Caitlin Flanagan on Didion's "Blue Nights"

Last time (on 1/17/12), I wrote about Joan Didion’s new book, “Blue Nights.” Today I write about a January/February 2012 Atlantic article, penned by Caitlin Flanagan, about Didion and the book. The title on the Atlantic’s cover is “Joan Didion’s Disaster,” a rather ambiguous title (does it refer to her daughter’s death, or to the book about it?). When I turned to the actual story, I saw a different title: “The Autumn of Joan Didion,” with a subtitle of “The Writer’s Work is a Triumph – and a Disaster.” Obviously these titles piqued my interest, and I was ready to be defensive and even angry on Didion’s behalf, if the story attacked her and her book. I admit that I was predisposed to be defensive, not only because I admired the book, but also because Flanagan -- whom I have been reading and often disagreeing with in the Atlantic for some years -- is a fairly conservative and less-than-feminist writer. In fact, the article was somewhat positive about Didion and her book, but just wasn’t very well written. It seems to me that the main excuse for the article was to give Flanagan a chance to tell about an incident in which Didion, as a visiting scholar, made a preliminary visit to UC Berkeley and had dinner at the Flanagans' childhood home, because her father was then Chair of the Berkeley English Department. Flanagan was 14 years old at the time, and observed that Didion was quiet and shy. That was it; otherwise the story about the dinner was pointless. The only interesting part of the episode was that the large auditorium where Didion spoke was unexpectedly overflowing with devoted Didion fans, mostly young women. It turns out –- after many diversions in the article, some rather irrelevant -- that Flanagan was and is herself an admirer of Didion and her work. She describes Didion’s appeal as follows: “What Didion wrote about were the exquisitely tender and often deeply melancholy feelings that are such a large part of the inner lives of women and especially of very young women -- and girls…” I must admit that this description is resonant of my own feelings when I read Didion’s early work when I was in my late teens and early twenties. But Flanagan’s statement seems condescending, and it undervalues the strengths of Didion’s work. I am still not sure what the real point of this Atlantic article is, and it doesn’t even spend many of its several pages on the new book, “Blue Nights.” Yes, I understand the concept of a “review essay,” but I feel Flanagan gives short shrift to the book itself. She does end by saying that Didion will always be remembered. I closed the magazine with very mixed feelings about this odd duck of an article/review.