Specify Regarding Books The Year of Magical Thinking
| Title | : | The Year of Magical Thinking |
| Author | : | Joan Didion |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Vintage International (US / Canada) |
| Pages | : | Pages: 227 pages |
| Published | : | February 13th 2007 by Vintage (first published September 1st 2005) |
| Categories | : | Nonfiction. Autobiography. Memoir. Biography. Biography Memoir |
Joan Didion
Paperback | Pages: 227 pages Rating: 3.89 | 132194 Users | 9879 Reviews
Narration During Books The Year of Magical Thinking
'An act of consummate literary bravery, a writer known for her clarity allowing us to watch her mind as it becomes clouded with grief.'From one of America's iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion. Joan Didion 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 itself."
Particularize Books As The Year of Magical Thinking
| Original Title: | The Year of Magical Thinking |
| ISBN: | 1400078431 (ISBN13: 9781400078431) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Setting: | United States of America |
| Literary Awards: | National Book Award for Nonfiction (2005), Puddly Award for Nonfiction (2006) |
Rating Regarding Books The Year of Magical Thinking
Ratings: 3.89 From 132194 Users | 9879 ReviewsEvaluation Regarding Books The Year of Magical Thinking
Like Johnny Rotten said during their last (in the universe where they never would re-form again in the mid-90's) show, "Do you ever feel like you've been cheated?" I do Johnny, I do. I feel cheated by this book. I bought it because it cost me a dollar. I wasn't interested in it that much. I finally picked it up to read because I wanted to write a review about how pathetic and whiny it was. I thought I'd say something about how now that baby-boomers are starting to kick the bucket they want aI have a grubby Post-it note by the side of my bed on which I've written in pencil: loss is not always death.I don't remember anymore if these are my words, a line I wrote down from a book, or something that I took home from therapy, but the wisdom remains: loss is not always death.I have two friends right now who have been nearly decimated by recent divorces, and they will assure you, quickly, that a significant, life-altering loss does not need to involve death. In fact, both women will let
Ever incisive, as well as ever restrained, Didion examines with great care the events of her daily life during the year after her husbands death. Out of a vast array of medical literature, both contemporary and traditional, she composes what amounts to be a straightforward but powerful argument: American society wrongly compels its members to gloss over the shock of a loved ones death and deny or conceal the lingering pain of their loss. Didions polished prose and measured pacing at first glance
There was a lot to think about in Didion's memoir, especially about grief and identity. I just felt that the way grief was intellectualized made this grief seem less immediate and less personal. Despite a moving account in The Year of Magical Thinking, Slouching Towards Bethlehem remains Didion's seminal work and the one I'll go back to when I think about how good a writer Joan Didion is.
Amen to that.
'I hadnt been able to think of food for days, so I had sent Higgins out for an hors doeuvres platter from Café Provencal. I was nibbling brie and beluga caviar on the deck, watching the sun set over the New York skyline and wondering how things could get any worse when Higgins brought me the phone. It was Gary.My stomach lurched. Sequoia had collapsed at the bus terminal and been rushed to the emergency room, but there was no word as to what was wrong with her. I had to get to Los Angeles as
I am not the type of person that cries at funerals. I find crying at a funeral as constructive as trying to stop a raging river with a few paper towels and a bag of sand, nothing is achieved. Find me not callous, for I am sensitive to the recently departed and their family. It's just that...I don't know...I know there is nothing that can be done to bring back that person. Rereading the above really makes me sound like an ass so let me try it another way: death is something we all have to accept;
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