El año del pensamiento mágico, de Joan Didion, es definitivamente uno de los libros más desgarradores, duros y sinceros que he leído. Al escribir una novela como esta, Didion muestra una valentía incalificable; desde la pena desoladora de la muerte, nos revela su lado más íntimo y vulnerable. Un fiel retrato sobre el dolor de la pérdida, del luto y de la búsqueda de sentido. No hay mucho más que decir sin caer en repeticiones absurdas. Así que para cerrar digo que lo recomiendo mucho, y aclaro que no se debe esperar una muestra de literatura extraordinaria, puesto que aquí solo nos aguarda una madre y esposa inmersa en tristeza, recuerdos y dudas incontenibles, y eso, en mi opinión, es una de las representaciones más fieles a la verdad que se pueden plasmar en lenguaje.

«Somos imperfectos mortales, conscientes de nuestra mortalidad aun cuando tratemos de eludirla, vencidos ante nuestra propia complejidad, tan acorralados que cuando nos dolemos por lo que hemos perdido, también nos dolemos, para bien o para mal, por nosotros mismos. Por lo que ya no somos. Por la nada absoluta que un día seremos».

I had the pleasure of (briefly) talking about this book, which has always meant the world to me, on the BBC in commemoration of Didion's passing. It retains its raw power, and the ending is an all-timer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XuaQ...

Hated it, hated it, hated it- but kept reading with the hope that all my pain and suffering would somehow be worth it in the end. It wasn't. The same self-pitying, whiney, depressing, self-important sentiments are basically repeated over and over again only with different words. Joan Didion can obviously write well, but she should have left this cathartic piece in her closet. And I'm not averse to reading novels that deal with grief. This one was just way too self-indulgent and redundant for me. And Didion's pervasive name-dropping and repeated descriptions of her wealth and fame just made me hate the book even more.

This was the third time I've read this book—I went to look up a passage, then ended up re-reading the whole thing. It's that good.

3 Stars. I heard a lot of hype about this book prior to reading it and by the reviews I see that People either really liked it or disliked. I think I am in the middle. I find it very hard to rate someone's grief and story of their year since the loss of a loved one (her husband). Joan Didion's memoir opens with her daughter being ill with pneumonia and being in the hospital. After deciding to eat at home, she begins to make dinner and realizes that her husband is not longer talking to her. After calling an ambulance her husband is declared dead at the hospital. Didon goes into detail about her year following her husband's death. Her daughter continues to have health issues and several serious hospitalizations, brain surgery, etc. Didion goes back and forth telling us about her marriage, the ceremony, their vacations, events with friends, etc. I noticed that several reviews mention her wealth and social status. How much or how little money we have does not determine how deeply we feel or how much we grieve. Some also describe her as being cold in her descriptions. Perhaps if she went into detail about crying jags, screaming fits, etc. the book would be more dramatic...but perhaps that is too personal for Didion and everyone grieves in his/her own way. I am sure writing this book helped her grieving process. Did I feel connected with her? No, but I appreciate her telling her story. She is a gifted writer.

I am not the type of person that cries at funerals. I find crying at a funeral as constructive as trying to stop a raging river with a few paper towels and a bag of sand, nothing is achieved. Find me not callous, for I am sensitive to the recently departed and their family. It's just that...I don't know...I know there is nothing that can be done to bring back that person. Rereading the above really makes me sound like an ass so let me try it another way: death is something we all have to accept; my acceptance of death comes more easily than it does for others.

Take Didion for example. Here we have a very educated woman who foggily ambles through the year following her husband's (John Gregory Dunne) death. John died of a severe infarction. He had a long history of heart issues. He knew this was the way he was going to die. But even with all this evidence, his personal testimony, Didion finds the death of her husband shocking, as if she were blindsided. (I’ll grant that no one wants to be in mid-conversation with someone when they die.) Now stop cursing me, let me continue. John’s death in-and-of-itself does not make this story compelling. Quintana, John and Didion’s daughter, and her sickness is what makes this story compelling. You see, we are all going to die. Husbands will have to bury wives, and wives will have to bury husbands. That’s life. But none of us ever want to experience having to bury a child. And the way that Didion structures her story allows her to think she is grieving for her husband, when, in reality, she is telling their story to mask the fact that she is scared shitless about losing her daughter.

You see, Didion does a great job of recounting the great love her and John shared for almost forty years. But some of the details that she gives the reader really only show that we (the readers) will never know what it was like to live a life with John. We’ll never know what it feels like to get a free ticket on the Concorde; we’ll never know what it’s like to get free tickets from the NBA commissioner; basically, we’ll never know what it was like to live a life of affluence and prestige. But, even without ever knowing this aspect of her life, we will all more than likely at some point fear for our child, which is the bridge that connects us to Didion. During the chaotic (brilliant narration, stylistic technique) timelines and temporal displacements via vortexes, Didion is unable to mask the fear she has of losing her only child. Unfortunately, Didion also realizes that this year of magical thinking is less about her husband and more about her daughter and closes the door for us readers over and over again just as we are about to get a real true glimpse into Didion’s grief. You see, Didion was able to deal with her husband’s death; what she was unable to deal with was the possibility of losing her child.

But even with the absence of these concrete feelings, and the insertion of insights from countless psychiatrists and research papers about grief, the story works. Didion understands that she might be able to hide from the reader, allow for what information is passed-along to us, as long as she is able to stay one step in front of her feelings. Fortunately for us, grief and confusion and frustration and anger and misery know no boundaries. What is never said on the written page is said with infinite detail in the between spaces of events and conversations within the story. The year of which Didion chronicles is truly heart-wrenching; I’m pretty sure I would not be able to cope as well as she did. But it is also full of promise, redemptions, and hope.

This is a beautiful and tragic story, one that is sure to become a classic concerning death and the grieving process.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Nobody needs to be told, but it's true what everyone says about this book. It's stunningly beautiful and real. It's the best rendition of what it is to grieve I've ever read.

And nobody needs to be told, either, what a loss it is to not have Joan and her writing and her voice with us anymore.

But we all keep trying to say it anyway.

Bottom line: Pure excellence.

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pre-review

only joan.

review to come / 4.5 stars

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currently-reading updates

ready to self destruct on a weekday

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tbr review

“A single person is missing for you, and the whole world is empty.”

rip joan didion.

"الأشخاص الذين فقدوا عزيزًا تميزهم نظرة معينة تُرى على وجوههم خلال الفترة القصيرة التي تعقب الفجيعة، نظرة قد لا يدركها سوى أولئك الذين قد ارتدوا هذه النظرة ورأوها على وجوههم".

في سرد تأملي يشبه التيه في الذكريات القديمة، ومحاولة تجميع وترتيب الأحداث الماضية كقطع الفسيفساء للرؤية النهائية لألم الفقد ومحاولة التعافي من الحزن والألم وتلك الحاجة الملحة للشعور بالأسى على أنفسنا؛ تروي لنا الكاتبة الشهيرة"جون ديديون" عن فقدانها المفاجئ لزوجها الكاتب "جون جريجوري ديون" في نهاية ديسمبر 2003 بعد زواج دام ما يقرب من أربعين سنة، وذلك بالتزامن مع معاناة ابنتها بالتبني "كوينتانا" من مرض نادر وكيف قضت ديديون عام 2004 في التعافي من الحزن وألم الفقد.

"بسرعة تتغير الحياة. في لحظة تتبدّل. تراك جالسًا تتناول العشاء، وإذ بالحياة التي تعرفها تنتهي. أي شفقة على الذات تلك".

قامت بتدوين أفكارها وشعورها خلال ذلك العام العصيب، ورحلة التعافي مع غياب شريك العمر واستحضار كل ما كان بينهما من شجون وشئون، ومشاركة حياتية بين زوجين في رحلة الحياة المكونة من شبكة من الروابط السليمة، روابط قد تكون مؤلمة، لكنها حاضرة تؤنسنا بقسوتها، لأن من يفقد عزيز يبقى وحيدًا بكل معنى الكلمة.

"اتضح أن ألم الفقدان هو مكان لا يمكن لأحد أن يدرك كنهه إلا بعد أن يصل إليه. نتوقع، أو نعلم، أن شخصًا من أعزائنا أو أقاربنا قد يموت، لكننا لا نفكر في الأيام والأسابيع القليلة التي تعقب هذا الموت المتوقع".

ركزت في تلك المذكرات الحزينة على ما كان بينها وزوجها الفقيد من اهتمامات مشتركة وحوارات، وتذكرها لبعض الكلمات والأحداث قبيل وفاته وهل كان يتوقع وفاته حين قال كذا وكذا، أفي مثل هذا اليوم حدث هذا وحدث ذاك، كما افتقدت الكثير ما قد عايشته معه وما كان يمثله من شريك حياة وفي، كما نلاحظ طرحها للكثير من الأسئلة في تلك الفترة من دون أن تتلقى أي جواب عليها، وبعد وفاته كانت تحاول أن تعكس خط سير الزمن وأن تعيده للوراء وظلت تحاول.

"ما كان بإمكاني أن أحصي الأفكار التي تخطر ببالي خلال اليوم والتي كنت أشعر بحاجة دائمة إلى أن أشاركه إياها. هذه الحاجة لم تمت بموته. ما مات بالفعل هو إمكانية سماع رد منه".

كان عالم متفرد من وصف شعور الترمل ومعاناة مرض الابنة، تبدع في تفاصيله "ديديون" وتسليط الضوء على الحزن وتدميره لما حولنا من مسار هادئ نعيشه بدون حساب الفواجع ومباغتتها في لحظة مفاجئة. يعيب السرد التفاصيل الطبية والإحصائيات الأكاديمية، ولكن يشفع لها أنها في حالة تشبه اللوثة العقلية وفقدان الإدراك اللحظي، مع محاولة فهم كل ما حدث لها بعد رحيل الرفيق ومعاناة ابنتها الصحية وتفنيد كل ذلك. وكما ودعها زوجها في ديسمبر 2003 ودعتنا "ديديون" في ديسمبر 2021 ولعلها حصلت أخيرًا على سلامها الأبدي. الكتاب حصل على الجائزة الوطنية للكتاب وتحول لمسرحية عام 2007 ومن أكثر الكتب مبيعًا.

"أعرف لماذا نحاول أن نُبقي أمواتنا أحياءً: نحاول أن نبقيهم على قيد الحياة ليستمر وجودهم في حياتنا، لنبقى نحن أحياء. أعرف أيضًا أننا إذا ما أردنا نحن أنفسنا أن نحيا يأتي وقت يتوجب فيه علينا أن نتخلى عن موتانا، أن نعتقهم من تعلقنا بهم، أن ندعهم وشأنهم، أن نسمح لهم بالموت".

“It occurs to me that we allow ourselves to imagine only such messages as we need to survive.”
― Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking



In four days it will be one year since my father-in-law died in an accidental shooting. He had recently turned 60 and recently celebrated his 40th wedding anniversary. In 18 days it will be four years since my older brother died suddenly in a Back Hawk crash in Germany. He was closing in on his 40th birthday. He was preparing to land.

I had two father-figures in my life. I also had two brothers. I lost one of each pair suddenly - dramatically. I've watched my wife struggle with the loss of her father. I've watched my mother-in-law struggle with the sad death and absence of her husband. I've watched my sister-in-law and her kids struggle with the death of their husband and father. I've watched my parents, my siblings. I have grieved much myself for these two good men.

I was reading when they died. I know this. When my father-in-law died I was reading Falconer. When my brother died I was reading This Is Water. After their deaths I couldn't read for weeks, and struggled with reading for months. I was in prison. I was drowning in a water I could neither see nor understand.

Reading Didion's sharp, sometimes funny, but always clear and precise take on her husband's death and her daughter's illness ... my experience is reflected. Not exactly. I'm no Joan Didion and my relationship with both my father-in-law and my brother are mine. However, Didion captures in the net of her prose the essence of grief, tragedy, loss, coping, remembering. Her memoir makes me wonder how it is even possible that someone could both feel a semblance of what I feel and capture all the sad glitters, glints and mudgyness of mourning at the same time. It takes a helluva writer.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion is an emotional and heartbreaking memoir winning the Pulitzer Prize in 2006. Joan Didion, a renowned essayist and reporter was married to esteemed writer and novelist John Gregory Dunne for forty years. Their beloved daughter, Quintana Roo Dunne, was critically ill with complications from the flu in December 2003. They had returned home from the hospital sitting down to dinner when John suffered a massive cardiac arrest and died. What follows is a year of "magical thinking" as Joan Didion processes what she is going through in the only way she knows how, by writing her thoughts. This writing, at times is so raw and emotional that I found myself saying I shouldn't be reading this, but read it I did. Although, there were times in this book that were almost unbearable in its honesty, I'm glad that I finally read this most important book. Joan Didion is an amazing writer and I will definitely read more of her works.

"Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it."

ADDENDUM: December 23, 2021 It is with great sadness that I learned of the death of one of our most talented writers from the 1970s documenting the societal upheaval. A few years ago I picked up a copy of The Year of Magical Thinking and I realized what a talented writer that I had missed over the years. And as I am loving reading all of her works, I am sorry that she is no longer with us.

ANCHE PIÙ CHE UN GIORNO DI PIÙ



Quando terminò la cerimonia ci recammo nella villetta di Pebble Beach. C’erano degli stuzzichini, dello champagne, una terrazza aperta sul Pacifico, una cosa molto semplice. Per la luna di miele passammo qualche notte in bungalow del ranch San Ysidro di Montecito e poi, annoiati, fuggimmo al Beverly Hills Hotel.

Ce la farà una persona che scrive queste cose, con questo tono, ce la farà a trasmettere il suo dolore, il senso della sua perdita, a risultare empatica…?


Joan Didion e il marito John Gregory Dunne, nato a Hartford; Connecticut, il 25 maggio 1932, morto a New York il 30 dicembre 2003.

Oh, se ce la farà!
Ce la fa, senza alcun dubbio, ce l’ha fatta: il suo libro è un colpo alla parte più sensibile del lettore, senza trascurare quella più cognitiva. Joan Didion è probabilmente snob, forse anche insopportabilmente snob: ma ha rara intelligenza e sensibilità e scrive da dio.

Quaranta anni insieme, 24 ore al giorno: perché moglie e marito sono scrittori e sceneggiatori e giornalisti – a volte lavorano insieme allo stesso film, per lo più ciascuno porta avanti la sua scrittura – ma lui è il primo lettore di lei, e viceversa – il primo lettore di una nuova opera, ma anche semplicemente di un articolo di giornale, di un pensiero, un’annotazione. Tra John e Joan lo scambio è continuo, quotidiano, insistito, profondo. Lei non ha conservato lettere di lui: semplicemente perché non si sono mai scritti - stavano sempre insieme, non ce n’era motivo – durante le rare separazioni, le salate bollette del telefono sostituivano la corrispondenza.
Per quaranta anni, 24 ore al giorno.


Didion e Dunne, moglie e marito, insieme scrissero la sceneggiatura di ‘Panico a Needle Park’, ‘È nata una stella’, ‘L’assoluzione’.

Poi, una sera, in un attimo, patatrac, lui se ne va: improvvisamente smette di parlare, non risponde a una domanda di lei, cade per terra ed è già morto.
[La figlia da qualche giorno è ricoverata in terapia intensiva, inizio di una lunga malattia che la vedrà in ospedale per mesi, morire un anno e mezzo dopo].

Joan inizia a leggere qualsiasi cosa che riesca a trovare sulla morte: medicina, psicanalisi, psichiatria, scienze naturali, storia delle culture, letteratura, mitologia…
Questo libro è ovviamente il tentativo di Didion di elaborare il suo lutto, di affrontare assenza e perdita del marito.
Ma, prima di tutto, è una dichiarazione d’amore, perché racconta una magnifica storia d’amore.



Didion racconta i fatti nei dettagli, attenta alla cronologia, ripercorrendola più e più volte; esamina il suo sentire come un anatomopatologo; cita opere sue e altrui; ma anche letteratura medica della quale diventa esperta; e referti, anamnesi, terapie; fa ricerche su Google, prende in mano poesie, ricorda canzoni, ripercorre la sua vita, rivive ricordi, ripassa la memoria…
La razionalità del suo raccontare, dell’uso dei dettagli, e della cronologia dei fatti, delle cose che bene o male compie, si conserva: questa razionalità si sovrappone all’irrazionalità dell’ostinato desiderio di chi non c’è più, di abolire la morte, cancellare la perdita, annullare l’assenza, fermare il tempo, riavvolgerlo, riviverlo, duplicarlo…


Joan Didion e Vanessa Redgrave che ha portato sul palcoscenico la versione teatrale di questo memoir.

Questo è il pensiero magico (in realtà, il pensiero ipnotico) che dura un anno più un giorno, dal 30 dicembre 2003 fino al 31 dicembre 2004, quando Joan si accorge che un anno è già passato, per specchiare l’oggi nello ieri insieme a John deve usare un’agenda di più: e questo piccolo sforzo in più è già il segno dell’inizio dell’accettazione del cambiamento.

Quando Didion inizia a scrivere questo libro, John è morto da nove mesi.
Quando lo pubblica, nell’agosto del 2005, sua figlia è morta da due mesi.
Joan non cambia il racconto, l’anno del pensiero magico è finito, alla figlia dedica un libro che scriverà anni dopo, “Blue Nights”.

È stata descritta come una personalità raffinata, sofisticata, tagliente: qui, Joan Didion sa mettersi a nudo con raro coraggio e sincerità, sa mostrare i tormenti della sua anima restando intelligente profonda elegante, dotata di una scrittura che spacca.



PS
Di quest’opera esiste un adattamento teatrale a opera della stessa Didion, portato in scena da Vanessa Redgrave.

PPSS
Ti amerò anche più che un giorno di più, dice Audrey Hepburn-Marian a Sean Connery-Robin Hood in una delle scene più struggenti della mia personale storia del cinema. E così dice il padre, che di cinema si era sempre nutrito nel senso più letterale, alla figlia stesa sul letto della rianimazione lasciandola per tornare a casa. Poche ore prima di morire.

A National Book Award-winner, this book is Didion’s personal memoir of the year following the death of her husband, writer John Dunne. Didion lays out her thought processes and emotions and struggle for normalcy after Dunne passes away suddenly one night at the dinner table from a heart problem. I didn’t find this book nearly as good as the hype would lead me to believe. The NY Times review called it an "indelible portrait of loss and grief." The NY Review of Books said "I can’t imagine dying without this book." For me, it earned none of the preceding words of praise. Books on grief have been done much better, including one referenced multiple times throughout Didion’s book (A Grief Observed by CS Lewis is far superior). I am absolutely convinced that the only reason Didion’s book received such notably positive press was because she and her husband were good friends with all these reviewers and the rest of the literary community, having bonded with these people at dinner parties on the Upper East Side in smoking jackets with martinis and cigars; Didion and Dunne were part of the NYC writing establishment Didion’s prose throughout is tight and reminiscent of early Vonnegut (his self-referencing style, not his humor), but there is an emotional distance in her writing. She quotes numerous studies on grief throughout the book, having spent the months following the tragedy not only grieving but studying grief. But the research studies don’t serve to illuminate her grief; they serve to distance us from her grief. Secondly, Didion lived a very upper-crust NY life, and the way she describes the events she will miss doing (dining at Morton’s with her husband, walking on the Jardin du Ranelagh in Paris with her husband, skipping the Monet exhibit to dine at Conti’s with her husband) further distances me from Didion’s grief. Personally, I don’t find rich people experiencing tragedy as tragic as I would find average people experiencing tragedy. I found this too emotionally detached to recommend it.