Slouching Towards Bethlehem : Essays

Rating:
Summary: Where a Falcon Circles the Falconer.
Review: This is a fabulous, interesting read, a book of essays by Didion, regarding the 1960's, particularly the West and California. Through pieces about suburban murder, Las Vegas weddings, the counter-culture movement in the Haight-Ashbury of San Francisco, Sacramento's history, Communists, life in New York as a young woman, the Santa Ana winds, John Wayne, Hawaiian history, and personal reflections on herself, among others, Didion confesses a perspective of directness, dry humor, irony, and insight that trump immediate judgements and delve into a level of beauty that is poetic and modern.
None of her subjects is treated condescendingly, though the shock and disturbance of a mute but bright little kid, whose mother is dropping acid and probably far too young herself strikes Didion. As does the image of a young girl, maybe five, who is fed acid, and other drugs, by her juvenile mother. At the same times, in the essay about Hawaii, Didion doesn't shy away from showing a society ingrained with racism, where people become tourist products and exotic characters.
Didion analytically writes about morality, and respect, two issues that pervade her more journalistic writing, with an individualistic and logical feel, one that humanizes constantly, reminding that our own self analysis and judgements are inconsistent things, hardly enough for us to deny the awe of others.
So quicky Las Vegas weddings, diligent and unsuccessful Communists and pioneering drug abusers are not lent a foolishness or an evil. They are observed and presented, and written with the possibility of going one way or another.
Throughout Didion captures a time and many places, a mystery and a depth that expose the 1960's in America, and California for more than the sum of it's parts. Where the flower power/feminism movements are sometimes regarded as sweet revolutions, here they are infused with some less than glorious characteristics. And the paradise that is Hawaii, or Southern California are shown to be as troubled and dark as they are sunny and warm.
This is an essential read. Joan Didion is a terrific writer, capable of communicating clearly, but not her opinion, or a mere judgement. Her voice is subtle, and her quotes and dialogue are kept to a minimum, while her mind, works as a filter through which the varied subjects flow, exposing a deeper humanity.
The Modern Library version also features a history of Didion's writing, and an essay by Elizabeth Hardwicke about Slouching Towards Bethlehem.

Rating:
Summary: The '60's without the emerald glasses
Review: This is a wonderful collection of essays by a keen observer of the popular scene. Particularly in an age when we have come to romanticize the "Summer of Love" and all that it is worthwhile to take a look back at what at least one talented writer saw and wrote at the time. Apart from the excellent title piece we get "Notes from a Native Daughter" which captures California in a way that I never thought anyone could, "The Seacoast of Despair" which hits Newport right smack between the eyes (who else but Didion could come up with a line like "To stand in the dining room of The Breakers is to imagine fleeing from it, pleading migraine"? We also get a truly lovely homage to John Wayne, a spooky story about Howard Hughes,etc. etc. Apart from the "native Daughter" however the essay that has haunted me for 20 years is the final "Goodbye to all that" -it is strangely wonderful to be assigning it as class reading to students who are now as old as I was when I first read it. I think the years have been kind to this and to most of the rest of this anthology.

Rating:
Summary: The '60's without the emerald glasses
Review: This is a wonderful collection of essays by a keen observer of the popular scene. Particularly in an age when we have come to romanticize the "Summer of Love" and all that it is worthwhile to take a look back at what at least one talented writer saw and wrote at the time. Apart from the excellent title piece we get "Notes from a Native Daughter" which captures California in a way that I never thought anyone could, "The Seacoast of Despair" which hits Newport right smack between the eyes (who else but Didion could come up with a line like "To stand in the dining room of The Breakers is to imagine fleeing from it, pleading migraine"? We also get a truly lovely homage to John Wayne, a spooky story about Howard Hughes,etc. etc. Apart from the "native Daughter" however the essay that has haunted me for 20 years is the final "Goodbye to all that" -it is strangely wonderful to be assigning it as class reading to students who are now as old as I was when I first read it. I think the years have been kind to this and to most of the rest of this anthology.