Joan Didion

First of all, who is Joan Didion? Is this Candice Bushnell's depressed alter-ego? There isn't much in Didion's style that strikes me as particularly skillful or unique, nothing that makes me think, "I haven't read anything quite like this before." In fact, thats the problem. Didion's writing is so immensely overshadowed by other writers of greater talent that her writing fades into mere suggestions of other writers, for example, "the wastes of Queens..." as an obvious reference to the Ashlands in "The Great Gatsby", or Xanadu tothe Coleridge poem. Its not the direct allusions that bother me, its that they lead to nowhere of any value. My only response is that I'd rather be reading the real Fitzgerald or Coleridge, but instead I am continuously reminded that I am not in fact reading them but Didion.

Again, the problem is that Didion's writing fails to stand on its own and apart from other writing. It is fitting that the Didion piece comes right after the Plath piece, so great is Didion's debt to Plath or other "confessional" writers (of talent). The story seems to be generalized away, sanded down into stock TV/trash-lit cliche. One could imagine Didion's narrator in a happier setting, only her name would have to be Carrie Bradshaw. The typical "move to New York, coming of age" convention is very much present here, as is the almost pedantic conversational tone of the narrator. We may feel as though we are being "talked at" rather than "spoken to" (despite the subdued/gentle tone). We know nothing of any real importance about our narrator (the marriage explanation is lacking, to say the least), everything seems superficial (externally) and overwrought (internally/psychologically). After reading this, I feel like I now know what "chick lit" is, and I am all the worse off for it.