47 pages • 1 hour read
Joan DidionA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Ideas of death, violence, and pain—danger, in general—fascinate Didion. She names the collection The White Album—after the Beatles’ album that inspired the Charles Manson cult to murder people. She has a relationship with Linda Kasabian, the woman who during the Manson murders drove the car to the home of Sharon Tate. The Ferguson murder trial also captivates Didion: “I followed this trial quite closely, clipping reports from the newspapers and later borrowing a transcript from one of the defense attorneys” (13). She relates the music of The Doors to violence and danger when she describes the band as “missionaries of apocalyptic sex” (18). She starts her story of James Pike with his mysterious death, and the lives of lifeguards and soldiers earn her esteem, as the occupations involve danger, pain, and potential death.
It’s as if death, violence, danger, and pain represent some kind of irrefutable reality. This symbolizes a type of truth: The world is a dangerous, deadly place, and those who don’t recognize it as such don’t have a firm grip on reality. In Hawaii, the privileged people at the hotel are unaware of the violent reality of Robert Kennedy. They’re not in reality—they’re “in paradise” (120). Didion tries to “refrain from dwelling at length on a newspaper story about a couple who apparently threw their infant and then themselves into the boiling crater of a live volcano on Maui” (12).
By Joan Didion
A Book of Common Prayer
A Book of Common Prayer
Joan Didion
Blue Nights
Blue Nights
Joan Didion
Play It As It Lays
Play It As It Lays
Joan Didion
Slouching Towards Bethlehem
Slouching Towards Bethlehem
Joan Didion
The Year of Magical Thinking
The Year of Magical Thinking
Joan Didion
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection