Didion's book may be at its best when she talks about what she calls "the vortex effect." It is a set of memories and thoughts set off by something as simple as walking down a hallway or seeing something on television. It reminds you of something. That memory than spontaneously leads to another memory and than yet another. Before you know it, this minor item of everyday life has transported you to several places and times in your life. As Didion notes, for those in grief it seems as if there is almost no place and nothing that allows you to avoid the vortex, let alone rescue you from it. Yet the thinking remains magical in the sense that while grief alters your thought process, you revisit without prompting shared moments of your life.
Didion seeks to document the full gamut of her emotional experience during this interim, particularly the lingering thoughts of whether something could or should have been done differently in the past. Is there a way to avoid this reality? What if such and such had or had not happened? Was there a foreshadowing or warning she and her husband overlooked?
Like many of us, Didion wants answers. Given her background, she digs into the written word, ranging from Shakespeare to Dylan Thomas to medical journals to Sherwin Nuland's How We Die. Given her talents, that search becomes part of her story and we see with her that this exploration is far more emotion than intellect.
One realization that strikes her is one that doesn't result from seeking answers. When crossing a New York City street, she comes face-to-face with another aspect of memory that is entirely temporal.
I realized today for the first time that my memory of this day a year ago is a memory that does not involve John. This day a year ago was December 31, 2003. John did not see this day a year ago. John was dead.
Didion's examination of her experience and emotions leads her to conclude, among other things, that "Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it." (Although not mentioned in the book, grief would visit her again in August 2005 when Quintana died of pancreatitis). None of us want to know grief. Yet with this work, Didion may help us understand that although the feeling and sense of loss is all too solitary it is one that binds us all at some point in life.
Article comments
1 - Mary K. Williams
Great review Tim -
and totally freaky too, as Didion was the topic today of other conversations - and this was BEFORE seeing your write up.