Interesting to read this scorching critique of Joan Didion right after I read that lovely essay. The author may be right or wrong on her assessment of Didion's writing but for me reading hers was laborious to the point of impossible. Sense a fair bit of jealous combined with fixation - maybe they come together. If her main argument is Didion is too self-absorbed to the point that she introduces herself even into her reporting of a crime, it does not make her a bad writer.
Many of them tend to be self-absorbed. Infact, how can you begin to be a writer without seeing yourself somewhat as a center of the universe. You have to believe that you have something unique and important to say that the world must hear - that calls for a certain degree of self-absorption. Based on the genre, its degree could vary but it's hard to imagine a writer who absolutely does not think the world is what they see and make it out to be. I imagine it would be quite hard to write that way.
I have not read any of Didion's works except that essay, so hard for me to assess the merits of the critique but the way it reads is tedious. Reminds me of a shrewish mother-in-law making tireless jabs at her daughter-in-law. Does some of the criticism have merit, maybe it does but once the tally goes beyond a point it just becomes ridiculous. That was my impression of this piece of writing as well. Everything within reason and really no need to lay it on so thick - even the vapid and intellectually lazy Didion fan is blessed with some vestigial mental abilities to connect the dots and put things together on their own.
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