Wheel of Fortune.

Not the TV One...the REAL One.

 

 

 

I'm not sure if anyone reads words and sentences anymore. Words and sentences that are found in books. Books that you have to open and have the patience to read page by page and not find it chore. There are times in conversations I have had or a situation that is occurring, I'll be tempted to remark that it was similar to something I read in a book. Oh shit, now I did it. I caused their eyes to glaze over. Most, out of politeness, will sweetly fake some attention to what I'm about to say. I am now obliged to speak since their false attention demands I uphold my end of this social interaction. The enthusiasm of what I was going to remark on evaporates quick.

Never mention books or others will hold up garlic and a silver cross at you.

*****

I”ve finished Joan Didion's Blue Nights, a book on her reaction to her daughter, Quinton Roo's death and of aging in general. I became hooked on Didion from her 1968 book Slouching Towards Bethlehem. It was written as New Journalism. What's New Journalism? Read this which I lifted from Google.

“New Journalism was a style of 1960s and 1970s news writing and journalism which used literary techniques deemed unconventional at the time. The term was codified with its current meaning by Tom Wolfe in a 1973 collection of journalism articles he published as The New Journalism, which included works by himself, Truman Capote, Hunter S. Thompson, Norman Mailer, Joan Didion, Robert Christgau, Gay Talese and others.”

New Journalism allowed the author to become part of the story. Beforehand it was a sin for a any reporter to shuck off their objective stance that may color an article. New Journalism contended that how can you write about something thoroughly without being immersed in the action itself?

I loved this genre. I was introduced to it by reading Hunter Thompson's Hells Angels book.

Joan Didion made herself fairly rich on her books after wards. She went from being a daughter from the farm life of San Fernando valley to living on both coasts, with homes on the right blocks of LA and NYC. Joan was an ascendent among the liberal intelligentsia by writing for Vogue, The New Yorker and Hollywood screenplays. She was at the right place, at the right time with the right goods.

She married and adopted a girl and named her Quinton Roo as her attempts at becoming pregnant were fruitless. The process of adoption then was as difficult as picking out a puppy from a pet store. Do that and then go to court to declare you are the new owner of this child. Done and done.

Things went along swimmingly for years until her husband John Dunne slumped dead on the kitchen table from a heart attack and a few weeks later, her daughter ended up in a NYC hospital with pancreatis which never healed and finally took her away. The double whammy caused Joan's nearly perfect world to fall apart.

Joan's quite honest about herself in the book. She speaks of the changes that heaps of money brings to your outlook on life. Living “well” does create a new view on things. Such as always thinking the future will be positive; if not, then at least easily fixable. Anything that bad can't really happen, can it? That's not a view shared by most people who have to scrape by and have their feet near the fire. Nor by people who from very early on, learned how thin the ice can be. Feeling very sure about next month is sort of a luxury if you're rich. Also living life with the luck of safely skating that ice falsely teaches you that it won't ever break.

She tells of a incident that didn't pan out but caused her to wake up some. She and her husband were in the position to go to Saigon, during the Vietnam War, to root around, perhaps find a story to write about. Joan busied herself on Fifth Avenue by finding the right clothes for Quinton Roo to wear in that jungle climate. Fifth Avenue is the fashion capital of the world and even kid's clothes cost an arm and a leg there.

They never took the assignment as something else cropped up, but they would have.

She later admits her head wasn't in the right place. She comes to find out who the hell would take an infant to the worst place on Earth, crawling with Viet Cong insurgents and a populated by those who price a human life less than you would price a used Moped. Saigon then, was a shithole.

I admit, as I was reading the book, I was a bit pissed off at her talent and phenomenal luck she had at writing and the success she gained. That comes from her descriptions of life among the New York and LA crowd she mixed with. You can be happy about a friend winning Megabucks but you can't help but also feel a slight tinge of jealousy at the new life they're about to embark on too...and you won't be living it with them 24/7.

What happened to Joan was that after living in that rarefied atmosphere that causes you to view the world as predictable and safe, was brought down.

Joan responds to this criticism without being asked. She knows damn well that she and Quinton Roo were “privileged.” But she retorts, “So what if I was, sickness, mental illness, raising a child who then dies causes the same pain in me as it would in others.”

'Fuck off.” She says to that indictment. She might have said that to me as well had I intimated my thoughts about her station in life.

I understand it. The two people in her life that meant most to her were taken far too suddenly and having to deal with two gaping holes in your life isn't easy. Who, rich or poor, smart or dumb as shit, could easily navigate a minefield once you realized you're in one and two sneaky mines have detonated? What do you do then?

You stand there shocked and numbed, that's what you do. It's human. Then you gather your resources together to find a way out, to cope and to go on with life without those who once traveled with you.

“Suck it up” some would say. Yeah, well that's a means of surviving it. But I know those with that attitude cannot but help, deep inside, feel that loss somewhat no matter how well they managed to scrunch it down. Denying your humanity...is denying your humanity. Simple as that.

*****

She ties getting older with the loss of Quinton Roo. You really cannot protect your children from all threats and you cannot stop time from advancing. If you compared Joan from when she was a cute 25 and her now, in her mid 70's, you can see how her looks have completely fallen apart. She knows this and isn't living in delusion.

The title of the book comes from the weird blue glow we get after sunset, in early fall, just before the black of night. She says that's where she is in life now, in that blue glow. She knows this and I think she wrote this book as a means as therapy, as a way to get it all “Out of her.”

I have been told that I am just, just now starting to approach that time in life where aging speeds up and I am fully aware of it. I write about it here and have complained numerous times to others in real life about the fact I cannot be young again. Like Joan, I felt as if I wouldn't get old nor lose my youth. Like her, I and probably you too, live life enjoying and hating it's various moments in the NOW. Then one day, all of a sudden, we come to find out we've advanced quite far after living and focusing on so many “Nows.” You raise your head and look around, “Holy Shit! How did I get here?”

It comes from focusing on the moment, you don't look forward too far or back too far. You short term attention span cannot appreciate the horizon as it's job is to zero in on the details of here. You've been having so much fun you forget the speed your traveling at and you cover much ground at that speed.

To tell the truth, Joan isn't exceptional in that way of thinking, we all do this.