Saturday, February 5, 2011

All You Need Is Love




Editor's Note: This entry marks the third guest blog to appear on Pygmies & Peanut Butter and the second by guest blogger MB. You can find her previous effort, on Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story here.


The White Album
by Joan Didion

1979, Simon & Schuster


The White Album is a collection of essays by iconic journalist Joan Didion concerning the cultural climate of 1960s America. It is not, as the title may suggest, an examination of that infamous Beatles record. In fact, throughout the text there is a conspicuous lack of reference to the Fab Four or their copious musical output. With no other apparent justification for the title, the onus is placed squarely on the reader to make sense of the allusion.

Although the book was originally published in 1978, many of the individual essays were written in the late 60s or early 70s. Seeing as I personally came of age during the grunge era, the more obscure references (of which there are many) were lost on me. What I did understand was that being alive, American, and socially conscious in the 1960s was like being on one of those carnival rides that spins around faster and faster until the laws of gravity that have governed your whole life up to that point suddenly fall away and you are left untethered to the earth, realizing that everything you once believed can no longer be trusted. The most romanticized era in American history is known for free love, rock 'n' roll, flower children, and "peace, love, and understanding." It was also the decade of political turmoil, Charles Manson, Vietnam casualties, and Lee Harvey Oswald. I read the news today. Oh, boy.

The essays, in true "new journalist" fashion, parallel social evolution with the author's personal experience. We begin with both America and Didion in a state of disillusionment. The cultural revolution of the late 50s/early 60s promised change and offered radical solutions to society's ills. But as solutions failed and changes remained only superficial, Americans were set adrift wondering who they were and what, if anything, to believe in.

It was at that point of critical mass that Didion personally suffered a nervous breakdown. To her contemporaries she seemed to have it all: a family, a home, a successful career, public accolades. On the inside she felt out of control and disconnected from the world around her. She describes the experience as that of having "lost the narrative" of her life, reducing her existence to one of "disparate images" devoid of cause and effect. As her depression worsened she retreated into herself more and more, eventually reaching the point of hospitalization for "nausea and vertigo." Didion credits the absurdity and pretense of the time for her descent into depression. As she puts it, her breakdown "does not now seem... an inappropriate response to the summer of 1968."

Throughout the next nine essays she goes on to expose social and political hypocrisy in all its forms. Joan Didion is displeased with Jim Morrison, Los Angeles traffic control, the literary style of Doris Lessing, collegiate political rallies, the Getty Museum as well as the critics of the Getty Museum, the fact that not enough Hawaiians have read From Here to Eternity, and the Women's Movement - just to name a few. I found her ceaseless derision of all things relevant to be tiring, especially in the absence of any clear opinions or solutions of her own. I grew weary of her in the same way I'm weary of condescending hipsters and their ironic t-shirts. I was clutching desperately to the hope that she would eventually stand up in favor of something, anything at all really, but in the back of my head I was snarking, "Hooray for you and your ability to see through everyone's bullshit! You're a regular Holden Caulfield!"

At the absolute breaking point of my frustration with Didion and her distaste for everyone and everything I actually had to shut the book and walk away. The next day, feeling newly energized by the hot L.A. sun, I began where I left off, with her essay on Georgia O'Keeffe. To my delight, Didion not only praised O'Keeffe but unabashedly gushed over her with that special kind of adoration usually reserved for the parents of very young children. She loved O'Keeffe's paintings, yes, but what truly impressed her was the spirit of the woman who made them. To wit: "George O'Keeffe seems to have been equipped early with an immutable sense of who she was and a fairly clear understanding that she would be required to prove it."

From that point on, the tide changes. There is still plenty of finger-pointing and condemnation, but we see Didion gradually coming to her personal salvation. She finds worth not in communal experiences or social "movements" but in the very personal and solitary act of loving something beyond oneself. She gravitates toward those who dedicate their lives, beyond all rationalization, to whatever it is they love, be it painting flowers, harnessing water, or breeding rare orchids. The act of love is what gives the narrative meaning.

In fact, the only collective human trait Didion seems to find desirable at all is the irrational love of something above all else and beyond all hardships. At first it seems as if this is a quality she admires in others simply because she doesn't possess it herself. She sits high in her ivory tower above everything, judging those who do care. What I eventually realized is that she does love something above all others and beyond all reason: writing. She cannot live without it.

"We tell ourselves stories in order to live."

These are the very first words of Didion's treatise on America. Taken out of context, they appear dreamy and romantic. To tell stories is so uniquely human, and aren't we proud of anything that sets us apart from the other primates? But as I read on past the first few lines I began to wonder if this opening statement weren't a whimsical musing after all but rather a pointed finger of blame aimed squarely at us all and the narratives we so often create to soften the world's harsh truths. Even weeks after finishing the book I am left pondering the meaning of this deceptively simple line. Maybe it is simply a fact, devoid of virtue. Good or bad, we need the narrative in order to survive.

Guest blog by MB (with apologies to Elvis Costello and The Beatles).