Scan barcode
A review by whoischels
The White Album by Joan Didion
informative
reflective
3.5
Blown away by Didion's prose. I have historically been *into the hype.* However, I'm having a bit of a come-to-Jesus moment after reading these essays. Didion's essays are entirely personal or rhetorical analyses. This has its place when it comes to things like the California governor's mansion, which she describes as a massive version of the type of new tract house that was popular at the time. She describes architecture in terms of its rhetorical purpose, diagnosing the mansion as tacky, individualistic, at its core poorly designed and poorly thought out. Architecture as rhetoric makes sense here because at the end of the Reagan decided to build a house, and when you sign off on designs you are saying something.
When it comes to things like lifeguards and highways, Didion says nothing at all. She talks about the feeling of driving in LA and the feelings and associations do ring true. But then she diagnoses her personal issues with improvements and changes to public infrastructure in ways that lack expertise and any real insight. She dismisses a robust research project that the city was doing to improve roads as bureaucracy, dismissing things like HOV lanes as unnecessary and useless. A lot of research goes into things like public infrastructure policy. These aren't fit for rhetorical analysis alone.
These essays are fun to read, and they're really beautiful in the precision of her prose and her turns of phrase. But some of her opinions aren't backed by any facts at all, and the beauty of the prose completely hides it. So I've sort of had to come to terms with what impact Didion had on the type of BS, un-researched opinion pieces we see published in major newspapers today. One would think quite a bit given how popular she was.
When it comes to things like lifeguards and highways, Didion says nothing at all. She talks about the feeling of driving in LA and the feelings and associations do ring true. But then she diagnoses her personal issues with improvements and changes to public infrastructure in ways that lack expertise and any real insight. She dismisses a robust research project that the city was doing to improve roads as bureaucracy, dismissing things like HOV lanes as unnecessary and useless. A lot of research goes into things like public infrastructure policy. These aren't fit for rhetorical analysis alone.
These essays are fun to read, and they're really beautiful in the precision of her prose and her turns of phrase. But some of her opinions aren't backed by any facts at all, and the beauty of the prose completely hides it. So I've sort of had to come to terms with what impact Didion had on the type of BS, un-researched opinion pieces we see published in major newspapers today. One would think quite a bit given how popular she was.