amcloughlin's review against another edition
4.0
A really beautiful short collection of observations on the South from a summer road trip Didion took in 1970. Gorgeous prose, as we expect of Didion, folded in with comments and anecdotes about her boredom and inner life on the trip. Not a book I would purchase for my own collection, but one I'm glad to have spent a humid summer evening with.
sophill15's review against another edition
4.0
Made up of excerpts from Didion’s notebooks, South and West provides an exquisite insight into Didion’s process as a writer. As always her acute observations brilliantly capture place and time, but here you can almost see the thought process behind the writing and how the observations are put into words and formed into complete sentences. Here and there sentences appear again in slightly refrased form – as if Didion is experimenting and trying to find the best way to put her thoughts into words.
At the the same time the book is also an attempt to make sense of a home, of a large country divided. A country where “in the South they are convinced that they have bloodied their place with history. In the West we do not believe that anything we do can bloody the land, or change it, or touch it.”
Endlessly fascinating as both an insight into an author’s process and as a snapshot of the American South and West.
At the the same time the book is also an attempt to make sense of a home, of a large country divided. A country where “in the South they are convinced that they have bloodied their place with history. In the West we do not believe that anything we do can bloody the land, or change it, or touch it.”
Endlessly fascinating as both an insight into an author’s process and as a snapshot of the American South and West.
cullenr_d's review against another edition
dark
funny
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
sheilabookworm3369's review against another edition
4.0
Insightful. Interesting to think about how much has changed since these notes were taken and how much hasn't changed at all. What held my attention, though, besides the contrasts from west coast to south coast, from then to now, were the quirky people she met along the way.
cstefko's review against another edition
2.0
2.5 stars
Well, this was definitely not the best choice of book for introducing myself to Didion's work. I had never read anything by her, so when she passed away in December I decided it was time to rectify that, and this book was readily available at my library. It is barely a book. But I do feel a got a glimpse of her writing style and am intrigued enough to read something more substantial from her, perhaps one of her novels.
Well, this was definitely not the best choice of book for introducing myself to Didion's work. I had never read anything by her, so when she passed away in December I decided it was time to rectify that, and this book was readily available at my library. It is barely a book. But I do feel a got a glimpse of her writing style and am intrigued enough to read something more substantial from her, perhaps one of her novels.
brittnorwood's review against another edition
3.0
I loveddd The Year of Magical Thinking, but Blue Nights and South and West have both been just so-so for me. I am going to try Play it As it Lays Next, or maybe Slouching Toward Bethlehem.
laurenkd89's review against another edition
3.0
I haven’t read Joan Didion in a while, and this book is markedly different from her other works. It’s not a memoir or anything really personal, and it can’t really even be called an essay collection. Didion and her husband went on a road trip around the Gulf Coast in the 1970s, and Didion thought she might have made a piece out of it, so she kept notes, made observations, and did a few interviews. She never ended up writing that piece, however, so all of those notes stayed just that: notes. 40 years later, Didion or someone at her publisher must have encouraged her to unearth those notes, lightly edit them into sentences, and publish it in this slim collection.
I can’t say I enjoyed this as much as I’ve enjoyed Didion’s other works. Not only do I feel like it was a little half-assed - she brings up interesting themes and observations like “sports as the opiate of the masses” or “the time warp in which The Civil War happened yesterday, but 1960 was 300 years ago” but doesn’t elaborate on them any more than just one sentence - but it also rang elitist and negative the whole way through.
She says that she wanted to visit the South because it would help her understand America and California even better, but she ends up hating her visit and having almost nothing but bad things to say about the people, the weather, the towns, the roads, the infrastructure, and the food. She repeatedly remarks that she wouldn’t want to get close to a big city out of fear that she wouldn’t be able to resist hopping on the next Delta flight back to California.
I’ll admit that the heat, the swampiness, and the mire of summer evoke a very powerful image in the reader’s mind, but it certainly doesn’t make you want to go visit these locations, and you can tell it certainly made Didion miserable. I think that if she wanted to set herself up for success with these visits, she probably should have gone in the fall or spring.
What’s keeping me from giving this one or two stars is really, as always, the beauty and power of her writing. There’s no doubt that she is a masterful writer and a master observer, and even in these brief and negative chapters, you can see that clearly. Criticism has said that her observations of the South are still as true today as they were in the 70s, but I am hesitant to believe that all of these cities are still one horse towns that dream of growth and real roads. She doesn’t make nearly as many frank observations about race as I was expecting, and maybe that’s for the best.
In regards to the last, very short section on California, I could have done without those few pages. It felt very disjointed from the rest of the book, and perhaps belonged more in a separate work, like Where I Was From. It was really just added on because, like the notes on the South, it was another unfinished piece with notes behind it.
I can’t say I enjoyed this as much as I’ve enjoyed Didion’s other works. Not only do I feel like it was a little half-assed - she brings up interesting themes and observations like “sports as the opiate of the masses” or “the time warp in which The Civil War happened yesterday, but 1960 was 300 years ago” but doesn’t elaborate on them any more than just one sentence - but it also rang elitist and negative the whole way through.
She says that she wanted to visit the South because it would help her understand America and California even better, but she ends up hating her visit and having almost nothing but bad things to say about the people, the weather, the towns, the roads, the infrastructure, and the food. She repeatedly remarks that she wouldn’t want to get close to a big city out of fear that she wouldn’t be able to resist hopping on the next Delta flight back to California.
I’ll admit that the heat, the swampiness, and the mire of summer evoke a very powerful image in the reader’s mind, but it certainly doesn’t make you want to go visit these locations, and you can tell it certainly made Didion miserable. I think that if she wanted to set herself up for success with these visits, she probably should have gone in the fall or spring.
What’s keeping me from giving this one or two stars is really, as always, the beauty and power of her writing. There’s no doubt that she is a masterful writer and a master observer, and even in these brief and negative chapters, you can see that clearly. Criticism has said that her observations of the South are still as true today as they were in the 70s, but I am hesitant to believe that all of these cities are still one horse towns that dream of growth and real roads. She doesn’t make nearly as many frank observations about race as I was expecting, and maybe that’s for the best.
In regards to the last, very short section on California, I could have done without those few pages. It felt very disjointed from the rest of the book, and perhaps belonged more in a separate work, like Where I Was From. It was really just added on because, like the notes on the South, it was another unfinished piece with notes behind it.