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"They were doctors, however freshly minted. I was not. Ergo, any concerns I had must be cosmetic, frivolous" (125). 

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"They were doctors, however freshly minted. I was not. Ergo, any concerns I had must be cosmetic, frivolous" (125). 

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Frivolous (adj): not having any serious purpose or value

Sentence: I received a frivolous gift for my birthday, something I would never use and is rather pointless.

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"People in grief think a great deal about self-pity. We worry about it, dread it, scourge our thinking for signs of it. We fear that our actions will reveal the condition tellingly described as 'dwelling on it' " (192). 

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"People in grief think a great deal about self-pity. We worry about it, dread it, scourge our thinking for signs of it. We fear that our actions will reveal the condition tellingly described as 'dwelling on it' " (192). 

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For me personally, I enjoy when Didion presents short passages like these that discuss certain feelings of emotion and usually include some moral life lesson she has learned through these feelings. This is because in each of her passages like these, she is able to appeal to her entire audience, no matter age or gender or any other aspect, everyone is able to relate to these feelings of self-pity or dwelling on something when you go through a tragic or sad event.

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"Did I feel abandoned, left behind on the tarmac, did I feel anger at John for leaving me? Was it possible to feel anger and simultaneously to feel responsible?" (161). 

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"Did I feel abandoned, left behind on the tarmac, did I feel anger at John for leaving me? Was it possible to feel anger and simultaneously to feel responsible?" (161). 

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In this quote, Didion presents one of the many rhetorical devices that she uses consistently throughout her accounts of the year 2003. She presents rhetorical questions, questions that do not have the intent of being answered but are rather just for emotional effect. By asking these rhetorical questions, the author allows for the audience to consider what she is feeling and briefly step into her life for a moment to try and answer these questions from her point of view.

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"Why do you always have to be right, I remembered John saying. It was a complaint, a charge, part of a fight. He never understood that in my own mind I was never right" (138). 

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"Why do you always have to be right, I remembered John saying. It was a complaint, a charge, part of a fight. He never understood that in my own mind I was never right" (138). 

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In this passage, Didion touches upon the use of pathos, as she describes the feeling of never feeling like you yourself are right, a feeling most people can undoubtedly relate to. This evokes emotion in the reader, as they feel they can relate to Didion, even though we may have not suffered such a tragic death of someone close to us, we can still relate to some of the rather negative feelings she has felt in her life.

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Janauary 5, 2018

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"Yet I had always at some level apprehended, because I was born fearful, that some events in life would remain beyond my ability to control or manage them. Some events would just happen. This was one of those events. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends" (98). 

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"Yet I had always at some level apprehended, because I was born fearful, that some events in life would remain beyond my ability to control or manage them. Some events would just happen. This was one of those events. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends" (98). 

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At certain parts in the novel, it is evident that Didion will recite an anecdote followed by some morality lesson or life lesson in general, and this quote is no exception. She discusses how some things, like the death of her husband and the sickness of her daughter who is in the hospital, is out of control and lays in the hands of others. She also establishes pathos by stating how difficult it is for her to not be able to control these sorts of things that happen in her life, which is something that most readers can probably relate to. Lastly, she states the last sentence, "You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends", at the end of this discussion on life lessons, which has been repeated throughout the novel thus far. After she describes the death of her husband, who died of a heart malfunction at the kitchen table one night in their apartment, she uses the repetition of this sentence to show how things in life can change in just an instant, implying not to take things for granted.

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"I had never before had the patience to work crossword puzzles, but now imagined that the practice would encourage a return to constructive cognitive engagement" (77). 

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"I had never before had the patience to work crossword puzzles, but now imagined that the practice would encourage a return to constructive cognitive engagement" (77). 

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Cognitive (adj): relating to the mental action of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, senses, and experience.

Sentence: The doctor told me about the patient's inability to comprehend cognitive behavior after his accident caused damage to his brain.

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December 21, 2017

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"Was it about faith or was it about grief? Were faith and grief the same thing?" (52).

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"Was it about faith or was it about grief? Were faith and grief the same thing?" (52).

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In this passage, Didion asks these couple rhetorical questions in order to address details presented earlier in the book. These ideas contribute to her writing style because earlier on in the biography, Didion focuses on how she was grieving her husband's death, yet she was expecting him to miraculously walk through their front door again one day and return to her life. So, when she asks the rhetorical question, if her grieving and her faith in her husband returning home one day are the same thing, she is discussing how her faith contributed to her grief, and her beliefs were what helped her grieve.

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"Grief is different. Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life" (27). 

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"Grief is different. Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life" (27). 

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Initially, when reading this sentence from the book, I had to look up the words "paroxysms" and "obliterate". "Paroxysms" are sudden expressions of a certain emotion, while "obliterate" is to destroy utterly. So, after revisiting this sentence with the newfound definitions, I realized that the reason that this part of the novel stood out so much to me was because the point that Didion is trying to make lies beneath the surface of what she says. While, yes, she is discussion how grief comes in divided parts in people's lives, she is also referencing points made earlier in the novel, where she discusses how the actions she took after her husband's death come across as careless, when in reality, the entire "dailiness of life" for her is completely torn apart by the death of this loved one.

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Week #1: pages 1-61 (chapters 1-4)
Week #2: pages 62-121 (chapters 5-10)
Week #3: pages 122-227
(chapters 11-22)

DUE DATES:
Week #1: 12/15
Week #2: 12/21
Week #3: 1/5

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December 15, 2017

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"Until I saw the autopsy report I continued to think this anyway, an example of delusionary thinking, the omnipotent variety" (22).  

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"Until I saw the autopsy report I continued to think this anyway, an example of delusionary thinking, the omnipotent variety" (22).  

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Omnipotent (noun): having unlimited power; able to do anything.

Sentence: After winning that award, he was on cloud nine; He felt fearless and omnipotent, like he could conquer the world.

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"People who have recently lost someone have a certain look, recognizable maybe only to those who have seen that look on their own faces. I have noticed it on my face and I notice it now on others. The look is one of extreme vulnerability, nakedness, openness. It is the look of someone who walks from the ophthalmologist's office into the bright daylight with dilated eyes, or of someone who wears glasses and is suddenly made to take them off. These people who have lost someone look naked because they think themselves invisible" (74-75). 

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"People who have recently lost someone have a certain look, recognizable maybe only to those who have seen that look on their own faces. I have noticed it on my face and I notice it now on others. The look is one of extreme vulnerability, nakedness, openness. It is the look of someone who walks from the ophthalmologist's office into the bright daylight with dilated eyes, or of someone who wears glasses and is suddenly made to take them off. These people who have lost someone look naked because they think themselves invisible" (74-75). 

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In this passage, Didion describes the physical attributes of people that have lost someone in their life and why they all have this same look on their face. She relates to these people now and says that she recognizes the look now that she has seen it on her own face. Didion's style is evident in this passage when she uses the metaphor of walking out into the daylight with dilated eyes or taking off your glasses to compare losing someone important in your life and someone you rely on, in her case her husband John, to struggling without something in your life that you need, like glasses to see.

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I saw that this book appeared on the list of nonfiction recommendations that was shared with the class, and once I saw that the author was Joan Didion, I was instantly interested. After doing some further research and looking at a quick preview/summary of the book as well as reading the back cover of the book, I was immediately intrigued, and decided that it would be worthwhile to read another selection of Didion's- this time one that touches on a more personal level of her life.