something like a book review

"You have your wonderful memories," people said later, as if memories were solace. Memories are not. Memories are by definition of times past, things gone. Memories are the Westlake uniforms in the closet, the faded and cracked photographs, the invitations to the weddings of the people who are no longer married, the mass cards from the funerals of the people whose faces you no longer remember. Memories are what you no longer want to remember.

-Joan Didion, Blue Nights, Pg. 64

After being on the library's hold list for three months, I inhaled Joan Didion's riveting memoir of her daughter's death in five hours. The writing itself is fragmented, feels extremely stream-of-conscious-y, and permeates with grief and regret. Her memories of Quintana are sharp and seeking, filled with bittersweet details. As I finished, I couldn't help but contemplate the place Didion is in at this point. At 78, she has spent about three-fourths of her life in the public eye, yet is left behind without her husband and daughter, a picture of senile loneliness. The reason any of us wants a family is so that we are not alone, and it feels as though Didion has been left exceedingly alone, prematurely, unable to cope with what was "not supposed to happen," even unable to forgive herself for passing through the moments that she commemorated but didn't fully appreciate, something which is so incredibly human and universal. Blue Nights is a painfully resonating read, and a good one.

Also see this interview with Didion at The Believer.

My favorite excerpt:

 VIII. FINDING THE RHYTHM

BLVR: When do you feel like you’re most writing?

JD: When I’m finding the rhythm.

BLVR: Are there times when you’re writing when you feel like you’re evading writing?

JD: Of course there are times. There must be times when everybody writes when they feel they’re evading writing.

BLVR: And what is the nature of the evasion? Not thinking?

JD: Not thinking, yeah. Not thinking.