of Champions"
The more Didion I read, the more I want to sink her voice into myself, and carry her timelss style with me everywhere I go.
Democracy is no different, but it's... different. This is Didion's most post-modern work (At least of what I've read), which is perhaps notable because her career had its first arc during the era of Vonneguts and Kunderas of the world, and that I've found her work to be generally not post-modern. The meta-ness of this book, the ideas, etc. are all handled with a quintessential Didion grace, but it all feels slightly off. The characters and timelines are all tanlged - it's hard to pick out what relation everyone has to each other, how they meet, where they meet - Didion herself chimes in at unusual moments through the narrative to make some thoughtful but perhaps unnecessary observation about the authorial process and its relationship with the reader, and the vietnamese government is always falling. Perpetually in collapse.
Particularly the Pynchon-esque aspects of this book were what I found most interesting but also the most difficult to parse. Talk of government dealings, coups, connections of this person or that... It all amalgamates into this great critique - the downfall of American-backed democracy in Asia, that both paints the most visceral picture of 1970's political ethos and of the climate at the time, but perhaps only writable with the retrospect and hindsight of another era. What folly - to try to nation-build over and over again, and failing each time. There is always an evacuation. Saigon is always falling. Nuclear tests on a deserted Atoll. A politician's beautiful wife waits for her lover in Kuala Lumpur. It's hot and moist. A part of the world "of dense greens and translucent blues", and of "shallows where islands once were." Told by Didion, it's enchanting, quizzical, and bitter.
And while the chaos of this book was perhaps necessary to the "vibe," it certainly didn't make it a particularly easy or rewarding read. Recently I've been having trouble focusing when I read, and this certainly wasn't any help - but I also think maybe I missed some connection by trying - forcing myself to read - too much.
But oh, oh my. The language. Didion, you charm me every time with your cadence and sense of construction. Read it. Savor it, in its intricacies and scope. How the Santa Ana winds are no longer Santa Ana winds but instead Pan-Am flights, Tropical rain, White Christmas playing on the radio, and "dawn all the way."
The more Didion I read, the more I want to sink her voice into myself, and carry her timelss style with me everywhere I go.
Democracy is no different, but it's... different. This is Didion's most post-modern work (At least of what I've read), which is perhaps notable because her career had its first arc during the era of Vonneguts and Kunderas of the world, and that I've found her work to be generally not post-modern. The meta-ness of this book, the ideas, etc. are all handled with a quintessential Didion grace, but it all feels slightly off. The characters and timelines are all tanlged - it's hard to pick out what relation everyone has to each other, how they meet, where they meet - Didion herself chimes in at unusual moments through the narrative to make some thoughtful but perhaps unnecessary observation about the authorial process and its relationship with the reader, and the vietnamese government is always falling. Perpetually in collapse.
Particularly the Pynchon-esque aspects of this book were what I found most interesting but also the most difficult to parse. Talk of government dealings, coups, connections of this person or that... It all amalgamates into this great critique - the downfall of American-backed democracy in Asia, that both paints the most visceral picture of 1970's political ethos and of the climate at the time, but perhaps only writable with the retrospect and hindsight of another era. What folly - to try to nation-build over and over again, and failing each time. There is always an evacuation. Saigon is always falling. Nuclear tests on a deserted Atoll. A politician's beautiful wife waits for her lover in Kuala Lumpur. It's hot and moist. A part of the world "of dense greens and translucent blues", and of "shallows where islands once were." Told by Didion, it's enchanting, quizzical, and bitter.
And while the chaos of this book was perhaps necessary to the "vibe," it certainly didn't make it a particularly easy or rewarding read. Recently I've been having trouble focusing when I read, and this certainly wasn't any help - but I also think maybe I missed some connection by trying - forcing myself to read - too much.
But oh, oh my. The language. Didion, you charm me every time with your cadence and sense of construction. Read it. Savor it, in its intricacies and scope. How the Santa Ana winds are no longer Santa Ana winds but instead Pan-Am flights, Tropical rain, White Christmas playing on the radio, and "dawn all the way."