How can one possibly not love Joan Didion be it for her fiction or non-fiction. These twenty essays demonstrate her skills not only as a journalist but also as an incredible author. I must confess the essay on Howard Hughes scintillated me.

As for the title which I found very unusual. I was intrigued to see that W.B. Yeats was Didion's inspiration, as shown in the last two sentences of his poem:

"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

Why did she choose this poem? I kept on thinking about this and so I was intrigued to read that "This book is called Slouching Towards Bethlehem because for several years now certain lines from the Yeats poem which appears two pages back have reverberated in my inner ear as if they were surgically implanted there".

How wonderful to read that.

The rainbow does indeed shine on her!

I applaud her!

Having recently read "Play It As It Lays," I was interested to read some of Joan Didion's non-fiction. Published in 1968, this collection of non-fiction captures the feel of America during the Sixties, when the counter-culture was in full swing, but optimism was losing its way.

The essay that gives its titles to this collection deals with Haight-Ashbury and paints a picture of hippies, not wandering the streets with flowers in their hair, but wandering, drugged and lost. This is a portrait of young runaways, toddlers given acid, the lost and the tragic. Another favourite of mine was that of a crime, "Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream," of manipulation, greed and adultry.

I will admit that I often lacked understanding of this collection. I have never visited California and never felt inspired to do so. I was born in London and not until the Sixties, so my memories are that of the Seventies onwards. Still, this is a fascinating, if uncomfortable, portrait of a time and place.