12.15.2005
The Year of Magical Thinking
If you could be any writer, who would you be? I, my friends, would be Joan Didion.
In any other circumstance, I would be hard pressed to finish a memoir about grief. Here, however, Didion's combination of rock-star writing (the syntax!), research (she cites medical textbooks and poetry), and self deprecation resulted in both elation (such books exist) and depression (I will never write one).
So what if she's bony and privleged and Californian. I have vague memories of loving Play It As It Lays in college and plan to send some time with Didion over the holiday break. You should too.
In any other circumstance, I would be hard pressed to finish a memoir about grief. Here, however, Didion's combination of rock-star writing (the syntax!), research (she cites medical textbooks and poetry), and self deprecation resulted in both elation (such books exist) and depression (I will never write one).
So what if she's bony and privleged and Californian. I have vague memories of loving Play It As It Lays in college and plan to send some time with Didion over the holiday break. You should too.
