Ratings22
Average rating3.9
This comprehensive edition brings together three seminal collections by legendary essayist and journalist Joan Didion: Slouching toward Bethlehem, White Album and Sentimental Journeys. WE TELL OURSELVES STORIES IN ORDER TO LIVE Looking for plausible stories as the Sixties are about to implode, Joan Didion sets out, notebook in hand, on a now-legendary journey into the hinterland of the American psyche: she kills time waiting for Jim Morrison to show up, parties with Janis Joplin, visits the Black Panthers in prison, watches a campus combust, dines with Tate and Polanski, buys dresses with Charlie Manson's girls, and gravitates towards biker movies 'because there on screen was some news I was not getting from the New York Times'. She and her reader emerge, cauterized, from this devastating tour of the myths and realities of that age of self-discovery into the harsh light of the morning after...
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This one is hit-or-miss for me, but whew, when it hits, it really hits.
I think Didion gives ungenerous takes on some things–feminism, for instance–but I still enjoy reading her biting take on things even when I disagree with her. Her style works better for me when she's talking about (or incorporating) personal stuff. If you live/grew up in California in the 70's, there are some nice time capsules here (I can't believe I loved an essay about CalTrans?).
There's also a really fun, if also really unfair, critique of author Doris Lessing here, which is worth the price of the book for me.
Some of the essays in this collection drag, but then the whole book is held up by the handful of great ones, like the titular essay, the ones about Hollywood, and a few others.