海角大神

Joan Didion began her career more than six decades ago writing captions for Vogue. 鈥淚t is easy to make light of this kind of 鈥榳riting,鈥欌�� she notes before going on to do exactly the opposite 鈥� expounding the ways in which the Vogue job helped her develop the direct, controlled style for which she is justly renowned. 鈥淚 learned a kind of ease with words,鈥� she recalls, 鈥渁 way of regarding words not as mirrors of my own inadequacy but as tools, toys, weapons to be deployed strategically on a page.鈥�

Didion鈥檚 assessment of her time at the fashion magazine 鈥� which she contrasts with a dread-inducing writing seminar at the University of California, Berkeley, during which she 鈥渄espaired of ever knowing鈥� what her worldlier classmates did 鈥� appears in the 1978 essay 鈥淭elling Stories.鈥� It鈥檚 one of 12 pieces featured in the illuminating new collection 鈥淟et Me Tell You What I Mean.鈥� Fully half of the selections are from one year, 1968, illustrating some of Didion鈥檚 preoccupations as a young writer and her early command of the short form.

In addition to 鈥淭elling Stories,鈥� 鈥淲hy I Write鈥� is explicitly concerned with Didion鈥檚 craft. 鈥淚n many ways, writing is the act of saying I,鈥� she asserts, 鈥渙f imposing oneself upon other people, of saying listen to me, see it my way, change your mind. It鈥檚 an aggressive, even a hostile act.鈥� In this piece, first published in The New York Times Magazine in 1976, Didion notes that she is not an abstract thinker, that her attention has always been drawn to physical and tangible reality. Writing, for her, is a way of making sense of that reality. 鈥淚 write entirely to find out what I鈥檓 thinking, what I鈥檓 looking at, what I see and what it means,鈥� she explains.

Other entries in the collection concern the literary process, albeit in less overt ways. In 1998鈥檚 鈥淟ast Words,鈥� Didion focuses on the moral dimensions of writing. The essay considers the posthumous publication of Ernest Hemingway鈥檚 final novel 鈥淭rue at First Light鈥�; Didion condemns the decision made by Hemingway鈥檚 son, Patrick, to publish an edited and greatly condensed version of the book decades after the author鈥檚 1961 suicide. She argues that 鈥渢he publication of unfinished work is a denial of the idea that the role of the writer in his or her work is to make it.鈥� And she further suggests that for a writer as precise as Hemingway, there is a violence inherent in any edits made to his text, even those regarded as minor ones. 鈥淵ou care about the punctuation or you don鈥檛, and Hemingway did. You care about the 鈥榓nds鈥� and the 鈥榖uts鈥� or you don鈥檛, and Hemingway did,鈥� she writes.

True to her statement that writing means 鈥渟aying I,鈥� Didion herself figures prominently in these essays. 鈥淟ast Words,鈥� for instance, begins with her description of Hemingway鈥檚 profound influence upon her as a young reader. She writes to find out what she鈥檚 thinking, as she says, and even in her reportorial pieces, she doesn鈥檛 withhold that discovery from the reader. In 1968鈥檚 鈥淕etting Serenity,鈥� Didion covers a Gamblers Anonymous meeting in Gardena, California, featuring the 鈥渃onfessions鈥� of the various attendees. When three gambling addicts speak successively of finding serenity, Didion discloses her distaste for the proceedings in the most personal of terms. 鈥淚 got out fast then,鈥� she writes, 鈥渂efore anyone could say 鈥榮erenity鈥� again, for it is a word I associate with death, and for several days after that meeting I wanted only to be in places where the lights were bright and no one counted days.鈥�

Didion, now in her 80s, achieved the status of cultural icon long ago. She also holds a secure place in the literary canon, especially since the 2005 publication of 鈥淭he Year of Magical Thinking鈥� 鈥� a memoir of her mourning period following the death of her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne. That book was followed by 鈥淏lue Nights鈥� in 2011, an account of her adult daughter Quintana鈥檚 death. The essays in 鈥淟et Me Tell You,鈥� of course, predate those losses. They give us an earlier Didion, one not yet linked with suffering and sorrow.