Do you ever have a group of authors that you just can't differentiate in your mind? I get that sometimes with writers, particularly those who I haven't read as they were writing. Like I finally just read a book by Eric Hoffer, whose stuff I'd always seen around but who I continually confused with Eric Fromm, Eric Erickson and a couple other guys who were popular in the '60s. Similarly, I've never been able to keep Joan Didion, Nora Ephron and Joyce Carol Oates straight, but I was sure I didn't like at least a couple of them and had no desire to sort through and figure out which. What a revelation then to pick up a book of Joan Didion's essays; they are terrific. The first collection, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, opens with an introduction by the author, in which she says that the title is a reference to Yeats's great poem The Second Coming, with which many of the essays share an apocalyptic vision : 'Slouching Towards Bethlehem' is also the title of
one piece in the book, and that piece, which
It is this realization that animates both this collection and The White Album (which should really be read together), the sense that American society was splintering in the 60s and 70s and that traditional moral and cultural restraints could no longer hold it together. Whether she's writing about a sensational murder or profiling California celebrities, discussing student demonstrations, the Black Panthers or the Women's Movement, or portraying her own physical and emotional problems, the consistent theme is one of the breakdown of the social order, or of the American psyche. But there's also a strong subtext which shows that the center, though embattled, really is holding; it is the margins, both at the upper and the lower ends of the social spectrum which are falling apart. The real danger lies in the middle's loss of confidence in it's own beliefs, a crisis of faith. The disintegration at the bottom of the social scale is most clear in her reporting on crime, drug culture and the inanity of youth, racial and gender politics. But she lays the blame squarely, and fairly, at the feet of Middle America, as here when she's discussing the failure to provide any guidance to America's youth : At some point between 1945 and 1967 we had somehow
neglected to tell these children the rules of
They feed back exactly what is given to them.
Because they do not believe in words--words are
Now, normally, those words would come from parents, clergy, schools, etc., but self doubt inhibited their willingness to impart them, and kept them from enunciating these ideals to the rest of society. The reason for their timidity is made apparent in a batch of essays which celebrate middle class good sense and sensibilities while contrasting them to the snobbishness and self-righteousness of elites. In essays on John Wayne, Howard Hughes, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the Reagan-built California Governor's Mansion, Didion shows how out of touch intellectual opinion is with these symbols that the rest of us find so appealing. Here she is on the mansion : A guard sleeps at night in the old mansion, which
has been condemned as a dwelling by the state
As a matter of fact this is precisely the point about
the house on the river--the house is not Jerry
In such a situation, where the proclivities of the opinion-making class had diverged so far from the preferences of the middle class, it would have taken an inordinate amount of courage for middle America to hold it's ground, even more so in the face of the concurrent rebellions by youth, feminists and people of color, all of them attacking traditional tastes, beliefs, and mores. The piece though that most dramatically illustrates this dichotomy and demonstrates just how embattled was Middle America and how arrogant were the intellectuals is the quite devastating, Bureaucrats. In straightforward fashion, all the more effective because understated, she relates the efforts of the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) to, in the words of it's director : "pry John Q. Public out of his car," by creating Diamond or HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lanes on the thruways, beginning with the Santa Monica : Of course this political decision was in the name
of the greater good, was in the interests of
She goes on to show that the bureaucrats at Caltrans are bent on reengineering the behavior of motorists regardless of their resistance and of the disastrous results. The coup de grace is delivered in the final sentence : "Yesterday plans were announced to extend the Diamond Lanes to other freeways at a cost of $42,500,000." It's one of the finest essays I've ever read, exposing the arrogance of little men with too much power. Throughout, the two books are filled with terrific stuff like this and more memorable sentences than you can count. The only weak spots are the predominantly personal essays, which I could have done without. Thankfully, we muddled through the decades-long period of dread out of which these pieces grew, but anyone who is trying to recapture the pervasive sense of desperation and gloom that drenched the late '60s and the '70s can do no better than to look here. At least in these two early collections, Joan Didion's work must rank her with Tom Wolfe as one of the most perceptive observers of late 20th Century American culture. I really just can't recommend them highly enough. (Reviewed:) Grade: (A+) Tweet Websites:See also:Joan Didion (4 books reviewed)Nonfiction San Francisco Chronicle Top 100 Nonfiction Books of the West -WIKIPEDIA: Joan Didion - -ESSAY: The Women's Movement (Joan Didion, July 30, 1972, NY Times) -VIDEO: IN DEPTH: Joan Didion: Books, Quotes, Essays, The Year of Magical Thinking, The White Album (C-SPAN Book TV, Jul 14, 2018) -PODCAST: Lili Anolik on the Complicated Relationship Between Eve Babitz and Joan Didion: In Conversation with Brad Listi on Otherppl (Otherppl with Brad Listi. March 16, 2022) -ESSAY: The Insidious Ethic of Conscience (Joan Didion, Autumn 1965, American Scholar) -ESSAY: Joan Didion From the Couch: Should a writer be famous for being quite this neurotic? (Joseph Epstein, March 2024, Commentary) -ESSAY: True Confessions?: Did Joan Didion’s husband have the hots for Eve Babitz—or was he moving in another direction? (Lili Anolik, 10/26/24, Airmail) -ESSAY: Joan Didion Remains as Elusive as Ever. These Books Want to Fix That.: Since her death, Didion has become a literary subject as popular for her image and writing as for the fascination she inspired for almost half a century. Casey Schwartz, Oct. 27, 2024, NY Times bOOk Review) -OBIT: Joan Didion, ‘New Journalist’ Who Explored Culture and Chaos, Dies at 87 (William Grimes, 12/23/21, NY Times) -OBIT: Joan Didion, who chronicled American decadence and hypocrisy, dies at 87 (Washington Post, Dec. 23rd, 2021) -OBIT: Joan Didion, famed American essayist and novelist, has died (Mirna Alsharif, 12/23/21, CNN) -OBIT: Joan Didion has died at 87 (Emily Temple, December 23, 2021, LitHub) -OBIT: Writer Joan Didion, whose 'electric anxiety' inspired a generation, has died at 87 (SUSAN STAMBERG, 12/23/21, NPR) -OBIT: US author Joan Didion dead at 87: New York Times (AFP, December 23, 2021) -TRIBUTE: Joan Didion’s Specific Vision: In the face of the failure of narrative to make sense of life, she found meaning in the particular. (Emma Cline, December 23, 2021, The New Yorker) -TRIBUTE: Joan Didion got inside all of us: She was a woman to whom words mattered, whether writing about the Sixties gone wrong or California identity (Francesca Peacock, December 23, 2021, The Spectator) -OBIT: Joan Didion, peerless prose stylist, dies at 87 (ASSOCIATED PRESS, 12/23/2021) -TRIBUTE: Remembering Joan Didion’s reserved, masterful style: The power of Didion’s prose lay in what she didn’t say. (Constance Grady, Dec 23, 2021, Vox) -OBIT:Joan Didion, masterful novelist, memoirist and social critic, dies at 87 (Elaine Woo, 12/23/21, Los Angeles Times) -OBIT: Joan Didion Has Died at 87 (ALESSANDRA CODINHA, December 23, 2021, Vogue) -OBIT: Joan Didion, R.I.P. (NIC ROWAN, December 23, 2021, National Review) -TRIBUTE: Didion’s Prophetic Eye on America (Michinko Kakutani, Dec. 24, 2021, NY Times) -OBIT: Joan Didion Chronicled American Disorder With Her Own Unmistakable Style: The generation-defining essayist and novelist was preoccupied with mythos — and gifted at fashioning her own. (Parul Sehgal, 12/23/21, The New York Times) -OBIT: Joan Didion, American journalist and author, dies at age 87 (Sian Cain and Edward Helmore, 12/23/21, The guardian) -TRIBUTE: What Joan Didion Saw: Her writing and thinking captured momentous change in American life—and in her own. (Nathan Heller, December 23, 2021, The New Yorker) -TRIBUTE: Joan Didion, One of the Greatest American Writers of All Time, Has Passed Away: Didion's journalism, essays, novels and cultural criticism are peerless in their chilly disassembling of all mistruths (Helen Holmes, 12/23/21, NY Observer) -OBIT: Joan Didion, Voice of a Generation and Beyond, Dies at 87 of Parkinson’s Disease (ALEX LAUER, 12/23/21, inside Hook) -TRIBUTE: When Joan Didion Was a Hollywood Schlockmonger: Didion’s dark estimation of the American public’s taste in movies was more damning of our culture and politics than anything she ever wrote elsewhere. (NOREEN MALONE, DEC 23, 2021, Slate) -TRIBUTE: The Death of Joan Didion (John Griswold, DECEMBER 26, 2021, Common Reader) -TRIBUTE: Right At the Beginning: Joan Didion’s obituarists largely ignore her early journalism for National Review under the stewardship of Frank Meyer. (Daniel J. Flynn, December 28, 2021, City Journal) -TRIBUTE: Joan Didion Cast Off the Fictions of American Politics: Few writers examined their own assumptions and misapprehensions as intelligently as Didion. (Jacob Bacharach/December 27, 2021, New Republic) -TRIBUTE: Joan Didion’s Hidden Goal—and Mine: I’ve taught her work for more than 25 years. It had a secret, one that’s more than a guide to me and my students (DALE MAHARIDGE, DEC 24, 2021, Slate) -TRIBUTE: Joan Didion and the Voice of America (Hilton Als, Dec. 29th, 2021, The New Yorker) -TRIBUTE: Joan Didion and Eve Babitz Saw Two Essential Sides of California: Babitz was Los Angeles’s defiant booster, while Didion gave fodder to naysayers’ suspicion—but the two late writers’ bodies of work beg to be taken in tandem (Alison Herman Dec 30, 2021, The Ringer) -TRIBUTE: Joan Didion’s Hard Way: The legacy of a genuine American figure (JOSEPH BOTTUM, January 6, 2022, National Review) -TRIBUTE: In memoriam: Joan Didion, 1934–2021 (Library of America, 1/06/22) -TRIBUTE: What I Learned From Living With Joan Didion: Cory Leadbeater on His Life-Changing Friendship With a Literary Icon (Cory Leadbeater, June 12, 2024, LitHub) -TRIBUTE: Death and Joan Didion: The great writer’s moral incisiveness was equalled only by her love and pity. (Dino D'Agata, Comment) -ESSAY: “To Be A Writer, You Must Write”: How Joan Didion Became Joan Didion: Evelyn McDonnell on the Writing Process of One of America's Leading Literary Ladies (Evelyn McDonnell, September 26, 2023, LitHub) -ESSAY: The Essential Joan Didion: Her distinctive prose and sharp eye were tuned to an outsider’s frequency, telling us about ourselves in essays that are almost reflexively skeptical. Here’s where to start. (Alissa Wilkinson, April 26, 2024, NY Times) -ESSAY: Joan Didion vs. the Political Insiders (Evelyn McDonnell The New Republic October 5, 2023) -ESSAY: California State of Mind: Searching for Didion and Babitz in Literary Los Angeles: Marianne Eloise on Two of Her Favorite Writers—Who Could Not Be More Different (Marianne Eloise, 7/05/22, LitHub) -ESSAY: The joylessness of Joan Didion: Joan Didion took herself extremely seriously (Taki, March 24, 2022, The Spectator) -ESSAY: Didion in El Salvador (Charlotte Allen, 11 Feb 2022, Quillette) -ESSAY: Joan Didion and the Magic of Grief: She went from cool customer to recorder of her own bereavement (Sandra M. Gilbert | January 3, 2022, American Scholar) -ESSAY: The Cult of Saint Joan (NY Times, 1/31/22) - -GUIDE: A Guide to Joan Didion’s Books: Ms. Didion was a prolific writer of stylish essays, novels, screenplays and memoirs. Here is an overview of some of her works, as reviewed in The Times. (New York Times, 12/23/21) -ARCHIVES: Joan Didion: The National Review Years (National Review, December 23, 2021) -ARCHIVES: Joan Didion (NY Review of Books) -ARCHIVES: Joan Didion in The New Yorker: The singular writer, who has died at eighty-seven, started contributing to the magazine after famously leaving its namesake city. (Erin Overbey, December 23, 2021, The New Yorker) -ESSAY: Everywoman.com (Joan Didion, 2000-02-21, The New Yorker) -ESSAY: Why I Write: Excerpted from Let Me Tell You What I Mean by Joan Didion (Joan Didion) -INTERVIEW: 'My Wine Bills Have Gone Down.' How Joan Didion Is Weathering the Pandemic (LUCY FELDMAN, JANUARY 22, 2021, TIME) -INTERVIEW: Joan Didion, The Art of Fiction No. 71: Interviewed by Linda KuehlISSUE 74, FALL-WINTER 1978, Paris Review) - -DISCUSSION: Obama: In the Irony-Free Zone (Darryl Pinckney and Joan Didion, December 18, 2008, NY Review of Books) -REVIEW ESSAY: Letter from ‘Manhattan’ (Joan Didion, August 16, 1979, NY Review of books) -REVIEW ESSAY: Gentleman in Battle a review of Men at War by Evelyn Waugh (Joan Didion, March 27, 1962, National Review) - -INTERVIEW: Joan Didion: Staking Out California (Michiko Kakutani, June 10, 1979, NY Times) -AUDIO INTERVIEWS: Joan Didion: The NPR interviews (NPR, December 23, 2021) -ESSAY: California cool and Magical Thinking: Joan Didion at 86: Whether reporting from the trippy heart of 1960s counterculture or covering the trial of the Central Park Five, the legendary essayist brings a spirit of restless inquiry to all her writing (Alex Clark, 8 Feb 2021, The Guardian) -ESSAY: What We Get Wrong About Joan Didion : She’s been canonized for impeccable style, but Didion’s real insights were about what holds society together, or tears it apart. (Nathan Heller, January 25, 2021, The New Yorker) -ESSAY: California Dreaming With Joan Didion : Trapped in my apartment I pulled Joan’s books off the shelf. I wanted to learn again from her meticulous observation of detail, character and setting, and her great sense of irony. (Christopher Dickey, Apr. 19, 2020 , Daily Beast) -ESSAY: What Keeps Us Coming Back to Joan Didion (LAURA MILLER, DEC 23, 2021, Slate) -PROFILE: The Zen of Joan Didion (DAVID SWICK, DECEMBER 23, 2021, Lion's Roar) - -ARCHIVES: Joan Didion (Lit Hub) -REVIEW: of Slouching Towards Bethlehem (Dan Wakefield, NY Times) -REVIEW: of Where I Was From by Joan Didion (Benjamin Schwarz, Atlantic Monthly) -REVIEW: of Where I Was From by Joan Didion (Thomas Mallon, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of Let Me Tell You What I Mean by Joan Didion (Sarah Moroz, Dailty Beast) -REVIEW: of Let Me Tell You (Peter Tonguette, American Conservative) -REVIEW: of Let Me Tell You (leo Robson, New Statesman) -REVIEW: of Let Me Tell You (Charles Arrowsmith, Independent) -REVIEW: of Let Me Tell You (Sarah Ditum, Spectator) -REVIEW: of We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: A Joan Didion Retrospective (Barnes & Noble Book Review) -REVIEW: of The Uptown Local by Cory Leadbeater (Claire Dederer, The Guardian) -REVIEW: of The World According to Joan Didion By Evelyn McDonnell (Hannah Rowan, Modern Age) -REVIEW: of Didion and Babitz BY Lili Anolik (Philippa Snow, BookForum) -REVIEW: of Didion and Babitz (raschel Cooke, The Guardian) Book-related and General Links: -ARCHIVES : "didion" (NY Review of Books) -VIDEO : In Depth: Joan Didion (Book TV, C-SPAN, May 7, 2000) -ESSAY : Joan Didion: God's Country (Nov 2, 2000 , NY Review of Books) -REVIEW : Nov 4, 1999 Joan Didion: 'The Day Was Hot and Still...' (NY Review of Books) Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan by Edmund Morris -REVIEW : Jun 24, 1999 Joan Didion: Uncovered Washington (NY Review of Books) Uncovering Clinton: A Reporter's Story by Michael Isikoff Active Faith: How Christians Are Changing the Soul of American Politics by Ralph Reed Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline by Robert H. Bork -REVIEW : Oct 22, 1998 Joan Didion: Clinton Agonistes (NY Review of Books) Referral to the United States House of Representatives pursuant to Title 28, United States Code, §595(c) Submitted by the Office of the Independent Counsel -REVIEW : Apr 23, 1998 Joan Didion: Varieties of Madness (NY Review of Books) The Unabomber Manifesto "FC." A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar Drawing Life by David Gelernter -REVIEW : Dec 18, 1997 Joan Didion: The Lion King (NY Review of Books) Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader by Dinesh D'Souza -REVIEW : of THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICAN GARDENS Proud Owners, Private Estates, 1890-1940. By Mac Griswold and Eleanor Weller (Joan Didion, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW : of The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer (Joan Didion, NY Times Book Review) -EXCERPT : from Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion -ESSAY : On Going Home from Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion -EXCERPT : from Why I Write (The New York Times Magazine, December 5, 1976) -EXCERPT : "The Women's Movement" by Joan Didion -EXCERPT : from Joan Didion's "Marrying Absurd" -EXCERPT : From "The White Album" by Joan Didion -EXCERPT : from The White Album Chapter IV Soujourns -INTERVIEW : Joan Didion (dave eggers, Salon, 10/96) -Joan Didion, SLOUCHING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM -Joan Didion (1934- ) (American Literature on the Web) -Joan Didion (Selves in the Valley) -PROFILE : DIDION & DUNNE: THE REWARDS OF A LITERARY MARRIAGE (Leslie Garis, NY Times Sunday Magazine) -PROFILE : JOAN DIDION (Sandra Braman) -PROFILE : JOAN DIDION: ONLY DISCONNECT (October, 1979, From Off Center: Essays by Barbara Grizzutti Harrison (1980)) -ESSAY : Slouching Towards Bethlehem: A Brief Structural Analysis (Allan T. Grohe, Jr.) -ESSAY : Joan Didion and Twentieth-Century Acts of Interpretation (George P. Landow, The Core) -ESSAY : Joan Didion and "Company": A Response to John Whalen-Bridge (GORDON O. TAYLOR, Connotations 6.2 (1996-97) -ESSAY : BOOK NOTES : A Talked-About Dedication (Esther Fein, NY Times) -ESSAY : WRITING FOR THE MOVIES IS HARDER THAN IT LOOKS (Diane Johnson, NY Times) -REVIEW : "On Morality" from Slouching Towards Bethlehem (j turner) -REVIEW : of The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion (1996)(MICHIKO KAKUTANI, NY Times) -REVIEW : of The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion (Michael Wood, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW : Oct 31, 1996 Elizabeth Hardwick: In the Wasteland (NY Review of Books) The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion -REVIEW : of The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion (James Wood, New Republic) -REVIEW : of The Last Thing He Wanted (Dwight Garner, Salon) -REVIEW : of The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion (Kate Tuttle, Boston Book Review) -REVIEW : of The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion (Tai Moses, Metro Active) -REVIEW : of The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion (Donna Seaman, Hungry Mind Review) -REVIEW : of The Last Thing He Wanted (Anna Shapiro, Book Report) -REVIEW : of After Henry By Joan Didion (1992)(Christopher Lehmann-Haupt , NY Times) -REVIEW : of After Henry by Joan Didion (Hendrik Hertzberg, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW : of Miami by Joan Didion (1987)(James Chace, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW : of Miami By Joan Didion (Christopher Lehmann-Haupt , NY Times) -REVIEW : of SALVADOR. By Joan Didion (Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, NY Times) -REVIEW : of SALVADOR By Joan Didion (Warren Hoge, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW : of Democracy by Joan Didion (1984)(Mary McCarthy, NY Times Book Review) JOHN GREGORY DUNNE :
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