Reading: Didion and Rodriguez
Despite the similarities between Rodriguez and Didion’s reminiscence of childhood, they diverge in the nature by which the reader completes the threads of memory in bringing their own experience to each piece. That as readers we are also co-authors of what is written. If we believe that to be true, we lean on aspects of empathy and connection to story through style, but not because of it. For me, Didion is elite and exclusionary where Rodriguez is relatable and authentic. Rodriguez is closer to my own lived experience, so I simply enjoy it more. Rodriguez lives in a world of grease and labor. Didion is disgusted by it as she dreams up new cocktail recipes and leafs through Vogue. Rodriguez lives in the yellow of low-income housing. Didion’s yellows are those of mandated vegetables and privilege. Both lean on stylistic repetition, short sentences woven together into triplets of thought. Both use nostalgia as a stylistic lens through which we see ourselves through someone else’s life.
For me it’s challenging to separate style from content and truly see style objectively. What is being written cannot be uncoupled from how it is being written. The enjoyment comes from the richness of the events themselves just as much as the style in which they are presented. Didion is undoubtedly a skilled stylist, but what she writes about is exclusionary (to me), and as such, less enjoyable. I see myself more in the unfolding events in Rodriguez, and feel the hunger of memory much more intensely than the feelings of sable and dark glasses.
