Original It-Girl Joan Didion

I'm a little Smitten

As a fresh-faced 19-year-old who is naïve enough to think that she has something to say, I think it’s all too natural to have an all-consuming obsession with Joan Didion. I read this article which stated, “Didion was the archpriestess of cool — possessed of a corrosive sense of irony and an overriding habit of condescension — in a period of greater naïveté and belief than we live in now.”

And that’s something unique: how many great writers have been described as cool? Genius, maybe. Introverted, obsessed, a little bit off-putting. Then there’s that macho male type-writer circa James Joyce and Albert Camus, but I think they were more obnoxious and less aspirational. But cool— that’s something reserved entirely for Didion.

The corvette, the dress, the sandals… Didion the woman that you are

Didion’s prose is something to behold. It sucks you in, then cuts you thinly, deep to the core. It describes California so vividly that I can imagine myself in the orange-yellow hues of a West Coast sunset. Every Didion heroine encompasses a personal struggle of girlhood, chasing what you want versus chasing what a woman should want— what a person should want— and facing the recuperations. I’m rereading Slouching Towards Bethlehem in the lazy entrapment of my childhood bedroom, extrapolating my frustrations of not understanding myself as I lay upside down on my mattress.

Reading Didion gives me a specific type of envy, of existing in constant opposition and existing grandly. In my rereading, I’ve been particularly attached to Part 2: The Personals. I think in my readings I’ve tried to absorb as much of Didion’s personality as possible. One of her passages particularly struck me:

It is a question of recognizing that anything worth having has its price. People who respect themselves are willing to accept the risk . . . that the venture will go bankrupt, that the liaison may not turn out to be one in which every day is a holiday because you’re married to me. They are willing to invest something of themselves; they may not play at all, but when they do play, they know the odds. That kind of self-respect is a discipline, a habit of mind that can never be faked but can be developed, trained, coaxed forth. . . . To have that sense of one’s intrinsic worth which, for better or for worse, constitutes self-respect, is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent. To lack it is to be locked within oneself, paradoxically incapable of either love or indifference.

It’s this push towards discipline versus repression that makes Didion so alluring and evergreen. I’ve read a lot of her earlier works too, and the maturing of her voice from fragile to romantic (in a mingling with despair type way) coincides perfectly with this self-discipline, this identity that rings true in each of her pieces.

Even in her packing list, which I’m currently obsessed with:

To Pack and Wear:

2 skirts
2 jerseys or leotards
1 pullover sweater
2 pair shoes
stockings
bra
nightgown
robe
slippers
cigarettes
bourbon 

Bag with:

shampoo
toothbrush and paste
Basis soap
razor
deodorant
aspirin
prescriptions
Tampax
face cream
powder
baby oil 

To Carry:

mohair throw
typewriter
2 legal pads
pens
files
house key 

There’s a certain momentum. A variability. And just, major coolness.

At Berkeley, Didion was a powerhouse, juggling both 'women's culture' and her writing career. She sent applications to magazines and proudly stuck her rejection letters above her desk. Throughout her career, Didion kept a lot of her personal life out of her books, which adds to her image as the cool, aloof woman. This careful distance makes her even more fascinating and iconic.

When I read Didion, I’m automatically allured. She was an it girl before it girls existed. Forgive me for the fangirl post. Stop reading this and go read The White Album. But I think that any modern cool person, steeped in influencer culture, is some 5th derivative of Didion. When aspiring to coolness, look no further than the literary.

I’ve never liked cars but I suddenly want one