Mateo's review
The Year of Magical Thinking
by Joan Didion
But, that's the whole thing about death, right? You can have EVERYTHING, but it still gets you. And, that's precisely why folks who have so much are just as haunted by it. I agree about the uneven-ness of her writing, totally and your obervations about HOW she writes. You are right on. But, in the department of surprise and intensity, death REALLY takes us all by surprise.
You have a point. Just because you're rich doesn't mean that death's sting is any less pronounced, although you do get to buy higher-quality funeral bunting.
My point, not very well expressed, was that her privileged life made it harder for me to sympathize with her. That's not her fault, and, to be fair, she and her husband appear to have earned their wealth through hard work. Most people, though, can't phone up Christopher Lehmann-Haupt (the obits writer for the NY Times) when a loved one passes away.
So when I read, for example, "I could not on examination locate any actual instances of luck in my history," I thought to myself, well, let's see, you're white, you're American, and you're healthy. Since that describes about, what, 2% of the planet, that seems pretty fortunate to me.
Again, my point was that I had a harder time feeling sorry for her than I expected. Your comment is quite true--thanks for sharing it.
Thanks for elaborating. You are, of course, correct. And, it could be that I have so many of the advantages Didion does that I couldn't read your review more broadly (so thanks for stopping me in my tracks on that). I appreciate the fact that you wrote a review that really explained your experience of the book - which is valuable and hard to find. Thank you.
Mateo's review
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Mateo's review
rating:
Of the many fine writers who pen for the New York Review of Books, Joan Didion has long been one of my favorites, because she's an information and control freak who does the reading. I recall a review of a Reagan bio from a few years back--I think the book was by Dinesh D'Souza--and the pleasure I had in watching her patiently, dispassionately pick it to shreds. Her process was simple: check a passage or allegation against the record, against the quotes, against the facts.. It was devastating in its directness and simplicity, and the almost bloodless way it worked.
Other works by Didion have felt more uneven, in part because her style is so pronounced, so mannered, but overall I've generally greatly appreciated her while recognizing her flaws. In Year of Magical Thinking, the flaws are a little too visible for me, as though, with her husband gone, she couldn't quite control her worst tendencies. Chief among these are a steep reliance on repetition and th...more
Other works by Didion have felt more uneven, in part because her style is so pronounced, so mannered, but overall I've generally greatly appreciated her while recognizing her flaws. In Year of Magical Thinking, the flaws are a little too visible for me, as though, with her husband gone, she couldn't quite control her worst tendencies. Chief among these are a steep reliance on repetition and th...more
But, that's the whole thing about death, right? You can have EVERYTHING, but it still gets you. And, that's precisely why folks who have so much are just as haunted by it. I agree about the uneven-ness of her writing, totally and your obervations about HOW she writes. You are right on. But, in the department of surprise and intensity, death REALLY takes us all by surprise.
You have a point. Just because you're rich doesn't mean that death's sting is any less pronounced, although you do get to buy higher-quality funeral bunting.
My point, not very well expressed, was that her privileged life made it harder for me to sympathize with her. That's not her fault, and, to be fair, she and her husband appear to have earned their wealth through hard work. Most people, though, can't phone up Christopher Lehmann-Haupt (the obits writer for the NY Times) when a loved one passes away.
So when I read, for example, "I could not on examination locate any actual instances of luck in my history," I thought to myself, well, let's see, you're white, you're American, and you're healthy. Since that describes about, what, 2% of the planet, that seems pretty fortunate to me.
Again, my point was that I had a harder time feeling sorry for her than I expected. Your comment is quite true--thanks for sharing it.
Thanks for elaborating. You are, of course, correct. And, it could be that I have so many of the advantages Didion does that I couldn't read your review more broadly (so thanks for stopping me in my tracks on that). I appreciate the fact that you wrote a review that really explained your experience of the book - which is valuable and hard to find. Thank you.