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A review by rosemarieshort
The White Album by Joan Didion
challenging
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
“At the end of the week I tell my husband that I am going to try harder to make things matter. My husband says that he has heard that before, but the air is warm and the baby has another frangipani lei and there is no rancor in his voice. Maybe it can be all right, I say. Maybe, he says.”
My fascination in Joan Didion lies with the forensic, obsessive way she looks at things she chooses to write about. Never a word used without purpose, she herself admitted her edits of her own work could be close to endless. She speaks of malls, dams, a politicians house with intricate detail - when she tells her husband she will try and make things matter, she does not mean her writing. She means her life outside of that; whatever that might be.
The White Album is a wide ranging collection of essays which whilst often not about Didion at all, show who she is by proxy. Her thoughts on feminism in this book are at odds with all she achieved on her life, causing conflict in her friendship with fellow author Eve Babitz. Some of her most interesting pieces for me were around her relationship with and observations on Hollywood. However, as ever her talent means lifeguards at Zuma beach, California in the 70s are almost as fascinating.
With Didion, everything she writes about matters to her. It’s only after her husband’s death that she writes about him in great detail. Yet no one who read A Year of Magical Thinking would say he and their daughter were anything less than important to her.
My fascination in Joan Didion lies with the forensic, obsessive way she looks at things she chooses to write about. Never a word used without purpose, she herself admitted her edits of her own work could be close to endless. She speaks of malls, dams, a politicians house with intricate detail - when she tells her husband she will try and make things matter, she does not mean her writing. She means her life outside of that; whatever that might be.
The White Album is a wide ranging collection of essays which whilst often not about Didion at all, show who she is by proxy. Her thoughts on feminism in this book are at odds with all she achieved on her life, causing conflict in her friendship with fellow author Eve Babitz. Some of her most interesting pieces for me were around her relationship with and observations on Hollywood. However, as ever her talent means lifeguards at Zuma beach, California in the 70s are almost as fascinating.
With Didion, everything she writes about matters to her. It’s only after her husband’s death that she writes about him in great detail. Yet no one who read A Year of Magical Thinking would say he and their daughter were anything less than important to her.