The Year of Magical Thinking

by Joan Didion

book data

13,814 ratings, 3.76 average rating, 2,583 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		27%
4		36%
3		24%
2		8%
1		3%

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published

February 13th 2007 (first published 2005) by Vintage

binding

Paperback, 240 pages

setting

The United States

literary awards

National Book Award for Nonfiction (2005)

isbn

1400078431 (isbn13: 9781400078431)

description

From one of America’s iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion. Joan Didion explores an intensely personal yet universal experi...more

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05/28/07

steffie rated it:

(review of isbn 140004314X)

Read in May, 2007

recommends it for: Thin, Wealthy Women

I didn't go gaga over this book. While I like Didion's writing, I just didn't care much for her or her oddly privileged lifestyle. I realize that wealth doesn't except you from grief, but I felt this book was needlessly full of details that did nothing but drive a wedge between me and this woman. A free ticket on the Concorde? Why do Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, of all people, have a free ticket on the Concorde? Dominick Dunne, maybe. Because he's totally about Power and Privilege.
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09/11/07

brian rated it:

i'm not as certain about the outcome of this election as i was in '00 ( i was wrong) or about '04 (i was right), but i'm pretty sure it's gonna be mccain. and it's not just because america's not ready for what many of obama's more classy opponents refer to as The Black House (uh, y'know, 1600 pennsylvania avenue with obama's name on the lease) but because the republicans have mastered the art of Magical Thinking.

so the other day mitt romney, in defending mccain not being aware that ...more i'm not as certain about the outcome of this election as i was in '00 ( i was wrong) or about '04 (i was right), but i'm pretty sure it's gonna be mccain. and it's not just because america's not ready for what many of obama's more classy opponents refer to as The Black House (uh, y'know, 1600 pennsylvania avenue with obama's name on the lease) but because the republicans have mastered the art of Magical Thinking.

so the other day mitt romney, in defending mccain not being aware that he owned eight houses, inferred that it was un-american to challenge a man who lived out the american dream (money, baby) through "hard work". now, of course, mccain owns eight houses because he married a wildly wealthy heiress, not through any such "hard work". and romney, of course, inherited all his money. as did bush. while that arugula-eating pansy elitist, barack obama, actually did live out the american dream and worked his ass off to make his life.

but it's irrelevant. the meme is out there. and the left and democrats and media and comedians scoff at said meme, but succeed merely in strengthening it.

because the republicans understand the rule of Magical Thinking: they understand how to turn thought into reality.

genius!

let's think about what destroyed mccain last time he ran: the rumor, the meme, the lie (made truth) that he had "illegitimate black babies" rather than the true fact that he adopted some vietnamese kids (amazing how they take what could potentially make you look the best and use it to slime the shit out of you). the most powerful attack against john mccain to date was made by - surprise! - republicans. most specifically by - surprise! - karl rove. magical thinking.

what to do, what to do? take the high road? well, i don't think the democrats really do that. they try to attack mccain, but they just suck at it. and they're kinda stuck b/c if they attack "illegitimate black babies", they look a little fucked up, particularly in this election cycle.

so i think the democrats need to read this book. didion has always been a favorite writer on politics and The Year of Magical Thinking is perhaps her best and, if followed by the democrats, could convince voters that mccain fought with and not against the vietnamese, and that he was never tortur- uh... that he was never subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques"... (y'see what i did? there it is! crush my testicles in a vice? ah, it's just a "technique"... Magical Thinking, baby!)(less)

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02/06/08

S Miguel rated it:

bookshelves: reviews

Read in January, 2008

recommended to S Miguel by: TN
recommends it for: anyone thinking about, or who knows someone in, grief, loss of loved ones, surviving mourning.

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07/20/07

Sara rated it:

"you sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends. the question of self-pity."

i picked up this book and read it knowing nothing more than those two short lines. those two lines which become the refrain of the memoir.

i think i must have been drawn to it intuitively, i needed to read this book when i did. didion's memoir records her thoughts, feelings and actions during the year following her husband's death and her daughter's near-death hospitalizations (i...more

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05/16/07

Don rated it:

Read in August, 2007

It has been said that divorce is second in psychological trauma only to the loss of a spouse. Personally, I think that’s bullshit; loss of a child must trump all. In any case, Ms. Didion is of the opinion that loss through divorce is mitigated by the ex-spouses corporeal presence on this fine earth; i.e. they’re still alive and well and accessible. Indeed ex-spouses are a present and constant reminder of failure. They are a walking, talking embodiment of the life you thought you would ha...more

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04/13/08

Samilja rated it:

Read in May, 2008

This wasn't exactly what I expected. I knew from an interview with Didion on Fresh Air that the book was written in the year that followed the death of her husband - A year she spent mostly in hospitals at her adult daughter's bedside. The daughter, Quintana, suffered various illnesses and injuries that year, all of them serious & potentially fatal. The medical odyssey had begun just five days before her husband's sudden death from a heart attack. He died, in fact, in the couple's living room ha...more This wasn't exactly what I expected. I knew from an interview with Didion on Fresh Air that the book was written in the year that followed the death of her husband - A year she spent mostly in hospitals at her adult daughter's bedside. The daughter, Quintana, suffered various illnesses and injuries that year, all of them serious & potentially fatal. The medical odyssey had begun just five days before her husband's sudden death from a heart attack. He died, in fact, in the couple's living room having just returned for the night from their daughter's hospital room.

What I expected was a memoir of the piled-upon trajedies. I guess I did get that, just not how I'd imagined. I expected emotion and poignant anecdotes that would be intimate but also somehow metaphorical on the grand scale (she is a famous fiction writer after all, if anyone could deliver this it would be her).

Turns out, Didion is not a particularly emotive person. She is however a true believer that knowledge is power [reminding me of one of my favorite quotes] and she attacks both her grief and her daughter's poor health as a researcher and investigator. She quickly abandons the grief books of self-help ilk for actual, scientific and psychological studies and treatises. For medical manuals and calling in favors from medical professionals with whom she has one connection or another. Then she studies her self in a remarkably objective manner (perhaps aided by shock?) armed with this new knowledge.

I've read some of the other reviews of this book on goodreads and note that those that are particularly critical don't like the coldness with which Didion approaches the book but I took that as self-preservation. She had to keep moving or she might, literally, shrivel up and die. To explore her illogical behaviors (like keeping her husbands shoes even after giving up the rest of his clothes) and her increasingly tenuous grasp on the present (much of the book is expository, with Didion letting present details lead her back to various experiences that she analyzes and re-analyzes with the detriment of hindsight) is her way of keeping afloat. It's those very qualities of her grief, human and irrational, that made Didion, to me, a sympathetic author.

The 'magical' thinking in the title refers to her insistence throughout the year, though private and mostly subconscious, that if she could just analyze things correctly or do everything in a particular, precise way her husband would come back and rejoin their life. That's a desperation a lot of us can relate to - even if we muddled through it in ways very different from Didion's.

I enjoyed the reminiscing - a peek into the lives of two prominent U.S. authors of the last half century and those with whom they held court. I found Didion's research fascinating and more so the way she applied it to her own circumstance and then considered the data. The book made me think about my own choices and how I might reconsider them in the future, when things are different and the faux security of youth are gone.
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12/18/07

Kate rated it:

(review of isbn 140004314X)

bookshelves: biographies-and-memoirs, non-fiction, the-100-in-2007

Read in November, 2007

Joan Didion's daughter Quintana fell gravely ill and was hospitalized with a serious infection. She was placed in a medical coma and put on life support. Only weeks later, Joan's husband, John Dunne, was speaking with her from their living room after visiting their daughter in the hospital, stopped mid-sentence and keeled over dead on the floor of a massive coronary. Four weeks later, Quintana pulled through and revived, but only two months after that, she collapsed from a massive brain hematoma...more Joan Didion's daughter Quintana fell gravely ill and was hospitalized with a serious infection. She was placed in a medical coma and put on life support. Only weeks later, Joan's husband, John Dunne, was speaking with her from their living room after visiting their daughter in the hospital, stopped mid-sentence and keeled over dead on the floor of a massive coronary. Four weeks later, Quintana pulled through and revived, but only two months after that, she collapsed from a massive brain hematoma.

Joan Didion documented this year in this book, which I think I heard about on NPR or somewhere, I'm not entirely sure. I know you're all going to hate me for kicking the widow when she's down, but this book was a lot less than I expected. I got through it, but I really thought it would be more about her feelings. Instead, Didion did a lot of research on grief and puts many of her findings in the book. She spends a lot of time analyzing the way things are and trying to figure out if she's behaving in a way that seems "normal" for your "average widow."

I read a review on Amazon.com that calls Joan Didion's writing as "cool" and perhaps lacking emotion, and I felt that way about this book. The most moving passage in the whole book was one in which she states that she realized she was in denial when she cleaned out her husband's closets, but couldn't get rid of his shoes because he would need them when he got back. I thought to myself, "well, now we're getting somewhere", but perhaps she didn't want to share where those painful thoughts led, because there was no indication that she picked the shoes up and flung them at the walls while sobbing in rage. And I wanted her to. I wanted her to be angry at God and everyone for putting her in this terrible situation with her husband's death and her daughter's serious illnesses. But instead, she seemed rather detached. Maybe she didn't want to share those feelings, but if that were so, she shouldn't have written a book purporting to be about that very topic. I found this book to be tremendously disappointing.
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11/09/07

Tucker rated it:

bookshelves: finished

Read in November, 2007

Didion breaks a cardinal rule of story-writing, which is to have something happen. The only events that occur in this book are the instantaneous cardiac arrest of her husband and an illness that puts her daughter on life support. Even these, due to Didion's weaving, do not feel like ordinary events in a plotline. She tells pieces of the story over and over again through the various angles of memory, as though her grief had been journalled and later assembled as a mosaic instead of in chronolo...more Didion breaks a cardinal rule of story-writing, which is to have something happen. The only events that occur in this book are the instantaneous cardiac arrest of her husband and an illness that puts her daughter on life support. Even these, due to Didion's weaving, do not feel like ordinary events in a plotline. She tells pieces of the story over and over again through the various angles of memory, as though her grief had been journalled and later assembled as a mosaic instead of in chronological order.

The value of the book is as a series of personal and occasionally psycho-academic (but well-integrated) reflections on grief.

"The Year of Magical Thinking" refers to her denial that her husband is gone for good. Although she does not believe in the resurrection of Jesus, nevertheless, she says, she feels certain her husband will come back. In the second half of the book, there is an interesting exploration of the Greek play Alcestis, in which a king begs his family to die in his place. Only his wife volunteers to die, and when Charon comes to ferry her away, the king is racked with guilt. The queen eventually returns from the dead. Didion asks: "If the dead were truly to come back, what would they come back knowing? Could we face them, we who allowed them to die?"

There is a meditation on the idea of luck: whether, if one has been lucky in the past, it is appropriate to consider oneself unlucky later on when something bad happens, and whether one should expect that the playing field will eventually be leveled.

"All year," Didion writes, "I had been keeping time by last year's calendar. What were we doing on this day last year?" She is shocked when she crosses the one-year mark, and realizes she has over a year's worth of memories that do not include her husband. (I would add that this behavior of "keeping time by last year's calendar" is not unique to the death of a loved one; it can happen with any life event that carries a sense of loss, such as a breakup.) Didion's moving conclusion reflects on the tsunami in 2004 that would have eradicated the islands where she once vacationed with her husband. "I know why we try to keep the dead alive. We try to keep them alive in order to keep them with us. I also know that if we are to live ourselves, there comes a point at which we must relinquish the dead...Let them become the photograph on the table. Let them become the name on the trust accounts. Let go of them in the water."(less)

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11/05/07

Kathaileen rated it:

bookshelves: biography-memoir

Read in February, 2006

After I saw a short article about this book, I decided I would probably have to read it.
The author lost her husband suddenly while her only daughter was in a coma in the hospital. I loved the book and I would highly recommend it to anyone who has lost a spouse, parent, or someone close. And, to anyone in a long term marriage or relationship that still has both partners.
As I read it, I thought a lot about my mom and how these would have been her thoughts – if she had not been the fi...more After I saw a short article about this book, I decided I would probably have to read it.
The author lost her husband suddenly while her only daughter was in a coma in the hospital. I loved the book and I would highly recommend it to anyone who has lost a spouse, parent, or someone close. And, to anyone in a long term marriage or relationship that still has both partners.
As I read it, I thought a lot about my mom and how these would have been her thoughts – if she had not been the first to go. I thought about my dad and, how he is dealing with her absence. I thought about Doug and our marriage and how it would be if one of us lost the other one. Joan Didion’s observations are right on and she communicates them to the reader so we can understand exactly what she means.
-Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant.
-our (I could not yet think my) house
-grief, about the ways in which people do and do not deal with the fact that life ends
-Fires said we were home, we had drawn the circle, we were safe through the night.
-I did not always think he was not right nor did he always think I was right but we were each the person the other trusted. There was no separation between our investments or interests in any given situation.
-Grief is different. Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the daily ness of life. Virtually everyone who has ever experienced grief mentions this phenomenon of “waves.”
-Grief was passive. Mourning, the act of dealing with grief, required attention.
-The voice on the answering machine is still John’s. The fact that it was his in the first place was arbitrary, having to do with who was around n the day the answering machine last needed programming, but if I needed to retape it now I would do so with a sense of betrayal. One day when I was talking on the telephone in his office I mindlessly turned the pages of the dictionary that he had always left open on the table by the desk. When I realized what I had done I was stricken: what word had he last looked up, what had he been thinking?
-As he saw it, he now had a death sentence, temporarily suspended – he knew how he was going to die. As I saw it, the timing had been providential, the intervention successful the problem solved.
-“Don’t ever tell me again you can’t write. That’s my birthday present to you.”
-who would see the blood streaming down my leg, who would get the taxi, who would be with me in the emergency room. Who would be with me once I came home?
-their son had been ‘hit hard by the sixties’
-Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss. We do not expect to be literally crazy cool customers who believe that their husband is about to return and need his shoes.
-something would come up that I needed to tell him. This impulse did not end with his death. What ended was the possibility of response.
-C.S. Lewis “I think I am beginning to understand why grief feels like suspense.”…So many roads once; now so many cul de sacs.
-We are repeatedly left, in other words, with no further focus than ourselves, a source from which self-pity naturally flows.
-Marriage is memory. Marriage is time. “She didn’t know the songs”. Marriage is not only time: it is paradoxically, the denial of time. For forty years I saw myself through John’s eyes. I did not age.
Postscript: Joan Didion’s daughter Quantana died of pancreatitis in August 2005.

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09/17/07

Elyssa rated it:

bookshelves: memoir

Read in October, 2007

I discovered this book when I read Joan Didion's article in The New York Times Magazine. The article was a much shorter version of the book and it really spoke to me, as someone who experienced a significant loss. I figured the book would be an expansion of the article and it was; however, it expanded in ways that did not resonate with me as much as that initial article.

The book reads like random notes that Joan Didion jotted down in the depths of her grief. In some ways, I identifi...more I discovered this book when I read Joan Didion's article in The New York Times Magazine. The article was a much shorter version of the book and it really spoke to me, as someone who experienced a significant loss. I figured the book would be an expansion of the article and it was; however, it expanded in ways that did not resonate with me as much as that initial article.

The book reads like random notes that Joan Didion jotted down in the depths of her grief. In some ways, I identified with this because it mirrors the mourning process, which can cause stream-of-consciousness and "magical thinking". After awhile, though, the prose grew tiresome and I yearned for the condensed version as presented in the article. That might sound shallow, but the article effectively captured the complexities of grief without sacrificing brutal realism.

There were some parts of the book I did like. I appreciated her portrayal of seeing reminders of the deceased person, i.e. a stack of books left untouched or specific places experienced together, and how that can trigger a slew of memories. She talks about the desire to write down detailed notes of the deceased person's last moments to truly grasp the finality of his/her life. Also, the reflex to call the deceased to tell them about something that he/she would appreciate. And, in the end, her realization that the grieving survivor needs to just let go and let the dead person be dead was powerful.

Overall, the book should be lauded for addressing the issue of grief itself. Grief is a lonely experience, primarily because it is suppressed in this culture after a prescribed period of time. The fact that Didion devoted a whole book to the topic is commendable. She gave a voice to those who have struggled with the mourning process. Unfortunately, her book does not speak for everyone, but hopefully it allows readers to delve into their own experiences.

The best part of the book was revisiting the segments from the original article. Didion's observations about grief from the article are so accurate that I found the tears welling up as I remembered the pain of loss. In the end, I can give the book 3 stars because parts of it are so well written and I admire her for going into the heart of her despair and sharing it publicly. (less)

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06/21/07

Simeon rated it:

bookshelves: memoir, non-fiction

I also thought this book was tremendously overrated. In the past, I loved Didion because she was a great stylist and a brilliant structuralist. The title essay of The White Album is probably the best-written essay of all time in my book, followed by F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Crack-up" and Charles Bowden's "Torch Song." She has the ability to analyze the personal politics of narrative, and to disclose just how weird and singular her brain is without even a trace of pity or se...more

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05/21/07

noisy penguin rated it:

recommends it for: no one should read this book.

I hated this book. It is the reason I instituted my "100 pages" policy (if it's not promising 100 pages in, I will no longer waste my time on it). So within the 100 pages I did read, all I got from Didion was that she and her husband used to live a fabulous life and they know a lot of famous people. She spoke of the '60s as a time when "everyone" was flying from LA to San Francisco for dinner. Um, no, actually, "everyone" wasn't doing that then and they're not doing...more

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08/08/08

Kate rated it:

bookshelves: memoir

What has stayed with me most from this book is her idea of "the shallowness of sanity." We move through life as though our days aren't numbered; death or tragedy shocks us into another mental state. "Sanity" involves a kind of denial of mortality.

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01/09/08

Tung rated it:

bookshelves: memoirs

Read in January, 2007

A National Book Award-winner, this book is Didion’s personal memoir of the year following the death of her husband, writer John Dunne. Didion lays out her thought processes and emotions and struggle for normalcy after Dunne passes away suddenly one night at the dinner table from a heart problem. I didn’t find this book nearly as good as the hype would lead me to believe. The NY Times review called it an "indelible portrait of loss and grief." The NY Review of Books said "I ca...more A National Book Award-winner, this book is Didion’s personal memoir of the year following the death of her husband, writer John Dunne. Didion lays out her thought processes and emotions and struggle for normalcy after Dunne passes away suddenly one night at the dinner table from a heart problem. I didn’t find this book nearly as good as the hype would lead me to believe. The NY Times review called it an "indelible portrait of loss and grief." The NY Review of Books said "I can’t imagine dying without this book." For me, it earned none of the preceding words of praise. Books on grief have been done much better, including one referenced multiple times throughout Didion’s book (A Grief Observed by CS Lewis is far superior). I am absolutely convinced that the only reason Didion’s book received such notably positive press was because she and her husband were good friends with all these reviewers and the rest of the literary community, having bonded with these people at dinner parties on the Upper East Side in smoking jackets with martinis and cigars; Didion and Dunne were part of the NYC writing establishment Didion’s prose throughout is tight and reminiscent of early Vonnegut (his self-referencing style, not his humor), but there is an emotional distance in her writing. She quotes numerous studies on grief throughout the book, having spent the months following the tragedy not only grieving but studying grief. But the research studies don’t serve to illuminate her grief; they serve to distance us from her grief. Secondly, Didion lived a very upper-crust NY life, and the way she describes the events she will miss doing (dining at Morton’s with her husband, walking on the Jardin du Ranelagh in Paris with her husband, skipping the Monet exhibit to dine at Conti’s with her husband) further distances me from Didion’s grief. Personally, I don’t find rich people experiencing tragedy as tragic as I would find average people experiencing tragedy. I found this too emotionally detached to recommend it. (less)

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07/24/07

Jonathan added it

bookshelves: readit

Read in October, 2006

I'd heard good things from this book, from an acclaimed author I had never even heard of who bears a small resemblance to Joni Mitchell and Sissy Spacek. This is all, of course, inconsequential.

I picked this book up when I was running away from my then boyfriend and on a midnight plane to Dublin.
It wasn't until three weeks later, whilst in London, that I started it. I find this all very important because it gives me a feel for what is written in the book that sort of refl...more
I'd heard good things from this book, from an acclaimed author I had never even heard of who bears a small resemblance to Joni Mitchell and Sissy Spacek. This is all, of course, inconsequential.

I picked this book up when I was running away from my then boyfriend and on a midnight plane to Dublin.
It wasn't until three weeks later, whilst in London, that I started it. I find this all very important because it gives me a feel for what is written in the book that sort of reflected what was going on in my life at the time.
I had not lost a husband but there were certainly changes going on in my life. This is an important aspect to consider, that we can feel grief in other ways besides death, that loneliness is there at any possible time and that our life shapes and moves forward in various ways.

The entire book is a meditation on death, dying, relationships, family and change. One night, Joan and her husband are about to sit down to dinner. Their daughter is very ill in hospital. When very suddenly, Joan's husband has a fatal heart attack.

The rest of a book is a musing on their relationship together, what it feels like to be a widow and have a life without a life-long companion. What death means, especially sudden death. There are pieces on travelling, famil, love, motherhood.
There are even fragments about what it means to be a writer, how you cope with grief as a writer, what do you do when the emotional level is so high you cannot even bring yourself to write.

It is a wonderful slim volume written in a direct and crisp prose that I recommend highly to read alone. I don't see it as a holiday book to read beside the beach, or something to read whilst anyone is talking. Each word and feeling must be savoured. Read it in the middle of the night or the early morning, with the window open to hear the slow hum of the night-time, with a good strong mug of coffee whilst you're curled up on the sofa or in bed.

It's the kind of book that will leave you feeling beaten up afterwards, amidst the direct formation of words there are many great ideas and cutting emotions, just make sure you have the emotional energy for it.(less)

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07/02/07

sydney rated it:

Read in June, 2007

"A memoir...says: This is what my memory insists on, this is what my memory will not let go, these points of memory make me who I am, and all that others find incomprehensible about me is explained by what's in here." -Andrea Dworkin (not from or related to The Year of Magical Thinking)

I love memoirs because they're like roadmaps to being a human. They tell you what it feels like to have a certain experience. They don't claim to be the authority on that experience, but th...more

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10/18/07

Alan rated it:

Read in July, 2007

recommends it for: th bereaved

An undeniable, biographically verified tragedy will carry a book a long way. But I felt her approach to sorrow to be one of control, to be an instance of a particularly American kind problem-solving, rather than of serious solitary reflection and attempted acceptance. I also found the cloistered, rarefied, routinized luxury of her life and world to be rather spoiled, despite its grave horrors. Though I enjoyed the stark realism, I might have enjoyed a less iron face than the one with which she, ...more

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05/29/08

Judi rated it:

Read in June, 2007

This is one amazing book, and it turned me into a Joan Didion fan forever. Not a "happy" book at all, mind you -- it is a personal story about the sudden death of her husband and true partner and the aftermath. I could totally relate to the meaning behind the phrase "Magical Thinking" after the death of several very dear to me. You feel like if you could just reach around a corner, or a wrinkle in time, they would be right there.

Joan Didion's voice must be a ...more

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06/24/07

Audrey rated it:

Read in August, 2007

recommends it for: People who have their shit together

I don't think it's Joan Didion's fault that my reaction to this book was to question and/or deride several facets of my life: should I be closer to my husband, like the author? Was I wasting time? Why didn't I keep a real journal? Why were the sporadic sentences in my sad attempt a journal so poorly written? Why don't I have a kitchen notebook to write down my meals like Joan Didion? Why did I just switch tense? Shouldn't I be keeping better notes on the goings-on of my life? In any event, this ...more

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04/11/09

Dorothea rated it:

Read in April, 2009

This is my first attempt to read anything written by Joan Didion. I picked up The Year of Magical thinking at a used book sale, after hearing her name thrown around in literary circles and not knowing anything about her. At this moment I'm only on page 76 and I don't know if I'll bother trying to make it to page 77 as the pretension is becoming unbearable.

The book is a series of essays she wrote after the death of her husband to whom she was married for 40 years. Little nuggets of...more

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Guns, Germs, and Steel

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The Year of Magical Thinking

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""I just can't see the upside in this," I heard myself say by way of explanation. Later he said that if John had been sitting in the office he would have found this funny, as he himself had found it. "Of course I knew what you meant to say, and John would have known too, you meant to say you couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel." I agreed, but this was not in fact the case. I had meant pretty much exactly what I said: I couldn't see the upside in this. As I thought about the difference between the two sentences I realized that my impression of myself had been of someone who could look for, and find, the upside in any situation. I had believed in the logic of popular songs. I had looked for the silver lining. I had walked on through the storm. It occurs to me now that these were not even the songs of my generation. They were the songs, and the logic, of the generation or two that preceded my own. The score for my generation was Les Paul and Mary Ford, "How High the Moon," a different logic altogether. It also occurs to me, not an original thought but novel to me, that the logic of those earlier songs was based on self-pity. The singer of the song about looking for the silver lining believes that clouds have come her way. The singer of the song about walking on through the storm assumes that the storm could otherwise take her down," More quotes...