Joan Didion’s Political
Fictions is necessarily dated, as it covers American politics in the late
eighties to the early 90s. This does
not take away from the pleasure of reading this book, however. Didion takes her keen analytic skills and
shrewd powers of observation and makes them work on this topic as well as any
other.
We learn that she is not a big fan of Bill Clinton,
but defends him against the political witch hunt of the Starr investigation and
his impeachment trial. She actually has
the stomach to brave New Gingrich’s writings, exposing him for the bizarre,
pseudo-intellectual that he is, a the beholder of strange ideas and bizarre causative
theories. She attacks Bob Woodward’s
reporting style as little more than the amassing of factual details, without a point
of view (she more of less call him an political sycophant).
In all, this collection has bite and wit, and is a
great window on its era and the characters that inhabited it.
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