Blog 12

Slouching Towards Bethlehem

            Slouching Towards Bethlehem is a collection of essays by Joan Didion on various topics in the 1960’s. The book is divided into three parts.

The first is titled “Life Styles In The Golden Land” which chronicles the eight different situations. The first “Some Dreamers Of The Golden Dream” is an essay about the alleged murder Gordon Miller by his seemingly innocent wife Lucille. The article discusses the breakdown of fundamentalism that inevitably led to an unhappy housewife to find escape by burning her husband alive. 

“John Wayne: A Love Song” is a look at John Wayne behind the scenes on his 165^th movie.

“Where the Kissing Never Stops” documents Joan Benz, a folk singer, who would turn down shows and money for a quiet, calm lifestyle. Benz runs a school, which teaches peace and non-violence and lives a simple, ambiguous lifestyle. She believes in peace but does not associate herself with any movements or political parties.

“Comrade Laski” who is the president of a small communist party in California in the 1960’s. This man constructed a world for himself in the communist group and even had a few followers. Even though the group was widely unpopular, and poor, it emphasized the fact that Laski was trying to appeal to the poor of American to start revolution, which was not working.

“7000 Romaine” is about a neighborhood in Los Angeles Didion refers to as “middle class slum of model studios,” outside of Howard Hughes property. The article document Hughes and the way people view him. Hughes pays his barber to be on staff whenever he needs him, keeps giant empty studios, and has a whole crew of actors essentially “on call.” This is the American ideal of convenience, being able to attain anything at any time.

“California Dreaming” documents the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. This is an elusive and private mansion where certain intellectuals are invited to come and discuss democracy and get paid a salary. The point of this cultural phenomenon is to record all of the intellectual conversation and produce papers and try and shape politics by the use of intelligent correspondence.

“Marrying Absurd” documents the fast-paced wedding phenomenon in Vegas. It looks into a few couples who have married and chapels that crank out one wedding after another.

“Slouching Towards Bethlehem” is the last article that is a deep look into the Haight-Ashbury district where many runaways gathered. The country was socially fragmented and Didion examines the reason for the runaways the their everyday lifestyle. This is a grim look at the “hippies” which goes as far as recounting a 5-year-old child being given LSD. This portrays the counterculture as not a social revolution but a group of misguided teenagers that are irresponsibly rebelling against their strict parents.

The second part of the book, “Personals,” is a look into the life of Didion, and how she views herself. Didion addresses her own self-loathing, her life, morality, self-respect, and going home.

The third part of the book, “Seven Places of the Mind”, Didion writes seven short essays about places she has gone and the significance of them in her life. Of the seven she discusses her home, the Sacramento Valley, New York, Hawaii, Alcatraz, Newport, Los Angeles, and Mexico. Each place reflects her mood and growth.

Since my book was collection of essays, the plot line was very convoluted. The article has many different messages about Didion’s reflection of herself and of society. Didion writes about characters or groups that are socially fragmented. People that do not fit in, live by the beat of their own drum, and not for the better of society, just because. The book is a bleak look at American Culture, and what it is becoming: Housewives who burn their husbands alive, parents giving their children LSD, a millionaire hoarding money and property for the hell of it, the industry of trashy weddings. All in all, this is grim look at California culture of the 1960’s. There’s no hope for society in this book. People are represented as either crazy or oblivious.

Scene construction is used heavily in the book. The desert, the Santa Anna wind, and the cold rocky coast are vividly described in many of the articles as well as the places section. Dialogue is also used to convey a sense of characterization of the people Didion wrote about. Didion uses expressive personalities to base each article around. Didion writes most of the articles in third person, making the first section of the book read like fiction. Didion uses precise word selection, she does not go into great detail, and has an almost Hemingway-like way of putting things.

A new element of literary journalism I could offer from this book is an expression of fragmentation. In most books we have read there is some sort of individual, group, or mass fragmentation whether it is in ones own life, such as “Up in the old hotel”, when we see Louie struggle with his identity, or “The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test” where we see a group cut off from the rest of society. In some way the character(s) do not fit in are struggling for acceptance or change.

Joan Didion is an American essay and novel writer who often writes about fragmented America. Didion is from Sacramento and classifies herself as introverted and shy. Tragedy struck Didion when her husband and daughter died. She also wrote “The Year of Magical Thinking” which documents her husband’s death and her coping with it.

My book had reoccurring themes of insanity, poor parenting, morally bankrupt individuals, and suicide. My question for the class is why do you think a lot of new journalism has such a negative and grim portrayal of American culture?