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The Year of Magical Thinking
by Joan Didion
by Joan Didion
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.
One passage that almost made me throw this book out the window was about how she and her husband would attempt financial "Planning" that involved resigning themselves to "eating" the $50,000 they'd sunk into a home in Brentwood Park because no one would buy their home in Malibu. Those poor Dunnes. Can you imagine being unable to unload a Malibu beach house? The indignity. Reminds me of the time I was stuck without a suitable escort for the Kennedy Center Honors. Anyway, they escape from this life-or-death situation by jetting off to a Hawaiian resort. So carefree! So irresponsible!
While she seems to include these details in an attempt to adoringly shake her head at their sometimes clueless approach to adulthood, I just couldn't relate, and I didn't find it charming. Sorry, Joan. You are not people I know or will ever know.
And now Vanessa Redgrave is doing Didion on Broadway, and that is just too weird.
Perhaps the reason I am giving this two stars is because I liked all the medical/hospital stuff. I could appreciate Didion's helplessness around medical professionals who speak that jargon and approach life and death from purely clinical perspectives. And it was interesting to see how Didion tried to do this, too, but then realized that no amount of money or social connections could make her life more comfortable. Oh, but at least she has those memories of Indonesia.
One passage that almost made me throw this book out the window was about how she and her husband would attempt financial "Planning" that involved resigning themselves to "eating" the $50,000 they'd sunk into a home in Brentwood Park because no one would buy their home in Malibu. Those poor Dunnes. Can you imagine being unable to unload a Malibu beach house? The indignity. Reminds me of the time I was stuck without a suitable escort for the Kennedy Center Honors. Anyway, they escape from this life-or-death situation by jetting off to a Hawaiian resort. So carefree! So irresponsible!
While she seems to include these details in an attempt to adoringly shake her head at their sometimes clueless approach to adulthood, I just couldn't relate, and I didn't find it charming. Sorry, Joan. You are not people I know or will ever know.
And now Vanessa Redgrave is doing Didion on Broadway, and that is just too weird.
Perhaps the reason I am giving this two stars is because I liked all the medical/hospital stuff. I could appreciate Didion's helplessness around medical professionals who speak that jargon and approach life and death from purely clinical perspectives. And it was interesting to see how Didion tried to do this, too, but then realized that no amount of money or social connections could make her life more comfortable. Oh, but at least she has those memories of Indonesia.
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rated it 2 stars
Aug 29, 2007 04:32pm
I had a similar reaction to this book. I found some passages touching, but more often than not the tone struck me as almost boastful, describing their extravagant lifestyle to a degree that was distracting.
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yeah actually when expressing a similiar critique at a party i was treated like a nazi for not absolutly loving it. I didnt hate it....it was just what it was....not much of a connection between the everyman and joan didion. but i guess its her memoir and she can eat creme brulee if she wants to.
i am glad you mentioned this. What attracted me to this book was the intense love they seemed to have had, that they were always around each other for so long. But so much about her does seem boastful. Especially the sick piles of cash they trip over in the book.
Thank you. I just read
Slouching Towards Bethlehem
and hated everything Didion said but loved the way she said it (if that makes sense). I was trying to decide if I should try something else by her. I was hoping she had grown up a little, but obviously she hasn't. So thanks :)
I have to agree. I was moved by the book and by her losses, but it did keep taking me 'out of the moment' to hear about their extravagent lifestyle. I suppose some people want to hear it or maybe that's just how she converses, but it would have been enough to say "we took a vacation" and not describe the luxury suite in Hawaii and the 5 star dinners in detail. Yes, it's her memoir, but this isn't her diary. I don't care what she ate or the fine linens that she slept on, and so it kept distracting me from the point: special moments spent with the people she loved and lost.
It's amazing to me how much people get, and got, lost in thinly-disguised envy of a lavish lifestyle, completely missing the heart of the book. If you think the descriptions of wealth overrode the text, I suspect that you are unnaturally drawn to those passages. For the record, I'm a working-class reader.
Yeah, this book was highly recommended to me and I have had to deal with some substantial deaths in my life, but I just couldn't get into it.
I am amused by the vehemence people have against people with money. The amount of $50k in particular. They would eat it, people get hung up on, not thinking their anger through. Let me help you: they had put down $50,000 on the faith that their other house would sell. When it could not, they could not afford the other house and would not be able to move. As painful as it would be to lose such an amount of money (though it is not in any means extravagant for any responsible couple in their forties to have that money for a down payment) it would be more fiscally responsible than to complete the purchase of a house they would not be able to afford with an unsold home. To each their own, but for one to accurately describe their life, just because it causes you, enviously less successful, a disconnect in the standard of living, is not a flaw in the book.
I'm a little surprised that, after reading Didion's memoir, what you seem to have come away with is a disgust for her lifestyle. I was deeply moved by this book. It was not about her lifestyle, privileged or not. I did not find this boastfulness you speak of, and unfortunately I think you seem to have missed the point.
Yes, Joan Didion and her husband had a privileged lifestyle but death touches everyone - rich or poor. And how one deals with this sudden loss especially when their life seemed so perfect is what made this book so poingnant for me.
Someone sounds a bit jealous. At the end of the day the only gratification you got out of your little diatribe is that people wasted a few minutes reading what amounts to the ramblings of a bitter harpie.
I doubt that Ms. Didion wrote this book to impress you, Steffie. I've read other poor reviews of this book on Amazon much along the same lines as yours, referring to her "name dropping" and such. SHE is the one with the name. I would love to meet her, and thank her for pouring out her heart and soul in this book. I was so touched and amazed that she chose to share her pain with the world. I hope it helped her healing process.
Strange that a person not liking a lot of snobby name-dropping is automatically deemed jealous. When the author's descriptions become excessive to the point of becomming unbearably snobby, it is not good writing. I too love Didion's turn of phrase, but sometimes I almost think she's being satirical as her high-brow snobbery is almost over the top. The only dark mark on Didion's writing, in my opinion.
She expressed her grief the way I would expect her to....remotely and seemingly detached but deeply. She was likely dissociated through most of it. This was HER story. She couldn't turn into someone you would like her to be for the sake of the story.
I had less of a problem getting into the book, but wanted to say for everyone chastising this person and saying she "missed the point": you obviously missed hers. The excess detail spent on the extravagant life Didion led/leads distracted from the theme of grief and mourning so much so that the intrinsic value of the story was greatly reduced. Read reviews with a mind towards discussion/debate rather than looking to berate someone you disagree with; your replies come off as nothing more than childish resentment of the neighbor kid for not thinking your new toy is awesome.
I don't think that's a fair assessment. Cataloguing details is part of Didion's style. It doesn't 'detract' from the book - it just makes it personal. Didion is an observant and detached person, a 'cool customer' as she was called in the book. If you're looking for a more standard grief memoir that focuses on grief to the exclusion of all else, there are plenty tbh.
Matt: you make a fair point about focussing on discussion, but do you honestly think the comments here are *more* resentful than the actual review?
Steffie, thank you for putting into words my exact thoughts on this book - one day I'll endevoure to do so myself, if my English ever progresses to a satisfactory level. I didn't read this book by choice though, it was a univeristy requirement into a study of 'grief'. ...really could have picked a better book. It was hard to isolate the relevent aspect I needed to pay attention to, the evidence of grieving, behind this massive wall of seemingly pretentious despcriptions of activity.
As a widow reading this book, I don't find Didion's detachment surprising or off-putting at all. After my husband of 20 years died on a Saturday morning during his daily jog, I left the hospital and entered what seemed an alternate reality. I guess, in retrospect, it was an alternate reality because I had to go forward down a path I had never even considered. I pushed the grief aside and went into Business Mode. Tell our daughters-check. Tell the families-check. Price the cremation-check. Plan the service-check. Run the budget numbers and see if I can afford my house anymore-check. And on and on and on. People would call or come up to me and say, "You are so strong!" You're such a wonderful role model for the girls!" and I can remember thanking them and at the same time thinking they were out of their minds if they thought I was in any way handling it well. What was I to do about the hole that had been carved out of my soul by the loss of my best friend? But what would be the point in sharing that with anyone? I learned that my grief was not like anybody else's grief, and comparing mine to someone else's was useless and in a way, judgmental. After 4 years and some much-needed therapy, I know now that I was in shock, indeed, full blown PTSD. When that is the case (at least in my experience, and perhaps Ms. Didion's)you don't allow yourself to feel if at all possible. It's agony. You just DO. You ACT. You try to celebrate the days when you have managed to make it out the door with matching shoes and not been washed away by the waves of grief that hit like a tornado when you least expect them. I admire Ms. Didion's strength in keeping it together to care for her daughter. While she may have been holding it together with gum and twine, she never gave up when she very easily could have.
