Joan Didion died last week. The literary world mourned. Print media poured gallons of ink into obituaries. New critiques of her work sprouted in all the usual places and some not so usual. This will go on for a few more weeks. There was praise for the quality of her writing, for her sentence structure, and for her ability to capture a moment with words, without even one on-the-other-hand. What she saw formed a prescient vision of what would follow. A Sacramento native is among the pantheon of literary giants who saw the nation’s movement from one period to the next and then to another. She recorded it in brilliant essays and deep-thought novels.
Didion published River Run in 1963. I was well out of college by then and on to other things. I’ve read several of her essays. Her skill with the English language is notable; it isn’t an easy one to master. Hemingway told us in A Movable Feast that if he could write one good sentence, the rest would follow. He did it well. Didion said that she liked Hemingway’s writing, his sentence structure. She was as good.
In Why I Write she said, “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.” She noted that writing was, “Imposing oneself upon other people, of saying listen to me, see it my way, change your mind … there is no getting around the fact that setting words on paper is the tactic of a secret bully.”
Sometimes, writing something out is the only way to explain what you are seeing. Oral is easy; just say whatever comes out of your head. But that seldom has the power of a well-constructed sentence, written and rewritten. Churchill could do it but generally didn’t. He said he could talk for an hour with no preparation, but if he was limited to only a few minutes he might need a week to prepare.
Toni Morrison once told her neighbor, according to the neighbor, “If there is a book you want to read and it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.” I find that that’s true of not only stories but of daily goings-on. I started writing, commenting, about what I witnessed every day: a country seemingly in turmoil, perhaps unprepared for the throes of an extreme makeover. The only way to understand it was to write about it. I didn’t think that was being a bully, but then I’m not the reader of what I write. Then I put the thoughts into a blog, Comments, opinions about the current state of affairs.
Admittedly, Comments can edge toward strong opinions from time to time, a reflection of devilish things rippling across the land. But why not? I noted early on that it takes a certain amount of audaciousness to think that people might read my comments, and more importantly perhaps, come back a second time, and a third. I’ve been accused of enjoying a good argument. Not really, but there are times when you just have to keep talking until you convince people that you are right. The bit of the Francophile in my upbringing, sifted by way of Quebec, instills a natural penchant toward l’audace, toujours l’audace!”
At this point 138 blogs are on the site; this is number 139. The readers are mostly friends, acquaintances, and those forced to be either because they are on a mailing list. Other readers from across Europe, Canada, Australia, and Asia join a U.S. majority. Many of them send me their comments when they agree or disagree with my comments. They range from jovial “I wish I had said that” to volumes of curated articles designed to keep me reading until I change my mind. I seldom do.
The feedback mirrors the diversity of the country. Folks who went to grade school together sit at either end of the political spectrum. The young express different ambitions for the country than their elders. People who live in different regions see immigration through different lenses, depending on their experiences. It would be a boring world if we all thought the same about every issue, wouldn’t it?
There is no doubt that the nation and its people are in a serious age of disruption. What it means to be an American is morphing. In the name of democracy, state legislatures are limiting people’s right to vote, a unique oxymoron. Millions of people are ready to take up arms against …What exactly?
I’m trying to figure out what I’m looking at, what I’m seeing, and what it means.
So, I write.
