Seasons of Divorce

For years I've carried around with my mental baggage the phrase, "...it was the season of divorce," written by now very famous American author Joan Didion, whose latest book The Year Of Magical Thinking has just been published. The phrase occurs in the first paragraph of a fleshed out account of a real life murder which took place in or near San Berdardino, CA.  As I remember the complete sentence reads, "The Santa Anas were blowing, and it was the season of divorce."

Joan Didion's writing style includes the author's rare ability to observe both herself and others, and the world, without judgment. In her writing she struggles to fill in 'what's so.' My tendency, often, is to leap to a conclusion and/or judgment on the thinnest thread of factual knowledge. I might not be alone in this proclivity.

In other words, the sentence quoted above could very well mean that the Santa Anas, hot, relentless winds from the desert, blow in every year and they  tend to make people irritable. Furthermore, they nearly always usher in annual, California forest fires. Every year, as yesterday and probably again tomorrow, on TV we see family members outside their beloved forest homes clutching their photo albums saved before their homes were incinerated.

Is divorce as arbitrarily selected as the weather is imposed? Joan Didion doesn't answer, she just poses the question. In the recounting of what happened she manages to reveal the following details. A young woman has fallen in love with her dentist, so sets about to murder her husband, so she can be with the dentist, even though the dentist makes it quite clear he doesn't want her.  After the murder is accomplished, by, as I remember, setting fire to her husband's VW while he was in it, she discovers that her dentist meant it when he said he had no more interest in her. The woman is now living out her life in a California prison for women.  

In today's LA Times (under new, and most excellent management since the year 2000) it is reported that Joan Didion has been accused of not being in complete sympathy with Feminism. Her reply: "I didn't feel unsympathetic, I felt it was becoming mired in arguments over who did the dishes."

In our house I do the dishes. I believe in Palmolive, 'Original' (on a pink background), and that can't be used in a dishwasher. Ours is new, used once by my wife, who'd use it again if I didn't insist on washing the dishes myself as a means to keep my nails and hands quite clean. I soak. I wash, fast, and put away equally fast. No problem. Who does the dishes, and with what, has nothing to do with cohabiting, marriage, togetherness or motive for murder.

In short, Joan Didion gives excellent instruction through the power and precision of her insights; But she does it with no desire to be didactic: she simply marvels at the intransigence of human behaviour, probably including her own.

She wrote a terrific novel called Play it as it Lays.