South and West: From a Notebook by Joan Didion
This is a collection of notes, observations, and musings for two pieces that Didion never wrote. The title refers to the locations from where these commentaries are collected. The first came from a road trip through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama; the second grew out of her notes while she was covering the Patty Hearst trial in San Francisco.
The brevity and unorganized nature of the work made it difficult to pull many ideas from my reading. The main goal for me was to decide if I wanted to invest additional time in Didion's work (1). Still, in the end a couple of comments did stand out to me.
The observation that outside disapproval reinforces a group's solidarity was interesting. A belittled or bullied group of people will reinforce the characteristics they share rather than bicker among themselves over their differences.
Didion also comments that those who live close to international airports seem to expect a future shaped by enlightenment values to arrive any day. One effect of living in such expectation is that the past quickly becomes meaningless. Perhaps this explains the strange form of community that develops in such areas- one built not on traditional values but instead formed by shared interests, activities, or ambitions.
Or...perhaps this observation explains why these decades-old notebooks, 'never to be published'...were finally published this year.
Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee
I picked up Lee's debut novel after thoroughly enjoying her recently published Pachinko. Though this novel did not capture me in the same way, I still found much to enjoy about this story describing a Korean-American community in New York City.
The big idea I took away from this novel was how much pressure a tight-knit community exerts on its members. The pressure often comes in the demands to conform to the standards demanded by the group. The need is understandable- for marginalized communities, survival required the strength borne out of unity. Knowing when to adjust that mentality and approach the future with new values is a difficult challenge.
Often, it takes a fiercely independent individual to indicate a coming change. This person will do everything in his or her power to break away from the community and establish an identity. The main protagonist, Casey, is such a presence and she opens the novel by exerting an equal and opposite reaction to this pressure in order to break free. Like any wrenching effort, though, the results are messy and the characters spend most of the novel picking up the debris, rearranging the pieces, and trying to find a new way to define their roles in a community transitioning away from its traditional values.
Of course, I enjoyed the smaller observations that appear a hallmark of Lee's work. In examining Casey's Ivy League education, the idea that school rarely teaches timing or the art of finessing difficult people was an eye-opening conclusion. The comment that those who have been hated find it much easier to hate was equal parts insightful and saddening.
In one scene, Lee describes a character's ability to give complete attention to another as a rare but powerful gift. This character is described as 'shining his floodlights' on another. I really enjoyed that image and have kept it in mind recently as a target for my own improvement in this area.
Footnotes / imagined complaints
1. And the jury finds the defendant...
I enjoyed South and West enough to green-light two more requests- The White Album and The Year of Magical Thinking.
I read Slouching Towards Bethlehem last spring so these two books will bring my total to four. I was on the fence- for though I enjoyed Slouching Towards Bethlehem last year, I do recall dragging a bit through the collection. It is never a good sign when I put down a book and start something new, as was the case last spring.
