I think I read, The Year of Magical Thinking, ages ago
and honestly I can’t really remember—it more like a fond notion than memory as
the details are completely obscured by time, so I am only left with a familiar
scent that reminds me that I liked the way she writes. Reading, “Goodbye to All
That”, brought back all the good
things I remembered but also allowed me to reflect on her writing with fresh
eyes and take note more critically.
What I loved before and still am
enamored with is her ability to construct long, descriptive sentences that are
essays unto themselves. Lines like the ones below are something I hope to
aspire for in my own writing. Everything is there, the details, the reflection,
the prose, the literary quality—it is complete.
To an Eastern
child, particularly a child who has always has an uncle on Wall Street and who
has spent several hundred Saturdays first at F.A.O. Schwarz and being fitted
for shoes at Best’s and then waiting under the Biltmore clock and dancing to
Lester Lanin, New York is just a city, albeit the city, a plausible place for
people to live, But to those of us who came from places where no one had heard
of Lester Lanin and Grand Central Station was a Saturday radio program, where
Wall Street and Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue were not places at all but
abstractions (“Money,” and “High Fashion,” and “The Hucksters”), New York was
no mere city. It was instead an infinitely romantic notion, the mysterious
nexus of all love and money and power, the shining and perishable dream itself.
I love how these lines are
somewhat lyrical and how they compact so much energy and information into a
small space. As a writer (and reader) I find myself drawn to long complicated
sentences like this, because I feel they evoke a memory response the same as if
it were my own and this engages me and holds my attention. I wonder if any of
you appreciate this sort of writing and if you do now or have attempted to
extend your sentences in a similar fashion? What are your thoughts on the
effect it has on the reader?
What I did find somewhat distracting
was Didion’s use of telling phrases that seem to be unnecessary or superfluous
to what she is trying to say. Here are a few examples:
I
remember once,…
You
see I was in a curious position in New York:…
Which
is precisely what we were
In
fact…
I
suppose…
If were editing my own paper I
would most likely cut those lines as fat,
hoping to stream line things a bit and give the essay more room to stand on its
own. I am sure it is more of a personal aesthetic, but I am wondering what
everyone else thinks about these kind of phrases in your own work? Do you find
them purposeful or do you cut them? What do these kinds of phrases do to the
piece rhetorically, does it situate the information differently? Is this just a
case of being verbose or is it a calculated stylistic choice?
The question was brought up last week concerning where inspiration comes from, or what compels us to write what we write. What a perfect segue into these works by Didon and Biss. I’ve read that for a long while after reading Didion’s essay, Biss dragged the idea of it around with her with a nearly obsessive nonchalance. Even when she wasn’t actively copying it word for word longhand, she would keep it tucked away in the back of her mind close enough to grab at a moment’s notice. Didion’s portrayal of an experience that was so close in its scaffolding to Biss’s own New York experience, yet so remarkably different in every other aspect finally compelled Biss to respond with her own “Goodbye to all That,” which leaves us with fodder for great comparison.
ReplyDeleteDidion’s portrayal of her New York time of life seems almost dream-like with her rolling sentences and her weaving of summary and stark detail. Really, there’s probably much more detail than summary, yet I am left feeling a separation nonetheless. Maybe it is because it feels written in another time, or maybe it is because this is her intent: to portray the unreal, dream-like quality of New York—or as she writes, “the mirage.”
Biss’s portrayal, on the other hand, feels more concrete, more “raw.” While there are lines and phrases that are explicit responses to Didion’s essay (i.e. “New York ended as soon as it began,” “Did I know it would cost something sooner or later?”), it is the implication of Bliss’s choice of subject matter that draws me in. Rather than writing of her unfulfilling parties, Biss writes of prejudice, of the socio-economic divide, and of the disconnect between ordinary residents trying to survive in the city. Or perhaps it is how the narrator comes across that influences my connection. Where Didion mentions how the smells of her French perfumes and jasmine soap continue to awaken her New York memories, for Biss it is the scent of the oil-soaped floor she sat upon while talking with bill collectors on the phone—something I can relate to. I understand that these are rhetorical choices that portray unique perspectives and experiences, yet it is interesting to consider the different responses they illicit in me as a reader.
Whenever I read Didion, I think about the movement of the mind that often drives the personal essay. I'm talking about that movement between what happened and what I understand now about what happened. The drama of Didion's essays is to witness her lurch back and forth, knowing that she will inevitably arrive at a sentence of arresting insight: "That was the year, my twenty-eighth, when I was discovering that not all of the promises would be kept, that some things are in fact irrevocable and that it had counted after all, every evasion and every procrastination, every word, all of it." Biss exploits this movement in her essay, too, though (and this is an unfair consequence of having both essays next to each other) her insights lack Didion's lyrical prose. Biss writes, for example, "It is hard for me to separate my experience of living in New York from the sensation of reaching the limits of my own independence." Still, like Cheryl, I was drawn to Biss' essay because I feel more like Eula Biss than Joan Didion; I say that with a little regret.
ReplyDeleteChristopher, I hope your comments on Didion's stylistic choices becomes a focus of our conversation in class tonight about these essays. I liked those "telling phrases" that you mention because they give the work a conversational, intimate quality that the best personal essayists cultivate with their readers.
What strikes me most about the readings for this week, though, was Biss' bravery in mimicking both the style and subject of a Didion essay, particularly one like "Goodbye" that is widely known and admired. I wouldn't have the guts to do that.
As Bruce notes, it was very brave of Biss to re-tell such an iconic essay. I was unsure if she would pull this off going into it. Didion’s essay I had read before and appreciated even more a second time around. Biss definitely had more concrete detail, a series of situations detailed through nouns, specific things and settings. Didion’s language seemed more essayistic, self-doubting, hinting more at the roles of memory and situation and its retelling. We see this in the opening:
ReplyDelete“It is easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends. I can remember now, with a clarity that makes the nerves in the back of my neck constrict, when New York began for me, but I cannot lay my finger upon the moment it ended, can never cut through the ambiguities and second starts and broken resolves to the exact place on the page where the heroine is no longer as optimistic as she once was.”
Biss has a more concrete opening, which she then undercuts with a common tactic of the reversal. Something akin to Sartre’s old “This sentence is false” paradox.
Like Cheryl, I felt Didion’s to be more dreamlike, whereas Biss’s as more real. I know in “axctuality” that’s isn’t a real thing. That effect is just language, though—and the other Christopher, as he’s known to other Christophers around the world, made a point of bringing up a few examples. Long sentences aside, which I love, and on occasion employ—check out this example: http://lunchticket.org/take-it-from-me-kid-im-a-clown/ — the short couching phrases were useful to supply voice and doubt and a relationship to the reader. Didion doesn’t overuse any of them. A lot of “I remembers” especially can be annoying and also redundant—in that if you’re retelling a story or situation, you’re already remembering it. But it’s useful in you’ve placed yourself within the narrative and then want to push back the time further or to highlight a particular time or example.
I look forward to what others views are on these subjects!
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ReplyDeleteReally appreciated the discussion we had on these two essays Monday night. While I don't know how much I can add to this conversation that wasn't already expressed on Monday, a couple thoughts did occur to me relating to the structure and tone of these two pieces.
ReplyDeleteDidion's piece, to me, seemed almost dreamlike. But it wasn't the kind of dream you wake up from feeling refreshed with a lingering joy that fills your chest. It's the kind of dream you wake up from knowing that what just took place shouldn't have really happened but did and it leaves a sort of hollow, melancholy feeling inside. Not that anything was necessarily bad--it wasn't a nightmare--it's just that nothing that happened felt real and deep down inside, after you wake up, you're relieved to know it wasn't real, even though it was (we're talking Inception-type stuff, here).
Biss, though, it seems that she read about Didion's dream, took it as gospel truth, set out to see for herself, and discovered something wholly different. Her prose at times is blunt and raw, removing the romantic curtain that was drawn up in Didion's. Yet for me, Didion's essay--her portrayal of New York (or lack thereof)--wasn't simply romantic. It was completely honest through a different perspective, a different experience.