Status
Checked out
Due Mar 4, 2022
Publication
New York : A.A. Knopf, c2005.
Description
Biography & Autobiography. Self-Improvement. Nonfiction. HTML: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ? NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER ? From one of America??s iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion that explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage??and a life, in good times and bad??that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child. Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill with what seemed at first flu, then pneumonia, then complete septic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed on life support. Days later??the night before New Year??s Eve??the Dunnes were just sitting down to dinner after visiting the hospital when John Gregory Dunne suffered a massive and fatal coronary. In a second, this close, symbiotic partnership of forty years was over. Four weeks later, their daughter pulled through. Two months after that, arriving at LAX, she collapsed and underwent six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Center to relieve a massive hematoma. This powerful book is Didion?? s attempt to make sense of the ??weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness ... about marriage and children and memory ... about the shallowness of sanity, about life it… (more)
Media reviews
New York Review of Books
Essayistic and concise, seeking external points of comparison, trying to set her case in some wider context.
The book is, as promised, extraordinary. The Year of Magical Thinking is raw, brutal, compact, precise, immediate, literate, and, given the subject matter, astonishingly readable.
Though the material is literally terrible, the writing is exhilarating and what unfolds resembles an adventure narrative: a forced expedition into those "cliffs of fall" identified by Hopkins.
The Year of Magical Thinking , though it spares nothing in describing Didion's confusion, grief and derangement, is a work of surpassing clarity and honesty. It may not provide "meaning" to her husband's death or her daughter's illness, but it describes their effects on her with unsparing candor.
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It was not written as a self-help handbook for the bereaved but as a journey into a place that none of us can fully imagine until we have been there. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member absurdeist
An autobiography about death and grief is typically not the first book I'll reach for off the shelf. I hate death more than anything. Who doesn't? But a close family friend is presently dying of bone cancer and I was searching for ... for something. My friend's in hospice, on oxygen, steady
Despite chronicling the emotional labyrinth of her devastation in the aftermath of her husband's, the criminally underrated and under-read novelist, John Gregory Dunne's, sudden passing from a heart attack on Dec. 30, 2003, Joan Didion makes reading about her trying ordeal, if not necessarily pleasurable (wrong word) then at least comfortable, certainly compelling, and that's no easy task for anybody, even one as accomplished as Didion, tackling death and mourning, and what for her was arguably at the time the most difficult (and most personal) topic she had ever written about, losing her husband of forty years. Didion is painfully authentic in her memoir, revealing insecurities, dependencies, confusion and heartbreak that are rarely shared outside the ears of close friends and confidantes. Didion might balk at the reviewer calling her memoir "courageous" or "transparent" as she is, after all, merely doing her damn job, writing what she knows, in her inimitable style of dispassionate reportage.
That patented style of Didion's, while noticeably more passionate in The Year of Magical Thinking, is understandably even more terse than usual -- terse yet thorough. Without overly brooding on her grief or lingering in the immediate aftermath of Dunne's death, she feels it all, whether it's the coroner's or ER personnel's matter-of-factness (just performing their regular duties like they do everyday, seemingly unaware of the deep chasm of incongruity existing between their unaffected aloofness and Didion's bewildering shock at being abruptly widowed); or contemplating her husband's rather sad last words, considering his dynamic -- equally adept at screenwriting as he was as a novelist, essayist and critic -- professional accomplishments.
Didion makes her points, makes her peace, at least as much as peace is possible through the delicate power of words and prose, and moves on. And though, as I said, she neither broods or lingers, I find it ironic how much what she has to say makes me linger, makes me brood (in a good way!), as I dwell on the universality of her perspectives and how impacting they are on even my much less personal circumstances with my friend, feeling how relatable, even comforting at times, are Joan Didion's thoughts on bereavement.
I hear her latest memoir, Blue Nights, is even more minimalistic (though no less potent) in its observations on death and grief. Makes sense, as Blue Nights covers the even more torturous terrain of the death of her only child, Quintana Roo Dunne, who also figured prominently in The Year of Magical Thinking, as she was very sick at the time of John Gregory Dunne's passing.
The death of one's spouse. The death of one's child. God, I feel bad for Joan Didion, reading her and what's she's endured, and yet feel encouraged too, reading her memoir, as if I've just gotten off the phone with a dear friend, and am wiping my eyes from the healing tears I've just shed.
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morphine drip making him all but incoherent, incommunicado, but for nods and grunts and faint glimpses of that devilish smile that once transformed the most frustrating of days for the people in his life into one feather-light for them on a dime. He probably won't be around come Christmas, if the hospice nurse's blunt prognostications are correct.Despite chronicling the emotional labyrinth of her devastation in the aftermath of her husband's, the criminally underrated and under-read novelist, John Gregory Dunne's, sudden passing from a heart attack on Dec. 30, 2003, Joan Didion makes reading about her trying ordeal, if not necessarily pleasurable (wrong word) then at least comfortable, certainly compelling, and that's no easy task for anybody, even one as accomplished as Didion, tackling death and mourning, and what for her was arguably at the time the most difficult (and most personal) topic she had ever written about, losing her husband of forty years. Didion is painfully authentic in her memoir, revealing insecurities, dependencies, confusion and heartbreak that are rarely shared outside the ears of close friends and confidantes. Didion might balk at the reviewer calling her memoir "courageous" or "transparent" as she is, after all, merely doing her damn job, writing what she knows, in her inimitable style of dispassionate reportage.
That patented style of Didion's, while noticeably more passionate in The Year of Magical Thinking, is understandably even more terse than usual -- terse yet thorough. Without overly brooding on her grief or lingering in the immediate aftermath of Dunne's death, she feels it all, whether it's the coroner's or ER personnel's matter-of-factness (just performing their regular duties like they do everyday, seemingly unaware of the deep chasm of incongruity existing between their unaffected aloofness and Didion's bewildering shock at being abruptly widowed); or contemplating her husband's rather sad last words, considering his dynamic -- equally adept at screenwriting as he was as a novelist, essayist and critic -- professional accomplishments.
Didion makes her points, makes her peace, at least as much as peace is possible through the delicate power of words and prose, and moves on. And though, as I said, she neither broods or lingers, I find it ironic how much what she has to say makes me linger, makes me brood (in a good way!), as I dwell on the universality of her perspectives and how impacting they are on even my much less personal circumstances with my friend, feeling how relatable, even comforting at times, are Joan Didion's thoughts on bereavement.
I hear her latest memoir, Blue Nights, is even more minimalistic (though no less potent) in its observations on death and grief. Makes sense, as Blue Nights covers the even more torturous terrain of the death of her only child, Quintana Roo Dunne, who also figured prominently in The Year of Magical Thinking, as she was very sick at the time of John Gregory Dunne's passing.
The death of one's spouse. The death of one's child. God, I feel bad for Joan Didion, reading her and what's she's endured, and yet feel encouraged too, reading her memoir, as if I've just gotten off the phone with a dear friend, and am wiping my eyes from the healing tears I've just shed.
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LibraryThing member MarianV
I waited almost 6 months after my husband's passing which was almost 1 year & 1/2 after the sudden passing of our daughter before I read Joan Didion's "Year of Magical Thinking." The book had been mentioned several times on a grief site to which I belonged. Those members who read it seemed to find
"Magical thinking" is one way to deal with loss. It helps if you can step out of reality for a few minutes like stepping out doors for a breath of fresh air when you realize the atmosphere inside is about to stifle you. But then there is the renewed shock of "yes, this really happened" poised to deal its blow when we re-enter. It is that ability of stepping in & out of time that might confuse some of Ms. Didion's readers. But her work can be appreciated by those who haave not yet faced the losses she describes. Her prose, as in her other works, is spare, & to the point. Those who are facing loss will find Joan Didion's words valuable traveling companions on a difficult journey.
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it helpful in the "we are not alone" sense, at least. I have read the reviews here, & I now realize that those who grieve see things from a different perspective than those who are "not acquainted with grief". One reviewer mentioned that reading such a depressing story was not unlike being able to turn away from the scene of an accident. I, too, in my other life had not been able to turn away from crash sites & now I wonder if it is because we all carry the knowledge that somewhere, sometime loss & disaster will strike & this is how people have dealt with it."Magical thinking" is one way to deal with loss. It helps if you can step out of reality for a few minutes like stepping out doors for a breath of fresh air when you realize the atmosphere inside is about to stifle you. But then there is the renewed shock of "yes, this really happened" poised to deal its blow when we re-enter. It is that ability of stepping in & out of time that might confuse some of Ms. Didion's readers. But her work can be appreciated by those who haave not yet faced the losses she describes. Her prose, as in her other works, is spare, & to the point. Those who are facing loss will find Joan Didion's words valuable traveling companions on a difficult journey.
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LibraryThing member Crazymamie
"Grief, when it comes, is nothing we expect it to be.....Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We anticipate (we know) that someone close to us could die, but we do not look beyond the few days or weeks that immediately follow such an imagined death. We misconstrue the
The Year of Magical Thinking was the book that Didion wrote to express her grief and her understanding of it when, in less than a two year period she lost both her husband and her daughter. This book deals with just the death of her husband of forty years John Gregory Dunne. Their daughter Quintana had fallen ill during the Christmas season, and was in a coma in the hospital. On December 30th, after coming home from visiting their daughter, Didion's husband had a massive heart attack and died. Didion would have to deal with this loss while continuing to visit her daughter, who will recover only to again be hospitalized after a fall where she hit her head and required brain surgery. Again the daughter will recover only to die a few months later. The death of her daughter is dealt with in her follow-up book Blue Nights.
In writing about her own grief, Didion does the same thing that she has done so many times in her essays about the 60s and 70s - she places herself in the story. Firmly anchors herself there, and then steps back out so that she can report on the details as an almost objective observer. It works here so very perfectly - she reveals her vulnerability, her need to understand, her need to accept while acknowledging that she finds this an impossible task. There is no great wisdom to be grasped no matter how endlessly we seek to explain how we are supposed to go on after our world collapses, and life as we know it is forever altered. Grief is a surreal experience. It is not a linear progression - it takes each of us on our own journey, demanding an inventory of memory and of self.
"I have been a writer my entire life. As a writer, even as a child, long before what I wrote began to be published, I developed a sense that meaning itself was resident in the rhythms of words and sentences and paragraphs, a technique for withholding whatever it was I thought or believed behind an increasingly impenetrable polish. The way I write is who I am, or have become, yet this is a case in which I wish I had instead of words and their rhythms a cutting room, equipped with an Avid, a digital editing system on which I could touch a key and collapse the sequence of time, show you simultaneously all the frames of memory that come to me now, let you pick the takes, the marginally different expressions, the variant readings of the same lines. This is a case in which I need more than words to find the meaning. This is a case in which I need whatever it is I think or believe to be penetrable, if only for myself."
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nature of even those few days or weeks. We might expect if the death is sudden to feel shock. We do not expect this shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind. We might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss. We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe that their husband is about to return and need his shoes. In the version of grief we imagine, the model will be 'healing'. A certain forward movement will prevail. The worst days will be the earliest days....We have no way of knowing that this will not be the issue. We have no way of knowing that the funeral itself will be anodyne, a kind of narcotic regression in which we are wrapped in the care of others and the gravity and meaning of the occasion. Nor can we know ahead of the fact (and here lies the heart of the difference between grief as we imagine it and grief as it is) the unending absence that follows, the void, the very opposite of meaning, the relentless succession of moments during which we will confront the experience of meaningless itself."The Year of Magical Thinking was the book that Didion wrote to express her grief and her understanding of it when, in less than a two year period she lost both her husband and her daughter. This book deals with just the death of her husband of forty years John Gregory Dunne. Their daughter Quintana had fallen ill during the Christmas season, and was in a coma in the hospital. On December 30th, after coming home from visiting their daughter, Didion's husband had a massive heart attack and died. Didion would have to deal with this loss while continuing to visit her daughter, who will recover only to again be hospitalized after a fall where she hit her head and required brain surgery. Again the daughter will recover only to die a few months later. The death of her daughter is dealt with in her follow-up book Blue Nights.
In writing about her own grief, Didion does the same thing that she has done so many times in her essays about the 60s and 70s - she places herself in the story. Firmly anchors herself there, and then steps back out so that she can report on the details as an almost objective observer. It works here so very perfectly - she reveals her vulnerability, her need to understand, her need to accept while acknowledging that she finds this an impossible task. There is no great wisdom to be grasped no matter how endlessly we seek to explain how we are supposed to go on after our world collapses, and life as we know it is forever altered. Grief is a surreal experience. It is not a linear progression - it takes each of us on our own journey, demanding an inventory of memory and of self.
"I have been a writer my entire life. As a writer, even as a child, long before what I wrote began to be published, I developed a sense that meaning itself was resident in the rhythms of words and sentences and paragraphs, a technique for withholding whatever it was I thought or believed behind an increasingly impenetrable polish. The way I write is who I am, or have become, yet this is a case in which I wish I had instead of words and their rhythms a cutting room, equipped with an Avid, a digital editing system on which I could touch a key and collapse the sequence of time, show you simultaneously all the frames of memory that come to me now, let you pick the takes, the marginally different expressions, the variant readings of the same lines. This is a case in which I need more than words to find the meaning. This is a case in which I need whatever it is I think or believe to be penetrable, if only for myself."
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LibraryThing member mhgatti
Just days after Didion and her husband, both novelists, began to cope with their daughter's sudden coma (brought on by a mysterious illness), Didion's husband died of a heart attack. Didion documents the first year without her husband (the "magical thinking" being the illogical belief that he might
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come back) and the struggles with her daughter's illness and recovery. It sounds like a bummer, but Didion isn't writing a tear-jerker or a self-help book, she's pretty much writing a journal of honest thoughts and family stories and letting you see them. Often sad but never depressing, and the writing is outstanding. Show Less
LibraryThing member 2chances
Ouch. While Joan Didion's daughter was unconscious (maybe dying) in the ICU, she and her husband came home from the hospital to make dinner. He lit a fire in the fireplace, and she cooked dinner. And then he died. Just like that.
This is Joan Didion's memoir of traveling through the strange country
I haven't read anything else by Joan Didion - and probably will not. But I am glad I read this. It is as if someone told Joan Didion: "Now, whatever you do, tell the truth," and she was too tired and sad to do anything but that. I see the word "searing" applied to memoirs all the time - it's banal, a cliche. But in this case, well..."searing" is the word.
This is Joan Didion's memoir of traveling through the strange country
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of Grief, where all the rules are different, and magical thinking prevails. She tells of being unable to give away John's shoes - because what would he wear when he came back? She records the minutiae of the physiology of grief, the coldness, the digestive upsets, the irrational thinking. Grief - the real heartbreak of losing her husband - is not what she expected, not the experience of sadness that she experienced when, for example, her elderly parents died. "We have no way of knowing," she says, "...(and here lies the heart of the difference between grief as we imagine it and grief as it is)the unending absence that follows [the funeral:], the void, the very opposite of meaning, the relentless succession of moments during which we will confront the experience of meaninglessness itself." I haven't read anything else by Joan Didion - and probably will not. But I am glad I read this. It is as if someone told Joan Didion: "Now, whatever you do, tell the truth," and she was too tired and sad to do anything but that. I see the word "searing" applied to memoirs all the time - it's banal, a cliche. But in this case, well..."searing" is the word.
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LibraryThing member Freeoperant
I read this book shortly after my wife died unexpectedly. This is the only thing that I have ever read that accurately expressed how I felt.
LibraryThing member ilovebooksdlk
This book has earned a place on my top five list.
In her memoir, Joan Didion captures the year that followed her husband's sudden, unexpected death. She depicts the raw experience of grief so authentically, that the book may be appreciated in unique ways by those who have lost someone they deeply
Grief makes us temporarily insane, I think - and Didion, a brilliant thinker, helps normalize that experience. Even the smartest, most accomplished among us can't escape where our minds go when we've lost someone we've loved. Grief isn't simply about sadness, or about wearing black clothing. It's far deeper and darker than that. In some ways, it's a moment of true insanity.
It's a beautiful book, and in her portrayal of grief, I think she's hit perfection. What is difficult about this book, however, is that there's no happy ending. You want to hope that at the end things start to get better, easier - but they don't. Loss doesn't go away. In that sense, it's a dark book. But I found comfort in thinking, "wow, she understands!"
In her memoir, Joan Didion captures the year that followed her husband's sudden, unexpected death. She depicts the raw experience of grief so authentically, that the book may be appreciated in unique ways by those who have lost someone they deeply
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loved. During this same year, her daughter Quintana lies in a coma in an intensive care unit at a New York City hospital. The book takes us through the "crazy thinking" that invades Didion's psyche that year. For example, she worries that if she gives away her husband's shoes he won't have any to wear when he comes back. Some days, she's quite certain he'll be coming back. I understood completely what she meant.Grief makes us temporarily insane, I think - and Didion, a brilliant thinker, helps normalize that experience. Even the smartest, most accomplished among us can't escape where our minds go when we've lost someone we've loved. Grief isn't simply about sadness, or about wearing black clothing. It's far deeper and darker than that. In some ways, it's a moment of true insanity.
It's a beautiful book, and in her portrayal of grief, I think she's hit perfection. What is difficult about this book, however, is that there's no happy ending. You want to hope that at the end things start to get better, easier - but they don't. Loss doesn't go away. In that sense, it's a dark book. But I found comfort in thinking, "wow, she understands!"
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LibraryThing member annbury
As a recent widow, I found a great deal I could relate to in this book -- more than in many other more positive discussions of grief. There is nothing positive about grief or loss, something that Didion makes crystal clear. Also, grief and loss cloud our thinking, they are painful, and they erode
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our sense of self. Didion's style is cool and analytic. What she has to say does not offer much comfort of the "it will get better" variety, but it does give this reader at least a sense of not being alone in a flood of emotion. Why not five stars? The book is so cool, so understated, that it leaves a sense of something missing. Show Less
LibraryThing member SouthernGirlReads
Late one night in November 2005, as I flipped channels on the tv, I came across a woman being interviewed on Nightline by Meredith Viera, who was sitting in for Ted Koppel. The woman's name was Joan Didion and she had written a book. I don't know if I had even heard of her before, but it became
The story itself is just awful. In New York on Christmas Day 2003, Quintana was admitted to the hospital with severe flu-like symptoms that soon escalated into pneumonia, then complete septic shock. She was in a coma and on life support. Five days later after visiting their still comatose daughter in the hospital, John Dunne suffered a fatal heart attack. Four weeks later Quintana woke up and asked her mother, 'Where's Dad?'. It would be the first of many times she would have to explain to her daughter that her dad was gone. Two months later, she was released from the hospital and would begin to resume her life. But as it turned out Quintana collapsed at LAX airport returning home to California. She was rushed to the hospital where she underwent brain surgery to relieve a massive hematoma. She was in and out of hospitals and rehabs for months on end until she passed away in October 2005, the same time her mothers book was being released.
Although my heart goes out to Joan Didion for the heartache she went through during that time, I have mixed feelings about the book. I really wanted to like this book and I wanted to come away with some knowledge of understanding grief that I hadn't had before. That is not at all what I got. Her grief is obvious, but she never really lets you in to the core of her human emotions. She gives great detail of the the movements she made going to and from hospitals and talking to this doctor and that specialist, but it all came across very cold and removed to me.
One thing that bothered me about this book is that she makes it quite clear early on (if you are unaware of who they are) that she and John are literary people who take literature and their part in it very seriously. Everything has to be in connection with a passage they read or a book they wrote. But if you haven't spent 15 years in college and you don't have a Masters degree in literature, you have no knowledge of these references and they can't possibly have the same meaning as they do to the Dunne's, who live and breathe literature. The continuous references became tiresome to me. And these references would take her off onto stories of places she and John worked or lived, different countries they visited or lived for periods of time. Sometimes I forgot what she began talking about in the first place. There is an enormous amount of repetition as well. Maybe that was her frame of mind at the time of writing the book, but it became annoying. I felt she was rambling and her mind was wandering. Maybe it was.
Another thing was the incessant name-dropping. It was as if every single famous person they knew was mentioned in this book. But there was never a meaningful story to go along with it. Just a mention of the name for whatever purpose. Its obvious Mrs. Dunne wanted to make sure the world knows that she and her husband moved in famous circles. THAT was the most annoying thing of all. When she mentioned that after John died and she couldn't eat, that "a friend" brought her Congee from a Chinatown restaurant everyday because that's all she could eat, she never once mentioned that persons name. Unless you were famous, you didn't get a mention. In all the months she was in the hospital with her daughter, there was never any mention of a conversation with Gerry, Quintana's husband. Only his name was brought up a handful of times. That seemed odd to me.
I didn't expect this to be a self-help guide to grief counseling, but I did expect some insight into how she dealt with the pain and the loss. I was very disappointed. Once I finished the book, I felt no closer to understanding her experience than I did after watching her during her interview on Nightline.
I started reading this book in mid 2006. It took me a year and a half to finish it. The review is a little long, and I hope I haven't spoiled it for anyone else, but I wanted to be honest about my opinion. If anyone else has read the book and feels differently (and I'm sure there are), feel free to leave a comment so we can discuss it if you'd like.
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obvious that she was an accomplished writer/journalist. As I listened to her talk about her book I was drawn to her story. The book is called THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING and it is a tragic, sad account of the sudden loss of her husband, novelist, journalist John Dunne (younger brother of Dominick Dunne) and soon after, her adult daughter, Quintana Roo and how she coped with the events and her loss. After watching her, I wanted to run right out and get her book. I was intrigued. The story itself is just awful. In New York on Christmas Day 2003, Quintana was admitted to the hospital with severe flu-like symptoms that soon escalated into pneumonia, then complete septic shock. She was in a coma and on life support. Five days later after visiting their still comatose daughter in the hospital, John Dunne suffered a fatal heart attack. Four weeks later Quintana woke up and asked her mother, 'Where's Dad?'. It would be the first of many times she would have to explain to her daughter that her dad was gone. Two months later, she was released from the hospital and would begin to resume her life. But as it turned out Quintana collapsed at LAX airport returning home to California. She was rushed to the hospital where she underwent brain surgery to relieve a massive hematoma. She was in and out of hospitals and rehabs for months on end until she passed away in October 2005, the same time her mothers book was being released.
Although my heart goes out to Joan Didion for the heartache she went through during that time, I have mixed feelings about the book. I really wanted to like this book and I wanted to come away with some knowledge of understanding grief that I hadn't had before. That is not at all what I got. Her grief is obvious, but she never really lets you in to the core of her human emotions. She gives great detail of the the movements she made going to and from hospitals and talking to this doctor and that specialist, but it all came across very cold and removed to me.
One thing that bothered me about this book is that she makes it quite clear early on (if you are unaware of who they are) that she and John are literary people who take literature and their part in it very seriously. Everything has to be in connection with a passage they read or a book they wrote. But if you haven't spent 15 years in college and you don't have a Masters degree in literature, you have no knowledge of these references and they can't possibly have the same meaning as they do to the Dunne's, who live and breathe literature. The continuous references became tiresome to me. And these references would take her off onto stories of places she and John worked or lived, different countries they visited or lived for periods of time. Sometimes I forgot what she began talking about in the first place. There is an enormous amount of repetition as well. Maybe that was her frame of mind at the time of writing the book, but it became annoying. I felt she was rambling and her mind was wandering. Maybe it was.
Another thing was the incessant name-dropping. It was as if every single famous person they knew was mentioned in this book. But there was never a meaningful story to go along with it. Just a mention of the name for whatever purpose. Its obvious Mrs. Dunne wanted to make sure the world knows that she and her husband moved in famous circles. THAT was the most annoying thing of all. When she mentioned that after John died and she couldn't eat, that "a friend" brought her Congee from a Chinatown restaurant everyday because that's all she could eat, she never once mentioned that persons name. Unless you were famous, you didn't get a mention. In all the months she was in the hospital with her daughter, there was never any mention of a conversation with Gerry, Quintana's husband. Only his name was brought up a handful of times. That seemed odd to me.
I didn't expect this to be a self-help guide to grief counseling, but I did expect some insight into how she dealt with the pain and the loss. I was very disappointed. Once I finished the book, I felt no closer to understanding her experience than I did after watching her during her interview on Nightline.
I started reading this book in mid 2006. It took me a year and a half to finish it. The review is a little long, and I hope I haven't spoiled it for anyone else, but I wanted to be honest about my opinion. If anyone else has read the book and feels differently (and I'm sure there are), feel free to leave a comment so we can discuss it if you'd like.
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LibraryThing member JaredOrlando
There is something about Joan Didion.
Let's get this straight. This is not new information. Didion has been around for decades, equipped with her sharp perspective on the world. Year of Magical Thinking is a heartbreaking account of life after death, and how to continually live through pain.
Let's get this straight. This is not new information. Didion has been around for decades, equipped with her sharp perspective on the world. Year of Magical Thinking is a heartbreaking account of life after death, and how to continually live through pain.
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Essential reading. Show Less
LibraryThing member LauraCLM
Harrowing, fascinating, name-dropping, odd view into a year of hell.
Great premise, but felt as if the aspects with the daughter were strangely held at arm's length. Understandable in the moment and surely true, but odd given the intimacy of the story.
I have been haunted, ever since, by the stack of
Great premise, but felt as if the aspects with the daughter were strangely held at arm's length. Understandable in the moment and surely true, but odd given the intimacy of the story.
I have been haunted, ever since, by the stack of
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books by Didion's bed that her husband had been reading, that stayed in place. For some reason that detail has lasted in my mind with great poignancy and foreboding. Show Less
LibraryThing member porch_reader
This book has been on my shelf for several years. I've picked it up once or twice, but I was intimidated by the subject matter. This is Joan Didion's memoir of the year following her husband's death. During that time, her daughter is incredibly ill as well. And in the most honest, insightful way,
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Didion shares her journey through the year. She tells us how her thinking is unclear (or in her words, "mudgy") and how little things bring memories flooding back. This is a painfully sad book at times, but it is also real and touching and beautifully written. It feels like a conversation with a good friend. Show Less
LibraryThing member jennyo
I didn't choose this book. I didn't really want to read it. But one of my reading groups chose it as their January book. So. I started it last night and felt compelled to finish it this morning.
Just in case you haven't seen the multiple reviews/awards nominations/etc., this book is about how Joan
I haven't experienced grief like this personally, but I've watched my grandmother deal with it over the past couple of years. And I think I understand it a little better now. Didion clearly explains how we've lost sight of how to handle death and the grieving and mourning that come with it. We expect everyone to just "deal with it" and move on with their lives, which is often the last thing the survivor is able to do.
I almost didn't read this because I thought it would be too depressing. After finishing it, I don't feel that it was depressing at all. I think for someone who's recently lost a spouse, this book might help, if only because it might make them feel they weren't alone in their pain, that someone else had been there.
The most surprising part of the book to me was that Emily Post's 1922 book of etiquette offers the best practical advice and description of the physical and emotional trauma one suffers on a spouse's death. I wonder how much better off we'd all be if we followed her practical and caring advice in all instances today.
One passage really struck home with me. I'm the eternal optimist, and it sounds like Didion was too. In chapter 14, she writes:
"I just can't see the upside in this," I heard myself say by way of explanation.
Later he said that if John had been sitting in the office he would have found this funny, as he himself had found it. "Of course, I knew what you meant to say, and John would have known too, you meant to say you couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel."
I agreed, but this was not in fact the case.
I had meant pretty much exactly what I said: I couldn't see the upside in this.
There's more, but really, you should read it yourself.
After my initial reluctance, I have to give this book a very high recommendation. I'd be interested in what others thought of it too.
Just in case you haven't seen the multiple reviews/awards nominations/etc., this book is about how Joan
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Didion did (or didn't) cope with the death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and the near-fatal illness of her daughter. It is an amazing book. Didion very simply describes her grief; it was not loud or public, but quietly devastating.I haven't experienced grief like this personally, but I've watched my grandmother deal with it over the past couple of years. And I think I understand it a little better now. Didion clearly explains how we've lost sight of how to handle death and the grieving and mourning that come with it. We expect everyone to just "deal with it" and move on with their lives, which is often the last thing the survivor is able to do.
I almost didn't read this because I thought it would be too depressing. After finishing it, I don't feel that it was depressing at all. I think for someone who's recently lost a spouse, this book might help, if only because it might make them feel they weren't alone in their pain, that someone else had been there.
The most surprising part of the book to me was that Emily Post's 1922 book of etiquette offers the best practical advice and description of the physical and emotional trauma one suffers on a spouse's death. I wonder how much better off we'd all be if we followed her practical and caring advice in all instances today.
One passage really struck home with me. I'm the eternal optimist, and it sounds like Didion was too. In chapter 14, she writes:
"I just can't see the upside in this," I heard myself say by way of explanation.
Later he said that if John had been sitting in the office he would have found this funny, as he himself had found it. "Of course, I knew what you meant to say, and John would have known too, you meant to say you couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel."
I agreed, but this was not in fact the case.
I had meant pretty much exactly what I said: I couldn't see the upside in this.
There's more, but really, you should read it yourself.
After my initial reluctance, I have to give this book a very high recommendation. I'd be interested in what others thought of it too.
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LibraryThing member ASKelmore
I've wanted to read this for a while. I haven't read any of Ms. Didion's other works, but this felt compelling. My sister had a copy at her house, which I was visiting this past week, so I borrowed it, reading it in a couple of days and finishing it on a particularly turbulent flight home. As I
It's an interesting book. It felt like a personal journal, and to a degree it is. It's a very intellectual journal, filled with quotes from literature I haven't read, allusions to culture that I can't relate to. It somehow manages to be a meditation on grief without being particularly sad, and I mean that in a positive way. The book isn't filled with pages where the reader must hold back tears (at least, a reader who hasn't experienced that kind of loss - widows, widowers and parents who have lost children might disagree), it is instead filled with a bit of that stream-of-consciousness that you might expect from someone trying to figure out exactly what has happened, and what they might have done to precipitate it.
I don't know if it’s a book for someone who has recently lost someone; it might be helpful to recognize things they themselves are experiencing. But I do think it’s something that we all can benefit from reading, filled with some information to be filed away to help start to understand when people we care about lose people they care about.
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read the pages of her working through attempts to make sense of the fact that her husband was dead, I recognized a bit of dark humor in the thought that if this plane doesn't make it home, the last thing I will have read will have been about death.It's an interesting book. It felt like a personal journal, and to a degree it is. It's a very intellectual journal, filled with quotes from literature I haven't read, allusions to culture that I can't relate to. It somehow manages to be a meditation on grief without being particularly sad, and I mean that in a positive way. The book isn't filled with pages where the reader must hold back tears (at least, a reader who hasn't experienced that kind of loss - widows, widowers and parents who have lost children might disagree), it is instead filled with a bit of that stream-of-consciousness that you might expect from someone trying to figure out exactly what has happened, and what they might have done to precipitate it.
I don't know if it’s a book for someone who has recently lost someone; it might be helpful to recognize things they themselves are experiencing. But I do think it’s something that we all can benefit from reading, filled with some information to be filed away to help start to understand when people we care about lose people they care about.
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LibraryThing member ms_rowse
I can't quite describe Didion's writing, other than when I read her work, I feel like someone has pulled the warmest, softest blanket over me and I am in a place of peace and rest. Even with this topic, which is heartbreaking.
I haven't lost anyone in death as important to me as John Dunne was to
I borrowed this from the library, but I'll be buying my own copy to read again and mark up. Amazing book.
I haven't lost anyone in death as important to me as John Dunne was to
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her, but I've felt similar grief with other losses in my life. Those descriptions of grief were hard to read at times. But throughout the book, I found my expectations of marriage shifting once again. If I ever should get married, I want to have a marriage that leaves me in a similar state of grief as Didion describes. Morbid? Perhaps. But as she writes about their lunches and dinners and movies and day-to-day operations as a couple, their dependency on each other is what I want. Hard to describe without referencing specific pages numbers.I borrowed this from the library, but I'll be buying my own copy to read again and mark up. Amazing book.
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LibraryThing member bettyjo
she wrote what I felt when I lost a spouse. I was only 25 and had been married for 5 years but it felt the same. One day your life changes and everybody else is still running errands and cooking dinner.
LibraryThing member kalobo
I read this two weeks after my father died, on many people's recommendation. Memoir of a woman grieving the death of her husband. She focuses on the process of grief and mourning, both physical and emotional. Some good points to ponder, though not uplifting. The title is deceiving. It merely
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documents the process, though does that well. Show Less
LibraryThing member dfullmer
This memoir was written by Joan Didion in the year after her husband of over 40 years abruptly died during dinner one evening. At the time, their only daughter was in the ICU in a coma. This story was engrossing and intense, but not maudlin. She takes the reader through her thought processes as she
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thinks and tries not to think about her husband, their marriage, and all of their memories together. She muses about life after John, and how difficult it will be. And yet, you do have hope at the end of the book that she will be able to go on with her life. She dwells in territory that none of us really want to think about until it happens to us - the death of someone we love dearly. Show Less
LibraryThing member ablueidol
one day you will lose some one you love, you may have already. Each of us will deal with it differently yet the same. The same because we can mark our progress and failures according to the Kübler-Ross grief cycle, the details of which are set out below.
Shock stage: Initial paralysis at hearing
Denial stage: Trying to avoid the inevitable
Anger stage: Frustrated outpouring of bottled-up
Bargaining stage: Seeking in vain for a way out
Depression stage: Final realization of the inevitable
Acceptance stage: Finally finding the way forward
Differently because each grief is the history of the life lost and left. Joan Didion is a famous American journalist, essayist, and novelist. Her book, The Year of Magical Thinking, was published October 4, 2005. The book-length essay chronicles the year following her husband's death, during which Didion's daughter, Quintana, was also gravely ill. The book is both a vivid personal account of losing a partner after 40 years of professional collaboration and marriage, and a broader attempt to describe the mechanism that governs grief and mourning.
It is clear that she moves in top social circles from her life style, which naturally goes by unremarked. The prose is clear and simple, and is best described as personal reportage, and hints rather then shouts the underlying pain of trying to make sense of how/why her husband died. It is intellectually brilliant yet emotionally cold. For a very different account of a writer dealing with grief read Blake Morrison, And when Did You Last See Your Father? Its revealing to me that she had loathed Dylan’s Thomas widow, Caitlin, highly emotional book, Leftover Life to Kill .
What I am about to say is not a spoiler as her daughter health is not used to build up to a point of hope in the account. But if true then it illustrates that Joan may still be stuck in grief or in writing this book moved on. Quintana seemed to be getting better during the period the book covers, she died of complications from acute pancreatitis on August 26, 2005, in New York City at age 39 after an extended period of illness. The New York Times reported that Didion would not change the book to reflect her daughter's death. "It's finished," she said.
Would I recommend it? I hesitate because the account reveals a brilliant, strong woman who is able to do what she does best and write about circumstances that would floor many of us. You finish the last page respecting but not loving her. Don’t read it if you want a cosy cry, but if you look at Death with pride and stand tall she is your woman.
“You may have enemies whom you hate, but not enemies whom you despise. You must be of your enemy: then the success of your enemy shall be your success too.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
Shock stage: Initial paralysis at hearing
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the bad newsDenial stage: Trying to avoid the inevitable
Anger stage: Frustrated outpouring of bottled-up
Bargaining stage: Seeking in vain for a way out
Depression stage: Final realization of the inevitable
Acceptance stage: Finally finding the way forward
Differently because each grief is the history of the life lost and left. Joan Didion is a famous American journalist, essayist, and novelist. Her book, The Year of Magical Thinking, was published October 4, 2005. The book-length essay chronicles the year following her husband's death, during which Didion's daughter, Quintana, was also gravely ill. The book is both a vivid personal account of losing a partner after 40 years of professional collaboration and marriage, and a broader attempt to describe the mechanism that governs grief and mourning.
It is clear that she moves in top social circles from her life style, which naturally goes by unremarked. The prose is clear and simple, and is best described as personal reportage, and hints rather then shouts the underlying pain of trying to make sense of how/why her husband died. It is intellectually brilliant yet emotionally cold. For a very different account of a writer dealing with grief read Blake Morrison, And when Did You Last See Your Father? Its revealing to me that she had loathed Dylan’s Thomas widow, Caitlin, highly emotional book, Leftover Life to Kill .
What I am about to say is not a spoiler as her daughter health is not used to build up to a point of hope in the account. But if true then it illustrates that Joan may still be stuck in grief or in writing this book moved on. Quintana seemed to be getting better during the period the book covers, she died of complications from acute pancreatitis on August 26, 2005, in New York City at age 39 after an extended period of illness. The New York Times reported that Didion would not change the book to reflect her daughter's death. "It's finished," she said.
Would I recommend it? I hesitate because the account reveals a brilliant, strong woman who is able to do what she does best and write about circumstances that would floor many of us. You finish the last page respecting but not loving her. Don’t read it if you want a cosy cry, but if you look at Death with pride and stand tall she is your woman.
“You may have enemies whom you hate, but not enemies whom you despise. You must be of your enemy: then the success of your enemy shall be your success too.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
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LibraryThing member SamSattler
"You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends." That is precisely what happened to author Joan Didion. While this would make a memorable opening line for a novel, it is actually a sentence from the very beginning of Didion's "The Year of Magical Thinking," her account of what she experienced
Didion's world was already in turmoil when she and her husband sat down to dinner that night. A short time earlier, they had been sitting at the bedside of their only daughter, Quintana, where she lay unconscious, suffering from a combination of septic shock and pneumonia. Fearful that their daughter might not survive what had begun as a relatively benign health problem, the couple returned that fateful evening for a quiet dinner alone. Then it happened. Suddenly, while in the midst of preparing their dinner, Didion sensed that something was terribly wrong with her husband. When Dunne did not respond to her efforts to revive him, she called for help - but it was too late. Her partner of 40 years had been snatched from her forever.
What follows is Joan Didion's recollection of how she reacted to her husband's death over the next twelve months - while still having to cope with the increasing likelihood that her daughter might also be taken from her. Before the experience of losing a spouse or child, it is impossible for one to predict how she will react to a loss of that magnitude. Didion, an experienced researcher, turned to the literature of grieving so that she would better know what she should expect to experience in the first year without her husband. She might have been a bit surprised that her grieving so closely followed the pattern she read about in most medical books, memoirs, self-help books, and novels. But what most surprised her was that, at times, she was literally crazy, though she prefers to call her crazy behavior` "magical thinking." She expected to be "crazy with grief" but not to exhibit the kind of bizarre behavior that characterized her behavior in 2004.
"The Year of Magical Thinking" is one woman's account of what it was like to be wrenched from her husband and writing partner of forty years. Dunne and Didion worked so closely together that she feared that she might never be able to write again, having lost the best editor and literary confidant she ever had. It might be one woman's story, but there is much here for those having experienced similar losses and for those who sense that such losses are approaching. It is a frank and honest description, if a bit rambling at times, and even a bit repetitive - two qualities that likely mimic Didion's 2004 state-of-mind.
The four-disc audio version of "The Year of Magical Thinking" is read by stage actress Barbara Caruso. Caruso so perfectly captures the tone of voice in which the book is written that I often had to remind myself that I was not being read to by Joan Didion, herself.
This is not an easy book to read, nor is it one that will please everyone who has experienced this level of grief. It should, however, be considered as a touchstone for those seeking insight into the grieving process.
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during the immediate year following the sudden loss, on December 30, 2003, of her husband, author John Gregory Dunne. Didion's world was already in turmoil when she and her husband sat down to dinner that night. A short time earlier, they had been sitting at the bedside of their only daughter, Quintana, where she lay unconscious, suffering from a combination of septic shock and pneumonia. Fearful that their daughter might not survive what had begun as a relatively benign health problem, the couple returned that fateful evening for a quiet dinner alone. Then it happened. Suddenly, while in the midst of preparing their dinner, Didion sensed that something was terribly wrong with her husband. When Dunne did not respond to her efforts to revive him, she called for help - but it was too late. Her partner of 40 years had been snatched from her forever.
What follows is Joan Didion's recollection of how she reacted to her husband's death over the next twelve months - while still having to cope with the increasing likelihood that her daughter might also be taken from her. Before the experience of losing a spouse or child, it is impossible for one to predict how she will react to a loss of that magnitude. Didion, an experienced researcher, turned to the literature of grieving so that she would better know what she should expect to experience in the first year without her husband. She might have been a bit surprised that her grieving so closely followed the pattern she read about in most medical books, memoirs, self-help books, and novels. But what most surprised her was that, at times, she was literally crazy, though she prefers to call her crazy behavior` "magical thinking." She expected to be "crazy with grief" but not to exhibit the kind of bizarre behavior that characterized her behavior in 2004.
"The Year of Magical Thinking" is one woman's account of what it was like to be wrenched from her husband and writing partner of forty years. Dunne and Didion worked so closely together that she feared that she might never be able to write again, having lost the best editor and literary confidant she ever had. It might be one woman's story, but there is much here for those having experienced similar losses and for those who sense that such losses are approaching. It is a frank and honest description, if a bit rambling at times, and even a bit repetitive - two qualities that likely mimic Didion's 2004 state-of-mind.
The four-disc audio version of "The Year of Magical Thinking" is read by stage actress Barbara Caruso. Caruso so perfectly captures the tone of voice in which the book is written that I often had to remind myself that I was not being read to by Joan Didion, herself.
This is not an easy book to read, nor is it one that will please everyone who has experienced this level of grief. It should, however, be considered as a touchstone for those seeking insight into the grieving process.
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LibraryThing member KinnicChick
I found this memoir to be gripping and moving. It is Ms. Didion's recollections of her year of grief and mourning beginning with the death of her husband at the dinner table upon returning from the hospital where they'd been visiting their daughter.
I believe such a book in this style is/was unique
I was completely drawn in to the openness of Ms. Didion's writing and found that I could identify with her sense of loss and grief because of the fear that I experienced during my husband's cancer battle nine years ago and the changes that occurred as a result of that.
I will hang on to this book as I believe it will be good for another read in the future.
I believe such a book in this style is/was unique
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for its time. There is much circuitous discussion of the night of his death. And many memories. Of course. And questions about her actions: Could she have done anything differently to save him? Should she have seen it coming? When he said this thing twenty years ago, why didn't she do that thing to change their life for the better? It is a heart-wrenching account of the loss of a life partner and what the mind goes through during the weeks and months after that loss. I was completely drawn in to the openness of Ms. Didion's writing and found that I could identify with her sense of loss and grief because of the fear that I experienced during my husband's cancer battle nine years ago and the changes that occurred as a result of that.
I will hang on to this book as I believe it will be good for another read in the future.
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LibraryThing member abirdman
In the midde of her daughter's dire medical crisis her husband dies of an apparently unrelated heart attack. This is the record of the unreal year Joan Didion lived through. Graceful, strong, affecting, brutally honest. A surprisingly satisfying book.
LibraryThing member deadgirl
This is one of the best book I've read so far.
Joan Didion wrote an amazing and unforgettable account on the death of her husband and illness of her daughter which happened within the same year. Of all the books on death--those self-help ones or religious ones--this is the book which truly helped me
Losing my mother was hard enough, I can't imagine losing my husband. It was amazing how she coped with both events--devastating events. I would've broken down and not be able to stand up unless God wills it. And for her to be able to write this book is miraculous.
Truly magical thinking.
Joan Didion wrote an amazing and unforgettable account on the death of her husband and illness of her daughter which happened within the same year. Of all the books on death--those self-help ones or religious ones--this is the book which truly helped me
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to understand more about grief and find comfort in that other people go through the same thing too. It wasn't about understanding death (who knows about death, really?), it was embracing the grief, realizing that all the thoughts I had and feelings I went through wasn't craziness, that trying to hold on is normal. She described perfectly all the emotions I couldn't put into words. I was reading the book and in my head I kept saying, Yes, yes! That's exactly how I felt, that's exactly what I was thinking. Grief is not something to just "get over", as Didion wrote.Losing my mother was hard enough, I can't imagine losing my husband. It was amazing how she coped with both events--devastating events. I would've broken down and not be able to stand up unless God wills it. And for her to be able to write this book is miraculous.
Truly magical thinking.
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LibraryThing member walshga
Joan Didion's "magical thinking" year is one of tragedy. Her husband (author John Dunne) dies suddenly, and her adult daughter (Quintana Roo - Didion is from California) comes close to death. The year is magical, because Didion often finds herself suspending rational thought. For example, she
And so, Didion's book is cold comfort to all. Death is inevitable and frightening - yet can we ever come to terms with it? As Didion sharply observes, we survivors never see the death of others coming, and it always feels different than we imagined it would.
Didion masterfully expresses her inner thoughts. Her style is almost stream-of-consciousness. She blends her observations of immediate reality with glimpses of her personal world - contrasting external, real-time events with her inner knowledge of medical research, the history of literature, and past family memories. The resulting dialog is a compelling peek into a mind at grief.
In one passage, Didion contemplates her daughter Quintana's near fatal episode with septic shock (at Christmas time). Quintana receives a new, expensive drug produced by a big pharmaceutical company. Later, Didion researches the drug on the Web, where she learns about the company's attempts to break into "the sepsis market." How could her beloved Quintana - deathly ill and recently married - be a mere faceless marketing number? Yes, the rational, quantitative functioning of global capitalism seems blind to human emotion.
This reviewer identifies with Didion's drive to understand illness and death through research. Since she was a girl, Didion's plan to face the unknown goes as follows: "Read, learn, work it up, go to the literature. Information is control." Burying oneself in research and information gathering is a way to gain control over life's often mysterious events. And research also helps one avoid the feelings of grief and helplessness that result from human frailties.
While a book that covers death and sickness would ordinarily be one to avoid - Didion's book flows effortlessly. Her narrative bobs and weaves (often humorously) through her tragic year, with no regard to chronological order. But "The Year of Magical Thinking" is the product of a master writer - it's no surprise the book won a National Book Award. Didion has been a high-profile figure on the bi-coastal literary scene since the days of hippy-dippydom. And with "Magical Thinking," Didion gives us a mature statement on the falsity of fame - and the shortness of life.
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imagines moments when her husband might miraculously appear again among the living. Anyone who has experienced death knows similar thoughts. And so, Didion's book is cold comfort to all. Death is inevitable and frightening - yet can we ever come to terms with it? As Didion sharply observes, we survivors never see the death of others coming, and it always feels different than we imagined it would.
Didion masterfully expresses her inner thoughts. Her style is almost stream-of-consciousness. She blends her observations of immediate reality with glimpses of her personal world - contrasting external, real-time events with her inner knowledge of medical research, the history of literature, and past family memories. The resulting dialog is a compelling peek into a mind at grief.
In one passage, Didion contemplates her daughter Quintana's near fatal episode with septic shock (at Christmas time). Quintana receives a new, expensive drug produced by a big pharmaceutical company. Later, Didion researches the drug on the Web, where she learns about the company's attempts to break into "the sepsis market." How could her beloved Quintana - deathly ill and recently married - be a mere faceless marketing number? Yes, the rational, quantitative functioning of global capitalism seems blind to human emotion.
This reviewer identifies with Didion's drive to understand illness and death through research. Since she was a girl, Didion's plan to face the unknown goes as follows: "Read, learn, work it up, go to the literature. Information is control." Burying oneself in research and information gathering is a way to gain control over life's often mysterious events. And research also helps one avoid the feelings of grief and helplessness that result from human frailties.
While a book that covers death and sickness would ordinarily be one to avoid - Didion's book flows effortlessly. Her narrative bobs and weaves (often humorously) through her tragic year, with no regard to chronological order. But "The Year of Magical Thinking" is the product of a master writer - it's no surprise the book won a National Book Award. Didion has been a high-profile figure on the bi-coastal literary scene since the days of hippy-dippydom. And with "Magical Thinking," Didion gives us a mature statement on the falsity of fame - and the shortness of life.
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LibraryThing member lclc2u
Raw honesty: The wave of grief takes on many forms. Grief rips into the physical, mental and the emotional well being of a person. Note: there is a long unrecognizable road thru grief before we switch into mourning. This is the reality of a loss and the effort of making a sense of life and of self
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in an after-loss world. I applaud this author**** Show Less