hysterical blackness: Joan Didion's Year of Magical Thinking

Sunday, December 11, 2005

Am I the only one who read this book and really, really disliked it?

At 9:20 AM, Professor Kim said...: Actually, no, you're not. I read the NYT excerpt and felt it was very sad, but it was really her own private drama. A harrowing drama that, no doubt, required considerable courage to record, and that I hope I never experience. That said, although Didion wrote what is, to my thinking, one of the best pieces of new journalism ever published (the opening essay of "The White Album"), I can appreciate her craft and honor her journey, but I could not get into this particular work. It was almost as difficult as reading John Updike is for me.

Appreciated your thoughts on "Crash" by the way.
At 9:25 AM, hysterical blackness said...: Hi Professor Kim. Thanks for posting. It's actually the first Didion book for me. After reading the piece in the NYT I went out and bought the book. I felt reading it much like I felt reading Andrew Solomon's "The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression."

The writing is fine (as in well-crafted) but there is a coldness and a privilegedness that I couldn't get past.

hysterical blackness