Thanks for this appreciation of Joan Didion, whose non-fiction in particular I greatly admired when I was younger. One quibble: you write that "she turned into a leading voice in the counterculture." I'm sure what you mean by that, but Didion, as I recall, had little if any sympathy for the counterculture. She was perhaps a leading explicator of the counterculture to those who found it as baffling and disturbing as she did. She wrote certainly not from within the counterculture but from outside it for others who were even further removed from it.
A very graceful (and personally modest while not being self-effacing--a difficult feat) tribute to Didion.
Your extraordinary rhetorical prowess as a critic comes through for me precisely because I totally disagree with you about Didion and the value of her writing. If I didn’t know it already, you would have persuaded me her writing is amazing.
I’m a fourth generation Angeleno who apart from 3 1/2 years at USC has lived my entire life outside Southern California, with many years in NYC, Sydney, Paris, London and elsewhere in the US and Europe. I did return for frequent visits, and to me, Didion always depicted a New Yorker’s idea of California--and to me she was totally wrong. I’m fascinated that her vision resonates with you, another authentic Southern Californian.
Actually, I’m with Christopher Isherwood, and appreciate you quoting his judgment: “Isherwood referred to them as “Mrs. Misery and Mr. Know-All.” Didion, he claimed, “spoke in [a] tiny little voice which always seems to me to be a mode of aggression.” For several years I lived a couple doors down from his former lover W. H. Auden’s home on St. Marks Place in NYC.
Even though i'm not into music, i still read most of your posts. I love how you've ilumminated a writing icon like Didion in ten paragraphs. Thank you! I especially enjoyed this point:
Didion’s writing style was, like the author herself, a fusion of opposites.
She loved the short, punchy sentences of Ernest Hemingway, and even tried to internalize the rhythms of his prose by typing out his paragraphs on her typewriter. (Curiously enough, Hunter S. Thompson followed the same practice.) But Didion also admired the ponderous periods of Henry James, with their alluring ambiguities—somehow they managed to grab on to the subject at a deeper level by dancing around it.
For some reason, reading this made me think of the Buffett quote... along the lines of “write down your own obituary, and then live your life in a way that would make it come true”... but I thought of this wondering, “what would Ted’s ideal obituary be” ... perhaps you’ve already penned one and I’ve missed it. Wouldn’t be surprised!
One proof of Didion's quality is the love she had for Jame's Jones' novel From Here to Eternity (a book that's probably not being taught in any elite university in the country, thank God), and her tribute to Jones and his book (in "In the Islands" in the White Album) is one of the most beautiful things she ever wrote.
Every time I read Didion I feel a sense of awe at her powers of perception. You nailed one of the most striking aspects of her writing, which is her sense of place. I read The White Album for the first time last summer while visiting California for the first time (I picked it up from City Lights in SF). Her sense of place made such an impression on me that I found myself writing an entire essay about my five years living in New York: https://readpolymathematics.substack.com/p/how-we-learn-cities
I read "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" and was nauseated by her name dropping, by her ceaseless preoccupation with herself, much like the city she called home. Like all existentialists, Didion lived in fear of the purposeless of her life, which is centred around the ego.
I have read everything I can find written by Didion. I don’t care what the topic is or whether it is fiction or non-fiction. It’s her use of words that I want to savor. Her writing is pristine. And I love the cadence. My favorite of all of her works is the novel, Democracy. I was hooked with the first five sentences. My favorite essay is “Goodbye to All That.”
thank you - what a great piece to 'get 10 bits/senses of Joan Didion' ... I am an admirer of her life as much her writing; a unique spirit, equal to many, but unlike anyone!
Anorexic drug addict who treated her in-laws like dirt.
“The day after John Sweeney’s attack on Dominique, John and Joan arrived at Lenny Dunne’s house to offer their support before Dominique was taken off life support. Due to her critical condition, the family decided early on to use one phone line in the house to make calls and to keep the other line open in case the doctor or police called.
Shortly after asking if there was anything she could do, Joan Didion retired to the master bedroom to place a call on the outgoing line. She closed the door. Later, needing to use the telephone, Dominick walked into his ex-wife’s bedroom. There, he found his sister-in-law on the bed, the phone clutched between her neck and shoulder, a pen in hand. Galleys of her next book, "Salvador," littered the bed spread. She was on the phone with her editor in New York.“
Thanks Ted. I like how you draw out the important of “place” is in her writing. I was born & raised in Flint, Michigan but have lived in Healdsburg for 35 years. She helped me explains my adopted state to myself. “Notes of Native Daughter” and “Where I was From” especially. Run River is a great novel about Sac. Like Hemingway her prose was exhilarating because it took risks and pulled it off so beautifully but like him, when it was bad to could be laughingly so, almost a parody of itself.
You convinced me, I bought one of Joan’s books. Thank you
Thanks for this appreciation of Joan Didion, whose non-fiction in particular I greatly admired when I was younger. One quibble: you write that "she turned into a leading voice in the counterculture." I'm sure what you mean by that, but Didion, as I recall, had little if any sympathy for the counterculture. She was perhaps a leading explicator of the counterculture to those who found it as baffling and disturbing as she did. She wrote certainly not from within the counterculture but from outside it for others who were even further removed from it.
A very graceful (and personally modest while not being self-effacing--a difficult feat) tribute to Didion.
Your extraordinary rhetorical prowess as a critic comes through for me precisely because I totally disagree with you about Didion and the value of her writing. If I didn’t know it already, you would have persuaded me her writing is amazing.
I’m a fourth generation Angeleno who apart from 3 1/2 years at USC has lived my entire life outside Southern California, with many years in NYC, Sydney, Paris, London and elsewhere in the US and Europe. I did return for frequent visits, and to me, Didion always depicted a New Yorker’s idea of California--and to me she was totally wrong. I’m fascinated that her vision resonates with you, another authentic Southern Californian.
Actually, I’m with Christopher Isherwood, and appreciate you quoting his judgment: “Isherwood referred to them as “Mrs. Misery and Mr. Know-All.” Didion, he claimed, “spoke in [a] tiny little voice which always seems to me to be a mode of aggression.” For several years I lived a couple doors down from his former lover W. H. Auden’s home on St. Marks Place in NYC.
“...“Don’t say this,” he said off-the-record, “but there are no issues here. There are only ambitions.”...”
Why did this flash me back to last week’s GOP debate?
Even though i'm not into music, i still read most of your posts. I love how you've ilumminated a writing icon like Didion in ten paragraphs. Thank you! I especially enjoyed this point:
Didion’s writing style was, like the author herself, a fusion of opposites.
She loved the short, punchy sentences of Ernest Hemingway, and even tried to internalize the rhythms of his prose by typing out his paragraphs on her typewriter. (Curiously enough, Hunter S. Thompson followed the same practice.) But Didion also admired the ponderous periods of Henry James, with their alluring ambiguities—somehow they managed to grab on to the subject at a deeper level by dancing around it.
For some reason, reading this made me think of the Buffett quote... along the lines of “write down your own obituary, and then live your life in a way that would make it come true”... but I thought of this wondering, “what would Ted’s ideal obituary be” ... perhaps you’ve already penned one and I’ve missed it. Wouldn’t be surprised!
One proof of Didion's quality is the love she had for Jame's Jones' novel From Here to Eternity (a book that's probably not being taught in any elite university in the country, thank God), and her tribute to Jones and his book (in "In the Islands" in the White Album) is one of the most beautiful things she ever wrote.
Every time I read Didion I feel a sense of awe at her powers of perception. You nailed one of the most striking aspects of her writing, which is her sense of place. I read The White Album for the first time last summer while visiting California for the first time (I picked it up from City Lights in SF). Her sense of place made such an impression on me that I found myself writing an entire essay about my five years living in New York: https://readpolymathematics.substack.com/p/how-we-learn-cities
That interview reminds me of David Lynch interviewing Harry Dean Stanton..
DL: How would you describe yourself?
HDS: Nothing. There is no self.
DL: How would you like to be remembered?
HDS: Doesn't matter.
DL: What were your dreams as a child?
HDS: Nightmares.
(Both of them smiling and laughing a little.)
I read "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" and was nauseated by her name dropping, by her ceaseless preoccupation with herself, much like the city she called home. Like all existentialists, Didion lived in fear of the purposeless of her life, which is centred around the ego.
Pass.
I have read everything I can find written by Didion. I don’t care what the topic is or whether it is fiction or non-fiction. It’s her use of words that I want to savor. Her writing is pristine. And I love the cadence. My favorite of all of her works is the novel, Democracy. I was hooked with the first five sentences. My favorite essay is “Goodbye to All That.”
thank you - what a great piece to 'get 10 bits/senses of Joan Didion' ... I am an admirer of her life as much her writing; a unique spirit, equal to many, but unlike anyone!
Anorexic drug addict who treated her in-laws like dirt.
“The day after John Sweeney’s attack on Dominique, John and Joan arrived at Lenny Dunne’s house to offer their support before Dominique was taken off life support. Due to her critical condition, the family decided early on to use one phone line in the house to make calls and to keep the other line open in case the doctor or police called.
Shortly after asking if there was anything she could do, Joan Didion retired to the master bedroom to place a call on the outgoing line. She closed the door. Later, needing to use the telephone, Dominick walked into his ex-wife’s bedroom. There, he found his sister-in-law on the bed, the phone clutched between her neck and shoulder, a pen in hand. Galleys of her next book, "Salvador," littered the bed spread. She was on the phone with her editor in New York.“
“but there are no issues here. There are only ambitions.”
Sounds far too familiar today.
Thanks Ted. I like how you draw out the important of “place” is in her writing. I was born & raised in Flint, Michigan but have lived in Healdsburg for 35 years. She helped me explains my adopted state to myself. “Notes of Native Daughter” and “Where I was From” especially. Run River is a great novel about Sac. Like Hemingway her prose was exhilarating because it took risks and pulled it off so beautifully but like him, when it was bad to could be laughingly so, almost a parody of itself.
A young Martin Amis with the counter:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v02/n02/martin-amis/joan-didion-s-style