Michelle

"Our favorite people and our favorite stories become so not by any inherent virtue, but because they illustrate something deep in the grain, something unadmitted."

All the essays are insightful and well written. However, I like some more than the others. So, I am only going to talk about those I like here. My favorite are Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream, Where The Kissing Never Stop, On Keeping Notebook, and Goodbye to All That.

"The easiest kind of relationship for me is with ten thousand people,"she said. "The hardest is with one."

I love this quotation from Where Kissing Never Stop, where Didion wrote about Joan Baez and her school. The "she" here is Joan Baez talking about her feeling during concerts.

On Keeping Notebook is meaningful in ways that I feel as if she speaks my mind. I have the habit of keeping notebook where I jot down random sentences that looking back, there are times when I actually don't remember what they even mean or why I write them down. But like all memories, they all eventually come back to me. Also, Didion wrote that, essentially the notebook is all about "I", which I wholeheartedly agree.

Goodbye to All That is definitely my favorite piece in this book. It speaks how I feel during the years high school and college. I am from a small village and spends those years in what is known in my country as "The City". No matter how long I stay there, it is never home. I'm glad I've found this and I know I'll read it again when I feel lonely out there. 

Now, I'll be honest, I've never heard of Joan Baez or most of the places mentioned prior to Slouching towards Bethlehem which makes me like these essays more. They give me quite a handful of things to learn and read on. They also act as a time machine and give insight into what it's like in 1960s through the eyes of Didion.