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A review by elnechnntt
South and West: From a Notebook by Joan Didion
4.0
Oh Didion. Let me count the ways I love your words.
I read this while waiting for laundry to do its thing at the laundromat one wet and rainy Sunday and if ever there was a perfect accompaniment to the scenario this is definitely it.
This is a compilation of words from her notebooks during a drive across the South with her Husband in 1970. There is very little about her and John’s thoughts or feelings and the emphasis is very much on capturing their surroundings, the feel, the ideas, and the people they encounter in territory that is clearly less than appealing for her.
I love her dead pan prose. Her crafty observations. Just enough tiny hints at opinion to give you some idea of her thoughts, but mostly just utterly compelling recounting of nothing events. Of strange persons and mindsets that seem hyper-fictional but you know are quite real.
Worth it for the gold nuggets of insight in the last 10-15 pages. Beautiful writing.
I read this while waiting for laundry to do its thing at the laundromat one wet and rainy Sunday and if ever there was a perfect accompaniment to the scenario this is definitely it.
This is a compilation of words from her notebooks during a drive across the South with her Husband in 1970. There is very little about her and John’s thoughts or feelings and the emphasis is very much on capturing their surroundings, the feel, the ideas, and the people they encounter in territory that is clearly less than appealing for her.
I love her dead pan prose. Her crafty observations. Just enough tiny hints at opinion to give you some idea of her thoughts, but mostly just utterly compelling recounting of nothing events. Of strange persons and mindsets that seem hyper-fictional but you know are quite real.
Worth it for the gold nuggets of insight in the last 10-15 pages. Beautiful writing.