Let Me Tell You What I Mean by Joan Didion (2021)

 This appears to be an assembling together of previously uncollected essays. And, as mentioned previously, it's great to read this strong voice unalloyed by death and uncertainty, which had been my first exposure. Not that those subjects were not graced also by this strength. The first essays here date back to the 1960s, including pieces on the value of the 'underground' presses of that time, reportage of Gamblers Anonymous, a vets reunion, and one more magaziney thing on Nancy Reagan in 1968, as well as a couple which don't quite have the same impact. Then follow some autobiographical pieces with her writing process as subject, which are complementary to other material in her canon about her life. Then a couple of what look like obituary pieces, on Robert Mapplethorpe and Tony Richardson, both of whom were probably pretty "tiring", but she admires them enormously! Then 'Last Words', which is a really interesting examination of the wisdom or otherwise of publishing exhumed posthumous works by great writers, with the occasion of Hemingway's True at First Light as spur. Her argument in it illustrates perfectly how "taste" dictates in strange ways. She (and Hemingway presumably) seems to care a great deal about how many syllables the words a writer uses have, even lovingly quotes an example paragraph, seeing that as some sort of sacred simplicity. Very evocative of a kind of mid-century ethos which, for me at least, could not be further from the point. But I like hearing her talk about it. The last piece is a long one about Martha Stewart, with a slightly schizophrenic line to it, both a cool questioning of Stewart's business-ized modus, and a defence of her against what Didion saw as slightly inane "character flaw"-inventing criticism. In hindsight, the appearance of this in 2000, just before the insider trading scandal, was unfortunate, but then again Didion's points were mainly about other things. Ultimately, I find myself very often in disagreement, but like hearing her out.