Joan Didion

I've enjoyed most of what I've read by Joan Didion, and Slouching Towards Bethlehem, a set of her essays from the 1960s, is no exception. 

I think what I most appreciate about Didion is her poise: her is in no rush, and yet she is expeditious. Her writing is clear; there is no opacity here. And more than that: I find Didion to be quite brave. Her essay on the Hippie Movement -- the title essay from the collection -- is a subtle, but still scathing, indictment of the San Francisco scene. I'm not sure I've read a piece on the 1960s which is as effective, or evocative. 

No doubt, Didion sees herself as a Californian: but not as a transplant. She traces her family's history back to the nineteenth century, and uses that history -- that sense of connection -- to describe everything from the wind to the politics. As I say, I found her essays about the West Coast to be very convincing. 

If there's a critique of Didion it's, perhaps, her priggishness. There's just that slightest sense in the essays about Newport or New York that Didion was on the side, that she was one step removed from the scene itself. I suppose that's less of a critique than it is an observation on my part, but I'll grant it to Didion, because her writing tends to strike that unusual balance between feeling and objectivity, between the personal and the contextual. 

I made my way quickly through Slouching, and it's a testament to Didion that these essays, some fifty years later, have maintained their bite and purpose.