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chiliramon's review against another edition
4.0
I always enioy Joan Didion's portraits of places. They say she writes as if from a cool & calculated distance, but I feel like she captures moments so closely, as if she's perched on someone's shoulder and she overheard something she wasn't supposed to.
chickpeagal's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
4.75
whitebreadgf's review against another edition
4.0
My introduction to Joan Didion! Unfinished and torn straight from her notebook, this does well to draw you into the mindset and the world that was the 70's - they could never make me hate post-war America.
Conversations recorded with real people living in real cities, examining the past and repeating it as if that's the only way you could live, and the hivemind of the South.
Human behaviour is one of the most valuble aspects of understanding a time period that has become a flanderised version of itself. I loved it.
Besides from the South, Joan also writes about the West, California, where she grew up and ends up discovering how she fits in there so many years later. This part was short but ended up grabbing me the most, honestly I wish there was more written there.
If not for it's raw & unfiltered look into American life in the South, this book has extreme merit in making non-fiction insanely interesting to me and inspiring me to create more. Joan just makes you want to write.
Conversations recorded with real people living in real cities, examining the past and repeating it as if that's the only way you could live, and the hivemind of the South.
Human behaviour is one of the most valuble aspects of understanding a time period that has become a flanderised version of itself. I loved it.
Besides from the South, Joan also writes about the West, California, where she grew up and ends up discovering how she fits in there so many years later. This part was short but ended up grabbing me the most, honestly I wish there was more written there.
If not for it's raw & unfiltered look into American life in the South, this book has extreme merit in making non-fiction insanely interesting to me and inspiring me to create more. Joan just makes you want to write.
leasummer's review against another edition
4.0
I feel like people who hated this fall into two categories - those who missed it was “from a notebook” and not fully fleshed out essays or those who are from the south, specifically the towns mentioned.
I would have enjoyed this even more with further comparisons between California and the south. It seems like it still rings true for a lot of the public facing side of the south and I imagine that ticks people off.
Short and worth your time, knowing what it is. I felt the introduction really set it up well. The warning we didn’t heed…
I would have enjoyed this even more with further comparisons between California and the south. It seems like it still rings true for a lot of the public facing side of the south and I imagine that ticks people off.
Short and worth your time, knowing what it is. I felt the introduction really set it up well. The warning we didn’t heed…
jstriffler's review against another edition
The portion on the West is very brief (10-15 pages) and almost seems unnecessary. The majority of the book focused on Didion's driving around the South in 1970 is excellent and I wish there was more.
underthejunipertree's review against another edition
reflective
3.75
Truly reads like pages torn straight from a field book. Nonetheless, the language is surprisingly not unpolished and not altogether unready for the public eye:
In New Orleans the wilderness is sensed as very near, not the redemptive wilderness of the western imagination but something rank and old and malevolent, the idea of wilderness not as an escape from civilization and its discontents but as a mortal threat to a community precarious and colonial in its deepest aspect. The effect is lively and avaricious and intensely self-absorbed, a tone not uncommon in colonial cities, and the principal reason I find such cities invigorating.
Her writing carries her through despite how aimless she seems, drifting from city to city. There remains something sharp and effortless about the way she writes; words were carefully chosen and polished, the transitions and form to be decided upon, then later abandoned. The order of priorities channels the expectation that these words would make it to someone else one day, often incorporating the kind of dry humor best appreciated between knowing glances, raised brows.
belle_enth_stid's review against another edition
3.0
This doesn’t really feel like a completed book, but god can that woman write