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A review by justinh94
Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
4.0
Other than an essay here or there, this was my first real exposure to Didion, and what a treat to be in her head. Well, sort of—part of her gift lay in showing us just how much of a curse it could be, seeing and thinking and feeling that way all the time. But to visit it for a while!
I much prefer the essays where she’s writing about something abstract, or at least something broad enough to be projected onto: journaling, Alcatraz, the wind that makes you sad, New York. There, her personal imagination picks up the strands of whatever she’s nominally reporting on and either ties them into an eloquent bow or else takes them and runs wild into some even more interesting land. It’s when her gaze gets mired in overly-reported specifics that my attention drifts—but never so far that I can’t be knocked out by her next hundred-dollar sentence.
I much prefer the essays where she’s writing about something abstract, or at least something broad enough to be projected onto: journaling, Alcatraz, the wind that makes you sad, New York. There, her personal imagination picks up the strands of whatever she’s nominally reporting on and either ties them into an eloquent bow or else takes them and runs wild into some even more interesting land. It’s when her gaze gets mired in overly-reported specifics that my attention drifts—but never so far that I can’t be knocked out by her next hundred-dollar sentence.