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Tag Archives: Slouching Towards Bethlehem
“The ability to think for one’s self depends upon one’s mastery of the language.” — Joan Didion
It’s her birthday today. Someone said that Didion’s (seemingly) simple sentences are like a perfect puzzle. If you remove one line from a paragraph, everything falls apart. Her writing is that well-constructed. She was a notoriously painstaking self-editor. She would … Continue reading
Excerpt from Slouching Towards Bethlehem: ‘John Wayne: A Love Story’, by Joan Didion
For John Wayne’s Birthday A second excerpt from the essay collection: Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays (FSG Classics), by Joan Didion This is one of the best things written about John Wayne. It’s not just an essay about who he was … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Books, On This Day
Tagged Elvis Presley, essays, Joan Didion, John Wayne, Slouching Towards Bethlehem
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The Books: Slouching Towards Bethlehem: ‘Notes From a Native Daughter’, by Joan Didion
A fourth excerpt from the essay collection: Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays (FSG Classics), by Joan Didion Joan Didion has many topics that obsess her. Crime, narrative, real estate, language, to name a few. One of her obsessions is her home … Continue reading
The Books: Slouching Towards Bethlehem: ‘Slouching Towards Bethlehem’, by Joan Didion
A third excerpt from the essay collection: Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays (FSG Classics), by Joan Didion One of Joan Didion’s masterpieces. It’s unlike a lot of her other writing, which can be quite openly analytical. In this, she only has … Continue reading
The Books: Slouching Towards Bethlehem: ‘Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream’, by Joan Didion
Moving on from the Hollywood shelf to what I call my Essay shelf. First up, is the Joan Didion section. She is one of my favorite writers of all time. Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays (FSG Classics), by Joan Didion Slouching … Continue reading
Happy Birthday, Joan Didion
From the essay “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” in the collection Slouching Towards Bethlehem: The center was not holding. It was a country of bankruptcy notices and public-auction announcements and commonplace reports of casual killings and misplaced children and abandoned homes and … Continue reading
Happy Birthday, Joan Didion
From the essay “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” in the collection Slouching Towards Bethlehem: The center was not holding. It was a country of bankruptcy notices and public-auction announcements and commonplace reports of casual killings and misplaced children and abandoned homes and … Continue reading