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slightfawn's review
3.0
As this is an omnibus, my individual rating breakdowns are as follows:
'Slouching Towards Bethlehem' - 5 ⭐️
'The White Album' - 3.5 ⭐️
'After Henry' - 2.5 ⭐️
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The edition of my copy has a superlative on the front cover from author Donna Tartt describing Didion's style as "tough, beautiful, surgically precise" for which I can't even muster a more accurate review.
Even in her less invigorating essay subjects, I found a readerly meditation and joy in the way that such topics were described.
Didion has a lot to answer for; I think that the effects of her skill have been grappled with by essayists in the years since. The careful but never tedious balance between the personal, the universal, the compassionate and the objective observer all manage deft employment. For this I will treaure as a reader, and hunger for as a writer.
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The combining of these three particular volumes seems to me somewhat incongruous in terms of subject matter, but I suspect that the evolution of a writer was the intended goal of the grouping.
'Slouching Towards Bethlehem' - 5 ⭐️
'The White Album' - 3.5 ⭐️
'After Henry' - 2.5 ⭐️
~
The edition of my copy has a superlative on the front cover from author Donna Tartt describing Didion's style as "tough, beautiful, surgically precise" for which I can't even muster a more accurate review.
Even in her less invigorating essay subjects, I found a readerly meditation and joy in the way that such topics were described.
Didion has a lot to answer for; I think that the effects of her skill have been grappled with by essayists in the years since. The careful but never tedious balance between the personal, the universal, the compassionate and the objective observer all manage deft employment. For this I will treaure as a reader, and hunger for as a writer.
~
The combining of these three particular volumes seems to me somewhat incongruous in terms of subject matter, but I suspect that the evolution of a writer was the intended goal of the grouping.
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