The White Album by Joan Didion (1979-06-19)

What's her seminal? She's an icon. Most famous Joan Didion book. Let's see what pops up. Well, I'm reading The White Album.

I think it's early in slouching towards Bethlehem. Um, she talks about a way in which people, and this is, she's writing pre internet.

You know, in Joan Didion's book, she wrote two books about the 60s. One was called The White Album and one was called Slouching Towards Bethlehem.

This is writer Joan Didion and she has a book called slouching toward Bethlehem or maybe it was she has another book called the white album.

it reminds me of kind of a gentle way but you know the passage in Didian's The White Album where she's with Jim Morrison yeah you know and you know how she writes about it it's she goes recording session they're waiting for Jim Morrison he shows up he doesn't talk to anybody you know he's like should we do this and you know and they're like we can't and Didian's like I don't even know in whose favor the conversation you know was determined in real life what happened Evie Babet's her friend talks about those who dated Morrison brought her there she was flirting with Jim Morrison he was throwing the matches that hurt it was such a different reality than how she articulated it that pieces emotional truth is mind-blowing I love that passage about how she captures what the doors are expected to be what they are yeah they're like should we go they're like making like trap they're supposed to be this revolutionary artistic you know whatever group and then it's like should we drive back from West covenants exactly it's just this it's so she presents them as so pedantic and ordinary that it essentially like flays them yeah and yeah why is she doing that that's I guess a different question but yeah the idea that it could have happened very differently exactly and then still everything's true there she had a fact checkers she just chose to leave out certain other parts and I think she did a very nice job of capturing what we thought a rock band was yeah another pants yeah sex and death you know and then the kind of everyday nature of it and that you know is like four co-workers or whatever yeah exactly and there's like they're eating like boiled eggs out of a paper bag you know like she's counting the number of buttons on the control panel but even then she's narrowing from reality all the different things that did happen that night into her version of what she wants to say and nothing is untrue yeah without that it's just leave all she leaves out to get there and I think we are even struggling to understand that in terms of subjectivity and nonfiction and truth yeah present right now