To read Joan Didion's description of "the vortex effect" without reading the rest of The Year of Magical Thinking, you might think she was a woman who struggles to a keep a tight rein on her thoughts and feelings. But her piercing depiction of the year she lost her husband writer John Gregory Dunne, demonstrates that Didion is a master at balancing emotion and clear, linear thought.
"The vortex effect" is the agonizing thought process Didion finds herself trapped in after her husband dies unexpectedly one night at dinner after their return from the hospital where their grown daughter Quintana was in the intensive care unit. After John's death, Didion battles to find neutral territory in her heart. This inability to maintain more than a few minutes of thoughts that aren't related to her dead husband or ailing daughter is what Didion deems "the vortex effect." Time and time again, Didion returns to the two of them, her memories link to other memories that inevitably include John or Quintana in some way.
This book is a masterpiece. Didion captures the impossible sadness of bereavement with a poignancy only a seasoned writer could present. Very few books are able to matter as much as The Year of Magical Thinking will to readers. To quote part of John Leonard's New York Review of Books' review: "I can't imagine dying without this book."
I can't imagine living without this book. There is something so comforting in knowing there exists a perfectly articulated description of indescribable sadness.
I'm not over-complimenting Didion's work here. Even though I know The Year of Magical Thinking can't spare me from a magnitude of loss I have yet to experience, it will serve to reflect a whole slew of horrifying emotions in a more beautifully coherent way than I could ever hope to record.
And I'm sure that everyone who can relate to what Didion captures in her reflection is relieved to hold in their hands some of that agony.
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I found this post as the result of searching this favorite quote from Joan Didion's book. It was given to me as a gift by my parents (avid readers, themselves - and two examples of God's brightest ideas) last year, after the death of my husband of 31 years. He, too had died suddenly, unexpectedly. For almost six months, I couldn't bear to approach the book. The first chapter was eerily similar to my experience, but I was drawn by Ms. Didion's wonderful way of painting pictures with words. Pictures so vivid I could at once empathize with her grief and loss, and superimpose my own upon her multifaceted canvas.
ReplyDeleteI devoured the entire piece in one day. And I shall read it again...and again. So many amazing literary references and all of them precisely placed, many of them answering questions I'd privately asked since my own journey as "widow of the late Lamont Wynn" began, May 8, 2010.
Everyone should read "The Year of Magical Thinking." It touches the deep places in the heart and exposes the raw nerves in ways that I believe can comfort, confirm, and even provide sound counsel at a time when nothing rhymes. The book was a healing balm for me as I now reflect on my year of magical thinking.
Thank you Ms. Didion! Brava!