Charlie's Reviews > The Year of Magical Thinking

'I hadn’t been able to think of food for days, so I had sent Higgins out for an hors d’oeuvres platter from Café Provencal. I was nibbling brie and beluga caviar on the deck, watching the sun set over the New York skyline and wondering how things could get any worse when Higgins brought me the phone. It was Gary.
My stomach lurched. Sequoia had collapsed at the bus terminal and been rushed to the emergency room, but there was no word as to what was wrong with her. I had to get to Los Angeles as quickly as possible, but first I had to find suitable accommodations. I called my close friend, Academy Award nominated film director Gérard Lupin.
“Gérard,” I said, overemphasizing the accent mark as he prefers, “Sequoia has fallen ill! I need to borrow your chateau for a few weeks while she’s in the hospital.”
“But of course, Jane,” he said. “You’ve already lost so much. You know, I once said to Jim, may he rest in peace, ‘Jim, you’re inarguably one of the most masterful writers of the 20th Century.’ And he said to me, ‘Yes, Gérard. I am. Second only to Jane, perhaps. I am truly blessed to have found someone as wonderful as her.’”
He paused, reminiscing. Then he spoke again, his voice thick with emotion. “I’m shooting with Sir Anthony Hopkins in Luxembourg (he says hello), but I will do anything I can to help.” He cleared his throat. “But what is Sequoia doing in France?”
“The California chateau, at the vineyard,” I said.
“Ah, of course,” he said sadly.'
That’s an excerpt from my upcoming Joan Didion parody, working title: “The Year of Entitled Thinking”. You may have correctly inferred from the tone that I didn’t much enjoy The Year of Magical Thinking. According to a friend who was able to generate a surprising amount of outrage in response to my disdain, this is because I am “not an adult”, but in speaking with her and reflecting on it for a few days, I think I’ve come to a somewhat more nuanced understanding of my viewpoint.
To begin with, this book is the very definition (by my standard, anyway) of creative non-fiction. Didion tells a very personal story entirely from her own perspective. In fact, the story is really about her perspective, her grief and corresponding inability to rationally accept that John is gone and won’t ever be coming back. She even goes so far as to underscore the extreme subjectivity of the narrative by pointing out a few times where her recollection of events explicitly differs from that of some of the other players. She does, on the other hand, also try to universalize it by citing experts/psychological studies on the grieving process and juxtaposing the information with her own experience, almost as if to say, “This happens to everyone, even Joan Fucking Didion .” It’s certainly interesting to think that this state of grief-stricken irrationality is so commonplace as to be almost scientifically quantifiable, although I’m taking her word for it. The narrative itself seems somewhat disjointed at parts, with Didion repeating herself or not making herself entirely clear, but I think that’s intentional, to better bring the reader into line with her state of mind at the time.
Thereupon sitteth, on an ostentatious, jewel-encrusted throne, my problem with the book, I think. Didion’s a great writer. She almost compels the reader to empathize with her, not just her emotions, but the state of temporary, borderline insanity she finds herself in. I really feel like I have a good idea of who Joan Didion is as a person, or at least who Joan Didion wants me to think she is, and that would seem to be a guiding purpose of autobiographical creative non-fiction. I have sympathy for her, especially having discovered that Quintana also passed away right before the book was published. But I don’t think I like her very much.
This is subjective, obviously. I got the impression that Didion is something of a literary star, inasmuch as such a thing exists any more. From whom did I get that impression? From Joan Fucking Didion, that’s who. I don’t know how to explain it better. I think if she had referred to herself entirely in the third person throughout: “Important Author Joan Didion didn’t have an appetite,” it would have fit my interpretation of her general tone. She name-drops in a way that I find fairly inappropriate given the context. She creates an image of a person who’s certainly living far more comfortably than anyone I know, and I find it difficult to muster that much sympathy. I’m sure there are at least three-billion people on the planet who’d trade places with Joan Didion in a heartbeat, even given these tragic circumstances, because it would mean that they weren’t going to starve or die of malaria or have their arms cut off by a roving gang of soldiers. Is that an unfair standard to hold this story to? Of course it is. But I found it to be fairly self-indulgent and self-reverential. And the fact that she seems to have anticipated that I might react this way and told me that she would have felt the same way at my age, but that her younger self and I are both wrong only strengthens my conviction. Who knows, maybe I’ll understand better when I’m an Old.
I don’t deny that Didion is a talented writer, but she seems to know it too and take herself way too seriously as a result. That is my perspective.