Now You're Gone

As the years push forth in increasingly alarming speed, I've come to realize that my love affair with writing has waned to a lackluster relationship in which I send most of the calls to voicemail. I went from pursuing an English degree to now forcing myself to blog, grimacing the entire time.

Ok, time for a book post. I read this one in January, and I've finished a few more since then, so I've gotta get this down. This book wasn't what I expected. It garnered overwhelmingly rave reviews, so I was looking forward to reading it, despite Dre's negative assessment. Joan Didion writes of the year after the death of her husband of almost 40 years, John Gregory Dunne, and how she mourned and dealt with the ordeal. So I imagined a tear-jerking account, soaked in sorrow and pummeled with pain. Instead, I found her writing very dry and almost dispassionate, which was disconcerting considering the subject matter. I understand this was her way of coping, and the constant repetition to the moment he collapsed clearly displays her struggle to move past that horrifying moment. However, she approached it more as an intellectual, often discussing the scientific aspects of his heart attack, and the mechanical study of grief. "In time of trouble, I had been trained since childhood, read, learn, work it up, go to the literature. Information was control. Given that grief remained the most general of afflictions its literature seemed remarkably spare."

I had to read the book twice to truly appreciate it. Perhaps if I had read some of Didion's writings before, I could have absorbed her style better. I really enjoyed reading about how literary the pair were (Dunne was a writer as well), such as the poems they shared and how they would critique one another's work. She references her prior novels, as well as Dunne's, several times throughout the text, and I couldn't help but wonder if it was a marketing ploy. I know, I'm a cynical bitch, but I'm also susceptible, because I'm interested in reading some of their other stuff now.