On Joan Didion

Joan Didion's rants are stylized. They appear to be fragmented, but they are oh-so-controlled. There is a refrain behind everything. An overwhelming vagueness. A stifling question behind every word, every pause, every blank space. There is something missing, something so impersonal about the personal.

She makes it look effortless. As though the words just come out that way. As though she breathes and they appear. But if you study them closely, really closely, the struggle is visible. The exactitude of her sentences, their lengths, their rhythms, their structures, the purposeful repetition.

Why do I write this? Well, first, my presentation on Monday is about Joan Didion's style so I have no choice but to think about it now (and I really should be doing more of THAT instead of writing THIS), but more than that, I am intrigued by Didion's ability to fall apart with words while still being exact, rigid, and disciplined.

Her style, in some ways, is me.

I speak. I make my emotions known, for the most part. Known, yes, but heavily regulated. Even when I break down, the underlying discipline is there. In some ways, I feel more like a text, a walking memoir, than a human being. I am ever-conscious of the ironies, of my contradictions, my absurdities and ambiguities. I have programmed myself to be a writer, to bullet point my emotions. I know how they sound best in a story. I know how they sound best as metaphors. I know how to construct stunning similes from my struggle. I know how to represent my feelings structurally and grammatically. There is one thing I do not know how to do, though. Many things, really. For instance, I cannot play basketball for the life of me, nor can I do calculus. But this one thing in particular is that I cannot, will not, refuse to not consider my phantom readers, my fantasy audience.

In some ways, I no longer know my own emotions because I know them so well. My self-awareness comes from this constant filter, this insistence on seeing the world as my story.

Look closer. I try so hard to represent truth with stylistic tactics that I am a metaphor myself, the shadow of soul.