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581 of 605 found the following review helpful:
 Deserves to become a classic memoir about grief and loss Oct 06, 2005
By K. Corn
"reviewer"
I stayed up almost all might just to finish reading it, unable to put this down, although I confess I had to keep a box of tissues nearby. I've lost 5 people in the last few years and, just recently, another friend and so I related very strongly to this book.
Didion's unflinching account of the sudden loss of her husband (which occurred while their only child was in a coma in a hospital (!)) deserves to be a classic in the genre of books written by and for those who are grieving. It is hard to find books like this, which are both honest but not overly sentimental, not resorting to the tropes which seem to surround death. She doesn't offer vague platitudes or advice. She simply relates her very personal experience, including the inevitable vulnerability, unexpected moments of being blindsided by memories and sudden tears, etc.
She covers all the bases, including the kind of insanity that can seize one in the throes of grief, those moments when you forget the person is actually dead, when you turn to speak to him or her as you normally would at a certain part of the day or reach for the phone to share the latest news.
The book is raw. If you're looking for religous or spiritual guidance and inspiration, this is not the book for you. As Didion herself noted, writing about the book recently, it was intentionally written "raw". I assume she didn't want to wait, to distance herself from the intensity of the experience as she wrote it down, quite unlike many other books she has written. Raw or not, it wasn't sloppy, overly sentimental or complete despairing.
It was simply honest, heartwrenchingly so, and Didion doesn't deviate from communicating, in absolute striking detail, the sense of alienation and disorientation that separates mourners from those who seem to be living "normal" lives. Grief is its own territory, separate from so-called normalcy. In so many ways, it is an illness, an affliction of the spirit and not one that can be cured in any one way.
An aside- the photo of Didion inside the dustjacket is haunting. No question that those are the eyes of someone who has been scraped to the core, wounded and, presumably, still recovering. There is something beautiful in that portrait and, oddly, comforting. It is the face of a survivor, however hard it might be to live as one.
This book will remain on my bookshelf and I expect I'll be thumbing through it for solace time and again. Reading it was both painful and cathartic and strangely comforting, with an intensity that left me awestruck. I am still amazed that she was able to produce such a beautifully written book in the throes of so much pain.
305 of 323 found the following review helpful:
 Don't hate me, but Nov 15, 2005
By J. R. SOUTH
I'm not 100% sure why I bought this book. Certainly, the extremely generous reviews were a big push, as much as the fact that I recognize that Joan Didion is a superb writer. Maybe more than that, because I lost my mother and my grandmother within a very short span of time, and they lost their brother/son, then father/husband, in an even briefer time period. For awhile, "Magical Thinking" enthralled me with Didion's honesty and brutal detail. It even gave me nightmares, which I'm sure was not the author's intention, but that's how effective the writing is.
Part of Joan Didion's truthfulness is in dealing with her own avoidance of grief, and the extent to which an extremely intelligent, ever-thinking person will go to escape facing pain. But halfway through this short book, only 105 pages from the end, I almost gave it up, and I'm not sure I'm glad that I didn't. The endless facts, medical explanations, and most of all, Joan's continuous detachment from any emotion, left me feeling beat up and worn down. Yes, it even annoyed me a little. I give her all the credit in the world for approaching her task. Her love for her husband and daughter is extraordinarily apparent by the picture she paints of them, but she still comes through as only an observer. "The Year of Magical Thinking" is written in the first person, but not for a split second do we get a glimpse of any sensitivity coming from her. She only looks, thinks, and writes. But who is Joan, and what is going on inside her? Anything at all??
Buddhists have a valuable outlook on death. They meditate on it regularly, often among the bodies of the departed. Not viewed as morbid or surprising, death informs them how to appreciate life. In the West, we are always stunned by death, and instead of being always ready to accept it, by being kind to one another, knowing how quickly and unexpectedly a lifetime ends, we spend all our energy denying its existence, even after we've lost someone we love. And now we have a bestseller that tells all, except that it's normal and right to feel the pain.
Whatever else this book might be, it is definitely NOT a thesis on how best to deal with death and tragedy. And despite all the praise, "Magical Thinking" will not be everyone's cup of tea.
593 of 648 found the following review helpful:
The Magical Thinking of Denial Oct 08, 2005
By prisrob
"pris,"
"Grief is a multi-faceted response to loss. Although conventionaly focused on the emotional response to loss, it also has a physical, cognitive, behavioural, social and philosophical dimensions." Wikipedia
Joan Didion starts her book:
"Life changes fast
Life changes in an instant
You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends."
On December 30, 2003 Joan and her husband, John Gregory Dunne were just sitting down to dinner about 9pm. They had returned from visiting their daughter, Quintana, who was comatose in an ICU in New York City. They were having a conversation as Joan put dinner on the table. She looked up, it was very quiet, John was not responding. He was slumped over the table with his hand raised. She realized all was not well, and in that instant her life changed. An ambulance was called; the trip to the Emergency Department, the meeting with the doctor, massive heart attack mentioned, and she knew her husband was dead. She returned home alone, did a few chores and went to bed and slept soundly. She awakened and realized something was wrong, and her first taste of grief descended.
Joan Didion has written a devastating story of her first year after the death of her husband, and the grief that enveloped her. She writes as she thought, and the story is laid out in detail as it happened and in her own words. She has friends and family but John isn't there. She talked to him every day for the forty years they were married. They talked constantly and were with each other all the time. Even though conventional wisdom has it that absence makes the heart grow fonder. She remembers thinking "there is no one to hear the news, no where to go with the unmade plan, the uncompleted thought. There is no one to agree, disagree, talk back". Life changes in an instant. There is no place on earth to go where there is no memory. She kept expecting him to come back. She couldn't get rid of his shoes, because he needed shoes to come back. She knew this thought was irrational, but it kept her going.
She kept busy helping her daughter and son-in-law put their life back together, and then it comes apart when Quintana becomes ill again. There is much to do, much to read about Quintana's illness, much to discuss with the hospital staff that look at her strangely when she discusses edema and too much "fluid overload". She immerses herself in the language of medicine, and it keeps her busy for a while. She tried new projects, nothing really works except time, but she still keeps expecting John to come home. He never does. She remembers all the little things he said about his life. He told her they had to go to Paris that November because he might never have the chance again. He was right. He was frequently right. And, oh, she misses him, she always will. Magnificent story of the year in the life of grief. Highly recommended. prisrob
40 of 42 found the following review helpful:
"Full fathom five" Nov 29, 2005
By John Sollami
I've never read a thing by Joan Didion, but have read pieces by John Gregory Dunne in the New York Review of Books. They were lively and insightful. I read his last book review about Natalie Wood, the one he thought was "worthless." In approaching Didion's other books, I have felt a heaviness, as if there was nothing inspiring there, just journalistic descriptions of a reality I know too well and want either to be elevated or to be escaped from. But who in their right mind would knock someone's telling of grief and mourning? Not Emily Post, not Delmare Schwartz, not William Shakespeare, not Gerard Manley Hopkins, not C.S. Lewis (all quoted here), and certainly, not me. Ms. Didion spent over forty years with her husband, and so his sudden, unannounced departure certainly made a muddle of her, in spite of her awful rational mind that keeps wanting to deny, to bring John back, and to travel the well-worn paths they traveled for so long together. And how many others of us have felt this same betrayal of our minds and emotions? Those who break up with lovers, those whose sons are dying in Iraq, those who watch a husband or wife waste away in a hospital bed from an incurable illness, those whose children predecease them. Although she chronicles the trickery and failures of her mind and emotions as she lives through the year after John's death, Didion feels her way along with her intellect. In spite of herself, she is an "intellectual," a "cool customer," and as such, we will not be witnessing plate throwing, acting out, or irrational outbursts at friends. No. Instead, Didion becomes confused and obscure, although she does admit to screaming from time to time. We are given obsessive descriptions of her train of thought and of medical procedures, and of the event itself, which, from an outsider's perspective, can be tiresome, but what the hell, it's Joan's book, it's her grief, it's her life, and I chose to enter it by picking this book up and reading it.
As for you who contemplate doing the same, you will find brilliant bits of poetry and prose ("Full fathom five thy father lies/Those are pearls that were his eyes," from The Tempest) and also a long passage from Emily Post on the proper way to handle those in mourning. You will find obsessive descriptions of medical conditions and procedures. You will find a literary woman trying to control the reality of her daughter's grave illness and her husband's death. There is no resolution. There is only this reality. There is only this heaviness. And this is what I feel after having turned the last page.
35 of 37 found the following review helpful:
AN ESPECIALLY FINE READING OF THIS LANDMARK EXPLORATION OF GRIEF Oct 15, 2005
By Gail Cooke
Accomplished actress Barbara Caruso who recently appeared on Broadway in a revival of "The Rivals" is a much sought after voice performer. She delivers an especially fine reading of Joan Didion's landmark exploration of grief. Seldom has one woman had to endure within a year the loss of a husband and a daughter, yet Didion found the strength to report the agony in her life with precision, grace, and truth. We are all beneficiaries.
Didion and John Gregory Dunne had been married for some 40 years. Their relationship was more than that of a devoted couple, it was also a partnership shared by two acclaimed writers as they exchanged thoughts, ideas, beliefs. Then, it is suddenly gone. As we hear, "Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends." Her husband had died.
What follows is a poignant chronicle of the hours and days that followed, wrung from a heavy heart as she attempts to bring some sort of order out of her internal chaos, the grief that she describes as a type of insanity. Her words, raw and direct, are unforgettable.
Very highly recommended.
- Gail Cooke
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