I wanted to write this month about Joan Didion anyway, amongst two other very famous feminist writers.
But now, a few days after Christmas, I see the Joan Didion obituaries coming in. On the one hand, I feel sad that such a great writer and commentator has passed away, and on the other hand, I think, good for her; she had a pretty amazing life and continued in that way to almost the very end. The very end being an impressive 87 years, Joan Didion seemed like a workaholic writer who loved her work but maybe didn't care too much for either sleep, nor eating her greens.
So who are the other two feminist writers I have in mind: Doris Lessing and Sally Rooney.
Doris Lessing was a disillusioned communist, proto-feminist and master of the inner-space narrative. Doris Lessing was written some wonderfully insightful, sensitive and inter-twined tales within the Golden Notebook. These tales cover a wealth of emotions and historical themes; there is a lot of sex, well, there is a lot of straight sex, some of it good, some of it wild & wonderful, but also some it not so good. The gay sex, like the gay characters, was disappointing and a bit painful to read, one weak spot in an otherwise wonderful story.
I would have imagined that the disillusioned London Communist (Lessing) and the disillusioned Californian Hippie-come-Hipster (Didion) would have had a good amount in common and mutual sympathy, but maybe Didion was jealous of Lessing's celebrity status? I can only guess.. they should have been kindred spirits. During the Amsterdam non-fiction book club this month, we discussed this point and Evie suggested that Didion's strict training as a writer at Vogue and the need for bright, concise and on-point prose "Didion didn't just hit her exact word counts, she hit her exact character counts", could have clashed with Lessing flowing & lyrical inner-space narrative style, taking hundreds of pages and with no definitive conclusion?
Sally Rooney has been dubbed a "millennial writer" (I'll come back to what that might mean later); she is also known for writing about sex in a direct and exciting manner, not normally associated with more sophisticated, modern, feminist writers. Actually, I expect her first two books were more salacious, but I haven't read them. In her 3rd novel, there isn't that much sex however there is one really quite a remarkable phone sex scene. Two things stand out: firstly, only a writer and/or poet could have that hot phone sex. While part of me is jealous, this was a joy to read. Secondly, this scene doesn't seem salacious. Despite the sticky ending, it is pivotal to the plot. I really wasn't sure where this wonderful story was going, but after this scene, I realized A ends up with B, plus C with D and Jane Austen would have approved of this underlying, classical romance theme. Salley Rooney is the hot young, Irish writer of our age, I suspect like F S Fitzgerald will be being read in 50 or 100 years from now! Her characters will connect to future generations, the same way as we still Gatsby, Nick Carraway, Jordan Baker, Dick Diver & Nicole… Anyway, Rooney seems connected to the "communist writer" theme, which broke Lessing's spirit and all the "communist writers" intrigued Didion (a recurring topic in her book "The White Album") and slightly counter-intuitively, 50+ years later on Rooney is powerfully arguing needs re-evaluating.
My personal opinions are and have always been pretty centre-left, but as I get older, I get more frustrated by the "harder-left" as they appear to be a distraction to what we can achieve in small steps now, for example, in the last UK general election, which seemed to be a choice been a swing to the hard-left (although the FT argued that maybe Corbyn's policy would just bring the UK back into line with other western European countries?) or carry on with hard-right (even more extreme free-market plus less local & national government). Maybe Rooney's powerful intellect and fine writing can re-invigorate left-wing politics, the failure of free markets to curb CO2 emissions so far may mean that future generations will eventually push back and impose more limits and give great guidance to businesses in the future.
I would love to have known what Didion would have made of the upcoming decades, but for now, I'm grateful for excellent writing and sharp descriptions of the 60s, 70s and 80s… she takes you to places in American culture that very few other writers have so perspectively described, a wonderful legacy and RIP Joan Didion, God bless America.
