Play It as It Lays

Didion is so successfully unsentimental. A sharp observer of humans and culture, precise and terrifying in her insight. Play it as it Lays is a book in the mind of a depressed, listless woman aimlessly floating in what Didion observes as the Californian decadence of the 60s, though the book never gives any such clear cut terms as clues. It's a bored but functioning nihilistic crowd that thinks it's seen everything and has money and nothing else to do. It's striking how she captures what it's like to live without meaning, maybe due to too much freedom of choice. It also feels like a lot of her personal fears jump out of the pages. A very dark, pessimistic mind without hope, so perfectly captured. But which still often feels the melancholia of being barely alive. “I know what nothing means, and I keep on playing.” The tiny 1.5 to 2 page chapters' format makes it irresistible and hard to put down.