April 27, 2007

California

My only problem with Joan Didion is that when I think about her too much, I start singing “Lydia the Tattooed Lady” with her name in place of Lydia’s. Otherwise I feel about Joan Didion something just short of worship, on the right side of sane. From that magical day four years ago when I first picked up Slouching Toward Bethlehem, I’ve had her voice in my head. I will reread her forever, but it thrills me that there is new reading still in the meantime.

All of this because I’ve just began Divisadero and I find myself in Didion’s California. And so how can I not read my new copy of Where I Was From next? I love the way one book suggests another.

I am concerned though, as Anna Karenina is lined up to be my May Classic and I have this terrible suspicion that I might not get to it….