"Terror is the given of the place." The place is El Salvador in 1982, at the ghastly height of its civil war. The writer is Joan Didion, ...
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Nov 27, 2010
DoctorM
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I've always been in love with Joan Didion's reportage, with the dry, affectless, distanced language that suddenly, powerfully, yields razor-sharp insights. "Salvador" is the finest of her post-1960s writing---- a picture of a ghostly, fear-haunted country at the beginning of the 1980s. Didion catches the emptiness of official language and press releases, the utter and all-consuming cynicism of a society where conspiracy is assumed and random death a fact of daily life, the empty street
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Sep 25, 2010
John
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I first read this book for a class in college, the 2nd time I went. I've since re-read numerous times, even most recently. The professor chose it for Stylistics in Essays. We were asked to write a Didionesque passage. Ms. Didion is a master wirter using techniques and figurureative language ito create visions in the readers mind. Her diction and structure combines with her other skills. It starts with the first word, and doesn't finish till the last one.
The book is an acutual account More...
The book is an acutual account More...
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Aug 27, 2009
Martha
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I'm a Joan Didion fan, primarily because of the way she uses language. She creates breezy, yet complex sentences that are not at all pretty in their depiction of the oddness of reality. And she uses repetition in a way that drives home what she wants to say, rather than in a way that irritates, as in the case of the opening of her novel Democracy:
The light at dawn during those Pacific tests was something to see.More...
Something to behold.
Something that could almost make you thin
Apr 27, 2010
Ian
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Joan Didion's description of early-1980s El Salvador is a terrifically bleak one. The reportage style is beautifully written and wonderfully, powerfully, and horrifically descriptive.
The content seems dated from the El Salvador I am aware of but the interviews with the politicians and ambassadors reflect some of the issues prevalent in the tiny Central American country today. The gulf between rich and poor still exists and Didion's frustration with the lack of access to balanced (or any) More...
The content seems dated from the El Salvador I am aware of but the interviews with the politicians and ambassadors reflect some of the issues prevalent in the tiny Central American country today. The gulf between rich and poor still exists and Didion's frustration with the lack of access to balanced (or any) More...
Jan 12, 2010
Jlawrence
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Didion's previous non-fiction often revealed her sense that a malevolent absurdity pervades all things. So visiting civil-war-ravaged El Salvador in the early 80's may well have been provided too perfect a reinforcement of that view -- making this reporting much of a subjective reaction than a journalistic attempt to understand the place. For Didion, a place where violence, official and casual, has become so ingrained in daily life, where truth had become hugely disregarded by both the Salvado
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Oct 01, 2009
Diane
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This book doesn't try to explain what can't seemingly be put into words or even processed internally -- the awful "situation" (one of many odd labels used for the inexplicable) in El Salvador in the 1980s. Unlike many other political tracts and journalistic treatises and horrifying survival tales, of whose importance I am in no way discounting!!, which try their damndest to get some sort of handle on the travesties that occurred in El Salvador and elsewhere in Central America but eithe
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Jan 27, 2011
Noelle
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This is a long essay detailing the chaos and human rights violations in El Salvador, and the American attempts to intervene in the Salvadoran Civil War. It was written after the author's 1982 visit to the country. I need more background information on what was happening in El Salvador at that time, but even without that knowledge the book offered plenty of thought-provoking insights on the the U.S. government's desire for the appearance of justice and democracy, which seemed to outweigh its de
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Jan 19, 2012
alex
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an enlightening piece on a country with an astonishing lack of personal history. one thing that i have to applaud in didion's writing is that she doesn't attempt a dichotomy of good and bad people: it's unclear who she actually approves of in the situation, and i agree with this, because the whole thing is rotten to the core. didion does history a favour in clearly identifying the apalling hand of neoliberal US ideology (a fixture of all misery on the american continent, it seems) in el salvador
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Feb 08, 2011
Erik
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During the Reagan administration the United States committed itself to a policy of rollback as regards populist movements, particularly in the Americas. We invaded Grenada and created proxy armies in Costa Rica and Honduras while attempting the overthrow of Nicaragua. Unremarkably, we supported the dictatorships of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador against popular insurgencies.
During this segment of the eighties I was very active politically, both with the Socialist Party and wit More...
During this segment of the eighties I was very active politically, both with the Socialist Party and wit More...
Jul 02, 2008
M
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First El Salvador has moved on from this time period. While it is a part of Salvadorian history, the country has recovered. My first annoyance with this book was that she called El Salvador Salvador throughout the entire book. That’s like calling Los Angeles, Angeles all the time. The book touches on the subject from an Americanized point of view; it was quite interesting to see how she starts to see some of the picture. There is a great quote which expresses the feelings of the Salvadorian peop
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Apr 25, 2009
Kirque
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Our American "dark side" is nothing new. Might be a good idea for those who didn't know, or didn't choose to know, or were too young to know what the hell was happening in the civil war in El Salvador to read this account: this isn't a rant, a polemic, it's as close to "just" an obsevance of what the woman saw during her two-week stay. And it sure wasn't pretty. Didion is a brilliant essayist and I dare say a much better writer than her late husband, John Gregory Dunne.
Apr 13, 2010
Just finished this guy. A fast read. Not sure if Joan Didion's detail oriented style is best put to use on this sort of subject. In the end I didn't know if the precise lists of details left me with a better understanding what it was to live in a deteriorating, terror-filled country. In flashes and pieces it worked but I was still keenly aware of her privilege and the ways her lens was not "their" lens.
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Dec 18, 2009
Jen
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An interesting read about a narrow period of time in El Salvador (1981-1982.) It was written in very journalistic style, which wasn't necessarily bad but also didn't evoke much emotion or give you very deep insight into what it was really like for the Salvadorans to live there. This is possibly because Didion only spent 2 weeks there to write the book.
Dec 25, 2008
John
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Read this in a class in 1991. Classic Didion book on life in El Salvador during the 1980's. How the violence affected people there on a personal level. Somehow Didion's objectivity and distance from her subject heighten the horror of death squads and political oppression in people's everyday lives.
Aug 09, 2011
Douglas
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Gives a haunting account of El Salvador and the turmoil of the early 1980s.
Some on Amazon.com have claimed that the author was not in El Salvador for the two weeks she claimed to have been. They say she was only there for two or three days. Just something to keep in mind.
Some on Amazon.com have claimed that the author was not in El Salvador for the two weeks she claimed to have been. They say she was only there for two or three days. Just something to keep in mind.
Dec 16, 2009
Kinnic
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Didion's report of a 2-week excursion to El Salvador in 1982 has incited me learn more about Central America, a region of the world I don't know very much about. Salvador, while a short read (108 pgs), is a difficult one. Didion mixes objectivity of the civil war with her own subjective observations of the terror that defined the country at the time. I think the book would have been easier to swallow if I went into it with more knowledge about the country's political history.
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Feb 19, 2010
Kirstin
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My first Joan Didion. Very journalistic. I struggled through it a bit, but it is short. Learned a good amount of El Salvadorian history, with poignant beautiful prose thrown in every once in a while. I'd try another of her books if I come across it.
Nov 24, 2010
shay
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a really interesting collection of reflections about didion's trip to el salvador in the early 80's. i just wish i had a better working knowledge of the history of that time period. that would have made this book a lot more enjoyable/interesting.
Jan 13, 2010
Maria
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I was quite disappointed by this book. This was my first Joan Didion, and I truly thought she was going to be better, since so many rave about her. It does not capture the human aspect of the civil war in El Salvador. Merely her own.
Jun 20, 2011
Emily
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One of the best travel memoirs I've ever read; besides being an evocative and exquisite writer, Didion is well aware of her outsider status, and what that means for how she perceives events in El Salvador.
Feb 02, 2011
Benji
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I read this simultaneously with THE QUIET AMERICAN, by Graham Greene, and since both feature journalists living in unstable countries, I was able to appreciate both books more.
Nov 30, 2010
Elizabeth
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A short glimpse into the state of El Salvador in the early 80s, SALVADOR reveals a broad range of human injustices and consequences of US involvement. It serves as a small window to a march larger problem with an intense history. I appreciated the glimpse but wanted more.
Feb 19, 2010
Alwa
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I think I should have started with a different Didion--I found this one pretty difficult to follow with no background knowledge of the early '80s political situation in El Salvador. Still, even to my uneducated eye there was enough to make the read worth it.
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UPDATE: Joan Didion is really agreat example of my terrible book-buying habits—I had heard this Joan person was a good writer, and heard this from people whose opinions I respected, so I assembled maybe 6 of her books More...
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UPDATE: Joan Didion is really agreat example of my terrible book-buying habits—I had heard this Joan person was a good writer, and heard this from people whose opinions I respected, so I assembled maybe 6 of her books More...
Jan 09, 2010
Jerry
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Strange reading this book nearly 20 years after it was written, but a chilling reminder of the Reagan politics and the narrative (from an outsider) of a country still in turmoil. Didion always has precise, revealing language.
Dec 23, 2008
Wendy
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This book was the first I read of Joan Didion's. Her politics so infuriated me that I didn't pick up another Didion book for about a decade.
Mar 17, 2011
Christine
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More journalistic but with the same philosophical accuracy Didion always delivers. Written in 1982, at the height of the violence.
Aug 26, 2010
Kim
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There are better books to read about El Salvador's civil war. This is one woman's meditation on her time in El Salvador in 1980 and while it is interesting, the focus seems to be more on her poetic and private process about her experiences than it is about conveying a meaningful understanding to the reader of the situation in El Salvador.
That said there are some nuggets of history in there and it is short, so it's worth a read, but let it be your second or third book about El Salvad More...
That said there are some nuggets of history in there and it is short, so it's worth a read, but let it be your second or third book about El Salvad More...
May 07, 2009
Kirsten
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This made me very much want to visit South America. This, and a handful of novels I read that were written during the 80's.
May 16, 2009
Vincent
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After this, watch the Costas-Gravas film "Missing," starring Spacek and Lemmon.
Jul 26, 2009
David
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Heartbreaking reporting from San Salvador in the middle of their revolution.
