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A review by botanyandbookends
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
5.0
⠀
The Year of Magical Thinking⠀
by Joan Didion⠀
⠀
It would appear to be a morbid book to read, yet this memoir about the year following Joan Didion's husband’s death, was a systematic, matter-of-fact approach to try to make sense of the common process of grief. I mostly found it fascinating that our mind tries to make sense of something our heart cannot easily process. ⠀
⠀
Didion's husband (John) had a sudden heart attack and died at home one evening. Didion recalls simple things like going to the hospital with the paramedics and her husband's body to take care of the paperwork...'the regularization of death'. At the NYC hospital she recalls looking at the time and realizing that John had not died yet on LA time. Didion wondered, for a brief moment, if she could somehow stop him from dying before that California time arrived.⠀
⠀
This book would be particularly fascinating to anyone who has grieved the loss of a loved one as they would surely find similarities in the way Didion processed her husband's death. ⠀
⠀
As is common, she spoke of wanting to tell John something important, only to realize she could not. "It was as if I put the arrow in the bow, pulled back and just before shooting it realized he was not here to listen to my story, and I would release the arrow and set the bow back down."⠀
⠀
Didion recalled the many times in their marriage that after having a dream she would tell John about it in the morning when they woke up "...not to dwell on the dream but to let it go." As a reader I wondered how therapeutic this memoir must have been. To write about her process of grief. Not to dwell on death, but to let it go.⠀
⠀
After a year of grieving and looking back on what was happening the previous year between she and John, she realized that while his death occurred on December 30, December 31 would be the first day in which John was not a part of the previous year. That is when she began to move forward and her way of thinking shifted. "I began to allow him to simply be the photograph on the piano."⠀
⠀
This was a fascinating book about the process of grief - universally experienced but very uniquely felt.⠀
⠀
A highly recommended book.
The Year of Magical Thinking⠀
by Joan Didion⠀
⠀
It would appear to be a morbid book to read, yet this memoir about the year following Joan Didion's husband’s death, was a systematic, matter-of-fact approach to try to make sense of the common process of grief. I mostly found it fascinating that our mind tries to make sense of something our heart cannot easily process. ⠀
⠀
Didion's husband (John) had a sudden heart attack and died at home one evening. Didion recalls simple things like going to the hospital with the paramedics and her husband's body to take care of the paperwork...'the regularization of death'. At the NYC hospital she recalls looking at the time and realizing that John had not died yet on LA time. Didion wondered, for a brief moment, if she could somehow stop him from dying before that California time arrived.⠀
⠀
This book would be particularly fascinating to anyone who has grieved the loss of a loved one as they would surely find similarities in the way Didion processed her husband's death. ⠀
⠀
As is common, she spoke of wanting to tell John something important, only to realize she could not. "It was as if I put the arrow in the bow, pulled back and just before shooting it realized he was not here to listen to my story, and I would release the arrow and set the bow back down."⠀
⠀
Didion recalled the many times in their marriage that after having a dream she would tell John about it in the morning when they woke up "...not to dwell on the dream but to let it go." As a reader I wondered how therapeutic this memoir must have been. To write about her process of grief. Not to dwell on death, but to let it go.⠀
⠀
After a year of grieving and looking back on what was happening the previous year between she and John, she realized that while his death occurred on December 30, December 31 would be the first day in which John was not a part of the previous year. That is when she began to move forward and her way of thinking shifted. "I began to allow him to simply be the photograph on the piano."⠀
⠀
This was a fascinating book about the process of grief - universally experienced but very uniquely felt.⠀
⠀
A highly recommended book.