joan didion books slouching towards bethlehem

Play It As It Lays acts as a time capsule, Didion slipping the essence of the late 60s inside it, that is, ennui and not much else. It's not a particularly cosy read, in fact it's downright hostile. The novel is spare and slim, traits it shares with its 30-something medicated, detached and deeply unwell protagonist Maria Wyeth. Most people can read Play It As It Lays in one sitting.

It also taught us to keep on nodding terms with out former selves, to always keep a notebook and delivered lines like: 'Innocence ends when one is stripped of the delusion that one likes oneself'.

Although it wasn't her first book, that space was filled by Run, River, it's definitely the one that established her reputation as an exacting writer with something to say. So much so, her famous essay On Self-Respect was written to an exact character count aged 26. Like all of Didion's essays, the book is an exercise in being concise and saying what one actually means. Slouching Towards Bethlehem is there when you come searching, open-mouthed with hunger pangs. Take one bite and we inevitably want more. Didion writes of meeting Huey Newton in prison, dress-shopping for Linda Kasabian and finds poetry in the California State Water Project for her essay Holy Water. Oh, and lest we forget that famous packing-list, or to carry a watch for that matter. A blanket of anxiety hangs over the collection, which covers events that occurred toward the end of the 60s until the late 70s. You could easily pick up Slouching Towards Bethlehem, but for some reason The White Album feels quintessentially Joan. If you're new to Didion, start small and begin with her essays. In any case, if you're looking to pick up one of her many books, we've compiled a list below, including where to start. After all, it was she who wrote, 'Grammar is a piano I play by ear'.Īt RUSSH Didion is essential reading, which shouldn't come as a surprise considering we use the same Bauer Bodoni font. She wades through the mess of the external, and turns in pages of precise observations, the kind that have us sending up prayers in the hope that one day we can do the same. We read Didion because the world becomes sharper through her eyes.

Joan didion books slouching towards bethlehem