In the essay "The White Album," Joan Didion examines a variety of encounters with notable figures, such as The Doors and various members of the Black Panther Party, throughout the period 1966 through 1971. More importantly, however, what occurs in "The White Album" is the personal, and perhaps unintentional, expose of Didion's lost and chaotic lifestyle.
I suppose this period began around 1966 and continued until 1971. During those five years I appeared, on the face of it, a competent enough member of some community or another, a signer of contracts and Air Travel cards, a citizen; I wrote a couple of times a month for one magazine or another, published two books, worked on several motion pictures; participated in the paranoia of the time, in the raising of a small child, and in the entertainment of large numbers of people passing through my house; made gingham curtains for spare bedrooms, remembered to ask agents if any reduction of points would be pari passu with the financing studio, put lentils to soak on Saturday night for lentil soup on Sunday, made quarterly F.I.C.A. payments and renewed my driver's license on time, missing on the written examination one the question about the financial responsibility of California drivers.
Questions for Discussion
1. Starting with the second sentence form the selected passage, and disregarding the last, Didion creates this massive sentence that engulfs the reader in a chaotic summary of Didion's life. How does this complex sentence show the reader an insight into Didion's life? How do the lists in between each semi-colon match against each other?
2. Didion states she "participated in the paranoia of the time" and in the same list before the next semi-colon claims to have "raised a small child." How does the reader react to seeing the words "paranoia" and "raising of a child" in the same mindset she faced? What does it offer about her life? Is she secretly trying to tell the reader something?
3. Why does Didion find it necessary to mention that she "missed the question about financial responsibility of California driver's?"
4. How does Didion's tone throughout the essay "The White Album" affect the overall mood of the book?
Cited Works
Didion, Joan. The White Album. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1990.
11 September 2007