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yerguyrob 's review for:
Slouching Towards Bethlehem
by Joan Didion
reflective
“...I think we are well-advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.”
When most people pick up this book today, I doubt they think of terms like “New Journalism” and “The Counter Culture.” They instead might see a bunch of boring opinion pieces on a time period that doesn’t interest them, and yet, the 60s counter culture movement has informed much of the late 20th and early 21st century. We are a drug fueled nation. We are the promise fulfilled of that time period that chose to “turn on, tune in, [and] drop out.”
Joan Didion did not think fondly on the protest movement. She championed tradition and individualism. She was very pessimistic about the world she was witnessing. She was a conservative… and though her stance changed in the 80s, it was more that she didn’t like what the republicans were turning into. (And honestly, I’m not surprised. She prayed at the church of John Wayne ((I really hated that essay about him in here)))
I enjoyed many of the pieces. The first essay, “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream,” is really good. “On Going Home” is a great essay about how you really can’t go home, and “Rock of Ages” about Alcatraz.
This is a good collection, but I guess I just like Babitz’s writing better.
When most people pick up this book today, I doubt they think of terms like “New Journalism” and “The Counter Culture.” They instead might see a bunch of boring opinion pieces on a time period that doesn’t interest them, and yet, the 60s counter culture movement has informed much of the late 20th and early 21st century. We are a drug fueled nation. We are the promise fulfilled of that time period that chose to “turn on, tune in, [and] drop out.”
Joan Didion did not think fondly on the protest movement. She championed tradition and individualism. She was very pessimistic about the world she was witnessing. She was a conservative… and though her stance changed in the 80s, it was more that she didn’t like what the republicans were turning into. (And honestly, I’m not surprised. She prayed at the church of John Wayne ((I really hated that essay about him in here)))
I enjoyed many of the pieces. The first essay, “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream,” is really good. “On Going Home” is a great essay about how you really can’t go home, and “Rock of Ages” about Alcatraz.
This is a good collection, but I guess I just like Babitz’s writing better.