astrangerhere's Reviews (1.31k)

I really wish there were half-star ratings... Sold 3.5 for me. I thought it ran a little long at points, and I grew a little weary of the heterosexual machinations. I realize this is a personal thing, and I am sure it would be more interesting to some people. I did, however, love the beautiful descriptions of the African wilderness.

Some nice quotes:

"We're tricked into thinking our husbands are gods."

"My mother once said that fear is like a man who, once burned, is afraid of a glow worm."

If reading The Year of Magical Thinking was like watching someone go through hell and come out of it on the other side, this book is like watching someone jump in a lake and never resurface. The grief in both books was profound, but this grief - the loss of a child - demands attention. It demands the discomfort and guilt it conjures be felt by its reader. Didion is profoundly angry in her grief. Angry at the loss of her child and anger at herself as a parent who lost that child. The prose is excellent as always, but the punch is something entirely different.

One of my favorite lines:

“You have your wonderful memories," people said later, as if memories were solace. Memories are not. Memories are by definition of times past, things gone. Memories are the Westlake uniforms in the closet, the faded and cracked photographs, the invitations to the weddings of the people who are no longer married, the mass cards from the funerals of the people whose faces you no longer remember. Memories are what you no longer want to remember.”

I read this within a few weeks of finishing Virginia Woolf's The Years. There are a SHOCKING number of similarities, both stylistically and thematically. This quickly became my favorite Bradbury read ever. It was a fabulous experiment in post-modern thought.

Favorite quote:

"No matter how hard you try to be what you once were, you can only be what you are here and now...Be what you are, bury what you are not..."

What a misogynistic, soap-operatic mess.