The White Album

Didion’s famous opening sentence—“We tell ourselves stories in order to live” (8)—announces the collection’s primary theme. Ironically, or at least surprisingly, most of the essays contest typical ideas about stories. Coherent narratives and sweeping meanings make Didion uncomfortable. For most of these essays, the “we” in that first sentence precludes Didion: “I am talking here about a time when I began to doubt the premises of all the stories I had ever told myself” (8). Because Didion feels that the meaning of stories is unreliable, she doesn’t provide clearcut stories in her essays, preferring to convey imagery from which readers may draw their own conclusions and associations.

Concerning the hypothetical naked woman on the ledge, Didion notes, “I was interested only in the picture of her in my mind” (39). Didion conveys impressions and observations of her subjects. She tells what she sees in describing the Black Panthers, the film industry, or Bogotá: “I remember mainly images, indelible but difficult to connect” (173). Her book tour is mostly images: snapshots of airports, places, and mediatized information. Her profiles on James Pike and Georgia O’Keeffe mix scenes from their lives with moments from Didion’s life. They’re less of a story and more of an impressionistic patchwork of moments.