Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Didion, Joan. Slouching Towards Bethlehem, 30: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1968.

Joan Didion reads like a breath of fresh air. Each essay in Slouching Towards Bethlehem pulls the reader in early and keeps eyes fixed on the page until she is done weaving her magical yarn. This is always my impression of Didion’s work. She is spellbinding.

As a reader I am moved by her stories of home and places away from home. I am intrigued by her ideas of morality and self-respect. I tend to agree with her. As a writer I long for her clarity, her depth, her ability to convey meaning in brief sentences and passages. Her descriptions of John Wayne and Howard Hughes ring true—and right.

I can see the Duke in Durango and imagine he would have behaved just as she claims. I believe Didion when she quotes Wayne as saying, “I only hit one guy in my life,” and that it was an accident. I believe her in spite of having seen too many John Wayne movies and as a child having bought into his manly-man image. John Wayne would hit anyone, I knew that.

I believe her in spite of the fact that she tells me in “On Keeping a Notebook” that she feels no particular compulsion to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I envision Joan Didion essays as snapshots—images perhaps taken out of their immediate context and yet still heavy with meaning.

Her tone and attitude drip from the page and into one’s consciousness. It is difficult to read about Didion’s characters in Slouching Towards Bethlehem without walking away with them ingrained in your own memory—they become fodder for one’s own notebooks: Max, or Manny, Joan, The Duke, Hughes even Didion herself as we all slouch forward breathing easier for her insight.