Ex-Village Voice editor David Blum wrote a piece in the Sun this week that I missed until I saw it on Gawker. Man, what's his problem? Basically, he goes on this whole rant about how Joan Didion is one of the few people in modern letters who's immune to criticism. He asks: "But do memoirists of personal pain deserve the freedom from negativity that our culture seems to willingly provide them?"I don't agree with his viewpoint that "memoirists of personal pain" receive some sort of immunity. (I shamefully recall quietly snickering with other writers at a memoir reading once; I forget the author's name). I think that if Didion has immunity, (which I'm not convinced she does 100 percent although she certainly has more than the average writer) it's because she has a solid reputation and has amassed a body of work that deserves respect. Had she written The Year of Magical Thinking as a first book, perhaps it would not have received the interest that it has. But as someone whose work I have read and enjoyed, I of course was curious to see Ms. Didion's views on death, loss and grief.
Blum also charges Didion with "coldness, her sense of detachment from events," which is a quality often attributed to Didion's writing. Even I was annoyed in "The White Album" when she seems to dismiss her psychiatric report not as a product of her own mental anguish but as a sign of the times, that period so tumultuous politically and socially -- how could anyone not be depressed in such an era? she seems to suggest.
It kind of sounds like bullshit to me and sometimes I wish that Didion's writing wasn't so detached from herself; but Blum's explanation of how Didion alienates her audience is definitely ridiculous.
He suggests that Didion is alienating her audience by making references to her "exalted social status," which is just inane and misses the entire point of the book. What does it matter if she and her husband attend a Knicks game with seats provided by the NBA commissioner? How would that be different if they went to a dive bar or a county fair or grocery shopping together? Death is a universal experience that people understand, regardless of where a story occurs. Apparently, Blum does not agree and suggests that if you have money, loss is easier to handle.
Blum's assertion that grief is "less of an ordeal for someone with the means to stay at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, or — for distraction — to get an assignment from the New York Review of Books to cover the 2004 political conventions" is one of the most insensitive things I've ever read.
I do agree with Blum that there's no catharsis in the book. As one commenter on the Sun Web site says, "Her big insight? Life changes in an instant. Anyone who has experienced loss in their life greater than the family dog knows that."
True, but for many of us who were fans of the book, we saw this book as a sort of beginning. I admit that I was disappointed that nothing more insightful came out of The Year of Magical Thinking. I waited for a big flash of insight, but the book, like life, doesn't work like that. But I suppose I assumed that Didion would follow up with something in time. For anyone who's lost someone incredibly close to them, it can take months to even process the death, months until you get around to really crying about it. For her book to be published so soon after losing her husband, I imagined that Didion hadn't had the time to actually process the event in full. I have faith in her that she'll gain new insights from her loss and perhaps write a follow-up; I also think that it will be interesting to see whether the Broadway play, starring Vanessa Redgrave, is more mature than the memoir.
Beyond Criticism
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