To read this book is to be a fly on the wall in Joan Didion’s life. You will not only learn about her family history, but will also dive into the history of California. This book provides a better understanding of how the cities and towns came to be - the same cities and towns that I constantly drive through along the 99 or the 5 - to understand where I too am from.

Unsurprisingly, my favorite parts of this book were the memoir and personal history pieces. Other parts were not particularly interesting to me but I could still appreciate the contradictions presented. That said, this is a limited exposé in many ways, told from the viewpoint of the wealthy, white and privileged. There is hardly any mention of injustices done to people of color… something that I think should be in any book recounting california history. Probably my least favorite Joan Didion book I’ve read thus far, however the last chapters made getting through this book worth it.

Honestly outright hated the structure of this - it's heavier on the "where from" than the "I was," but Didion still centers herself and her life in Californian history in a way that, while maybe fair, I found deeply irritating. Opens with her discussing that she struggled to find written insight into California at this phase in her life because so many books just quoted her, 100-odd pages later she's pulling up big block quotes from Run, River. I think the journalistic insights and eye for connection making are great, although a bit overly belabored, and this certainly tells me I've gotta read more Didion (and soon!), but I can't imagine there would be a more frustrating "first Didion book" for me to read.

Posiblemente sea el mejor libro de crónicas periodísticas que he leído en muchos años.
Didion escribe con brío en frases cortas que dictan sentencia.
Si visión y prosa clarifican parte de los años sesenta, parte de los setenta y parte de los años ochenta en Estados Unidos.
Es un libro imprescindible para todo aquel que admire el periodismo de calidad.

it's been too long since i've reread the bible of california written by (arguably) the greatest californian

(i respect her life in new york but she will always be my california prophet <3)

3.6
This book unexpectedly plunged me into a reading slump. The fragmented structure and slow pacing made it challenging to stay engaged, with the shifts between personal memoir and historical analysis often feeling disjointed. Didion’s reflections revisited familiar themes without much forward momentum, creating a sense of stagnation. However, Didion’s prose is undeniably sharp, and her ability to capture the complexities of California’s history with such precision is impressive. Yet I found myself indifferent to the content. I still couldn’t care less overall; much of the first part in particular wasn’t interesting or worth reading about personally 'for me.'
As a newcomer to her work, I couldn’t help but feel this wasn’t the best introduction, leaving me with a lingering sense that I missed the full impact of her writing. (I'm still interested in her and planning to read a more popular work!)

Another disappointing read from an author I keep thinking I should really be attracted to. The book starts strong in Didion's attempt to detail her family's settlement in California and how it all comes back to her and her place in the picture... but then it just wasn't about that anymore. Instead Didion went on this long discussion about a lot of things I found it hard to care about (a la Moby Dick), so her message, whatever it might have been, was mostly lost on me. While I hoped for something along the lines of Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony I found something not at all like that. Considering the first chapter or two really drew me in and gave me great hope and a new desire to resurrect my Senior Project from college, I ended the book feeling rather surly about the entire thing.

Someone convince me to read something else by Didion.

3.5 Stars!

PAPERBACK EDITION!

This is another one of those books which tries to examine the dark underbelly of California, except it doesn’t really do that with any depth or conviction. From generations of corrupt speculators, politicians and corporate scum to those weird gatherings they have by the lake where ex and future presidents seem to show up along with other captains of industry to the sinister Spur posse at Lakewood High in the early 90s.

Didion remains conspicuously muted on the rampant racism and police corruption which has plagued so much of the state for generations, which has played out in various violent episodes over the decades – so no analysis of the Watts or Rodney King riots?... confirming that this is really nothing more than a narrow, shallow, white upper middle-class rich girls view of California – which seems closer to the crap that comes out of the TV and film studios there, than the actual lived experience of most people living there.

I did enjoy this though the opening chapters were a bit dull and not very interesting at all, I’d love to have seen a wider and more in depth look at some of the aforementioned areas, but still this was enjoyable enough and I learned some new and interesting things, but those longing for something meatier and more in depth may wish to turn to Mike Davis’s “City of Quartz” or the excellent documentary – “O.J: Made In America” which really digs deeper and explores a lot darker terrain.

Any book of essays by Joan Didion is superb, and this is no exception. I recently moved to San Francisco from Philadelphia, so Didion’s ironical POV on the self-made, artificial identity of the Western “do it all myself” character resonated. Plus, her acute analysis of “all American” towns left behind as the (government subsidized) defense industry collapsed is, eerily, prescient— high schoolers raping girls, for one.

Tenía este libro dando vueltas por casa desde hacía meses, sin que hubiera encontrado el momento de leerlo. Las noticias sobre los incendios en Los Ángeles que coparon la actualidad hace unas semanas fueron ese empujón que necesité para decidirme a abrir De donde soy, buscando en la visión preclara de Jon Didion alguna explicación a la enorme contradicción de California.

Y ya lo creo que las encontré: a pesar de que gran parte de la vida y la obra de Didion está íntimamente ligada a este Estado, los años concedieron a la autora la perspectiva suficiente para desmitificar la idea de California. Didion desentraña en De donde soy esta distancia entre el mito (la tierra de la prosperidad, la naturaleza virgen, los californianos libres y hechos a sí mismos) y los hechos: una batalla continua por transformar el paisaje, una economía marcada por la desigualdad, una riqueza construida en gran medida en dependencia de subsidios federales y vendida poco a poco al mejor postor.

Como otras obras de Didion, este libro recupera artículos escritos por ella anteriormente para diferentes medios. Este reciclaje es a veces evidente, y De donde soy es en conjunto una obra un tanto tenuemente cohesionada. Didion también tiene la tendencia, en sus ensayos, a abusar de las preguntas retóricas y las repeticiones para incidir en las ideas centrales del texto. Sin embargo (y como siempre), encuentro que la agudeza periodística de la autora no tiene comparación, y que su forma de combinar información al detalle con reflexiones literarias hace que leerla sea todo un placer.

✨ ¡Lee la reseña completa! ➡️ https://nextlibris.es/de-donde-soy-jo...

3.5...3.75?? I'm torn! I had a hard time getting into the beginning about the original California settlers, though I know it was necessary for her to provide that context to drive the whole message of the book. I thought the description of Lakewood in particular was fascinating and really brought out the journalistic voice that is so iconically Didion.

"yet california has remained in some way impenetrable to me, a wearying enigma, as it has to many of us who are from there. we worry it, correct and revise it, try and fail to define our relationship to it and its relationship to the rest of the country."

the places we call home are complicated. there's a special beauty to the place one calls home, but there's also, more often than not, an ugly history that accompanies it. this novel is a memoir mixed with a personal family history, history of the lands around didion, and a palpable yearn for the feeling of home. this book touches on many different subjects and takes you along the ride. there's a more introspective side, a collective, local side, and a detailing of problematic history (of trains, Bohemian Grove, the mass prison industrial complex, riots of 92, land ownership, etc.).

"'in this corner of a great nation, here, on the edge of the continent, here, in this valley of the West, far from the great centers, isolated, remote, lost.'"

it's got a little bit of everything. joan's writing cements her place as a pivotal writer for good reason.

beauty in nature. searching for a deeper meaning. defeating history of the place you call home. watching the lands change and develop (mostly for the worst). feeling the pull towards home- even if it's as unrecognizable to you as you are to it.