Slouching Towards Bethlehem
I was introduced to the work of Joan Didion while living in Ventura about two years ago. If you have been reading my journal since then, you have probably realized that I use the phrase “dreamers of the golden dream” or the like to describe many of my entries. ”Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream” was the first essay that I read by Joan Didion that has stuck with me since. Along with entries about current projects and work, I tend to write about (and am also fascinated by) the decisions that people make, particularly in growth and rebellion to mainstream society (or forcing themselves into the corporate world.) Slouching Towards Bethlehem is a collection of essays by Didion that cover similar topics and I see a lot of myself in her writing.
Though I just started reading the entire book (rather than just the several essays that I have already read), the conclusion of the preface stood out to me and I thought that it would be good to share:
“I am bad at interviewing people. I avoid situations in which I have to talk to anyone’s press agent. (This precludes doing pieces on most actors, a bonus in itself.) I do not like to make telephone calls, and would not like to count the mornings I have sat on some Best Western motel bed somewhere and tried to force myself to put through the call to the assistant district attorney. My only advantage as a reporter is that I am so physically small, so temperamentally unobtrusive, and so neurotically inarticulate that people tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests. And it always does. That is one last thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out.” (Didon, xiv)
December 29, 2008