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A review by outcolder
The White Album: Essays by Joan Didion
3.0
Didion would go to the barricades, if she thought it would change anything. One of those sharply intelligent bourgeois cocktail party guests who can report on their own kind with chilling clarity while guzzling inhuman amounts of depressants in both liquid and pill form, and then suddenly switch to fascinating descriptions of California's water works, Didion is someone whose company I would greatly enjoy for brief periods. When she tries to digest "the Sixties," things go a little haywire. Didion is only interested in shades of grey but sometimes the contrast really is black and white. She decries the "personal is political" attitude, not in so many words, but then airs her personal confusions as if they say something about America. She distrusts or even dislikes "the party" but political organizations not running for office seem beyond her imagination... or maybe the editors of the magazines these essays first appeared in cut those bits. The Black Panthers, and even the Doors, seem to have survived her sharp, witty judgement with few wounds. Be careful about spending too long inside her head, she has 12 hour migraines at least once a week.
I imagine an army of women from this time period (1968-1978) on prescription downers, and Quaaludes do get a mention. I am interested in the moment, I think around 1974, when it was clear to everyone that the "revolution" that seemed possible in '68-'72 was not going to happen, that Nixon and all them would live happily ever after, and I think Didion offers some clues in the way that the first season of Saturday Night Live does in to that zeitgeist. I know that sounds pretentious and it probably is, but deal with it. I just feel the absence in this book of whoever is doing the housework while Ms. Didion and her husband do their things.
The writing is tight and the essays are thought provoking and I am thankful for that. Yet I was asking myself, was I reading this to the end like a gambler who can't walk away from the action... like the Hollywood personalities fiddling with the "independent" films in one of her essays... Why didn't I quit you, Didion??
I imagine an army of women from this time period (1968-1978) on prescription downers, and Quaaludes do get a mention. I am interested in the moment, I think around 1974, when it was clear to everyone that the "revolution" that seemed possible in '68-'72 was not going to happen, that Nixon and all them would live happily ever after, and I think Didion offers some clues in the way that the first season of Saturday Night Live does in to that zeitgeist. I know that sounds pretentious and it probably is, but deal with it. I just feel the absence in this book of whoever is doing the housework while Ms. Didion and her husband do their things.
The writing is tight and the essays are thought provoking and I am thankful for that. Yet I was asking myself, was I reading this to the end like a gambler who can't walk away from the action... like the Hollywood personalities fiddling with the "independent" films in one of her essays... Why didn't I quit you, Didion??