franksbooks reviewed blue nights by Joan Didion
Review of 'blue nights' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Do not dwell on what’s lost, rather fear what we’re still to lose.
Published Nov. 8, 2011 by knopf.
Do not dwell on what’s lost, rather fear what we’re still to lose.
I am momentarily overwhelmed, but I am sure that later I will be glad that I read it. I think that my reading was a kind of rehearsal for real future sadness and aging, the coming grief.
Words. Sentences. Paragraphs. White Space - these are things that Didion is really interested in. The subject her daughter's death is reflected in a number of stylized meditations from her own mortality to Sophia Loren. Only Didion can write like this. She's a much different character now than her stand in Maria in Play It As It Lays, less icy and more caring. That's sweet. This is a quick read.
Based off of Slouching Towards Bethlehem and Play It As it Lays, Blue Nights is a natural progression as the author has aged gracefully.
But she lacks the vision she had in 68. One anecdote - she had to work out as part of her physical therapy and noticed all these really fit guys and figured that working out must lead to real results. Then three weeks into it she found at those guys were the NY Yankees loosening up …
Words. Sentences. Paragraphs. White Space - these are things that Didion is really interested in. The subject her daughter's death is reflected in a number of stylized meditations from her own mortality to Sophia Loren. Only Didion can write like this. She's a much different character now than her stand in Maria in Play It As It Lays, less icy and more caring. That's sweet. This is a quick read.
Based off of Slouching Towards Bethlehem and Play It As it Lays, Blue Nights is a natural progression as the author has aged gracefully.
But she lacks the vision she had in 68. One anecdote - she had to work out as part of her physical therapy and noticed all these really fit guys and figured that working out must lead to real results. Then three weeks into it she found at those guys were the NY Yankees loosening up between games.
I made the mistake of really delving into this on the day my boyfriend left for a week-long business trip. Okay, so you can't really compare that to losing your spouse and child within a year's time, but it helped bring home the idea of loneliness and vulnerability Didion expresses so...I can't come up with an adequate enough adjective here. I've never actually read any of her fiction, but I love the power she has with words. Beautiful.