Yet another classic collection of Joan Didion's
non-fiction, The White Album does not
have nearly the punch of Slouching Toward
Bethlehem. Part of this is the
spread: while Slouching sticks to a
few themes related to the sixties, and certain points about Didion’s life, The White Album is far broader ranging,
both in the time span written and the topics handled.
The pieces cover ground like the (then) contemporary scene in
California, the Woman’s Movement, Georgia O’Keefe, various travels across the
US and the world, and meta-visions of the death of the sixties. Throughout, many similar
and related topics are treated side by side. This gives the collection a somewhat fractured feel.
But what unites them all is Didion’s liquid prose,
her sterling observations, and her almost supernatural ability to synthesis her
observations and work into a single, unified whole. In the end that is what makes this collection a great success and a worthwhile read.
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