4.2
Biografieën
From one of America’s greatest and most iconic writers: an honest and courageous portrait of age and motherhood.
Several days before Christmas 2003, Joan Didion’s only daughter, Quintana, fell seriously ill. In 2010, Didion marked the sixth anniversary of her daughter’s death. ‘Blue Nights’ is a shatteringly honest examination of Joan Didion’s life as a mother, a woman and a writer.
Recently widowed, and becoming increasingly frail, ‘Blue Nights’ is Didion’s attempt to understand our deepest fears, our inadequate adjustments to ageing and to put a name to what we refuse to see and as a consequence fail to face up to, ‘this refusal even to engage in such contemplation, this failure to confront the certainties of ageing, illness and death. This fear.’ This fear is tied to what we cherish most and fight to conserve, protect, and refuse to let go, for, ‘when we are talking about mortality we are talking about our children.’ To face death is to let go of memory, to be bereft once more, ‘I know what it is I am now experiencing. I know what the frailty is, I know what the fear is.’
The fear is not for what is lost.
The fear is for what is still to be lost.
You may see nothing still to be lost.
Yet there is no day in her life on which I do not see her.
A profound, poetic and powerful book about motherhood and the fierce way in which we continue to exalt and nurture our children, even if they only live on in memory.
‘Blue Nights’ is an intensely personal, and yet, strangely universal account of how we love. It is both groundbreaking and a culmination of a stunning career.
© 2011 Fourth Estate (Luisterboek): 9780007443598
Publicatiedatum
Luisterboek: 4 november 2011
4.2
Biografieën
From one of America’s greatest and most iconic writers: an honest and courageous portrait of age and motherhood.
Several days before Christmas 2003, Joan Didion’s only daughter, Quintana, fell seriously ill. In 2010, Didion marked the sixth anniversary of her daughter’s death. ‘Blue Nights’ is a shatteringly honest examination of Joan Didion’s life as a mother, a woman and a writer.
Recently widowed, and becoming increasingly frail, ‘Blue Nights’ is Didion’s attempt to understand our deepest fears, our inadequate adjustments to ageing and to put a name to what we refuse to see and as a consequence fail to face up to, ‘this refusal even to engage in such contemplation, this failure to confront the certainties of ageing, illness and death. This fear.’ This fear is tied to what we cherish most and fight to conserve, protect, and refuse to let go, for, ‘when we are talking about mortality we are talking about our children.’ To face death is to let go of memory, to be bereft once more, ‘I know what it is I am now experiencing. I know what the frailty is, I know what the fear is.’
The fear is not for what is lost.
The fear is for what is still to be lost.
You may see nothing still to be lost.
Yet there is no day in her life on which I do not see her.
A profound, poetic and powerful book about motherhood and the fierce way in which we continue to exalt and nurture our children, even if they only live on in memory.
‘Blue Nights’ is an intensely personal, and yet, strangely universal account of how we love. It is both groundbreaking and a culmination of a stunning career.
© 2011 Fourth Estate (Luisterboek): 9780007443598
Publicatiedatum
Luisterboek: 4 november 2011
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Evita
22 apr 2022
Didion writes about the complexities of motherhood and seeing herself and her child grow older. She tells us about the tumultuous feelings she had about raising her child. About how it feels to be old in a society that sees the elderly as invalid.In our society the highest sin is to fail in motherhood so many do not even dare to question the status quo. Didion asks question I think a lot of women struggle with but don't dare to share. "What if I can't love my baby?" She tells us about raising her child that developt abandoned issues even when she tried as hardest as she could to love Quintana with her whole heart. Did she fail in motherhood?"How could she not see how much I needed her?"As someone with abandoned-issues myself this hit so close to home. It was like I was watching myself from the eyes of another.It talks about the problems of adopting a child. The feeling of being "found" not by the people who raised you, but the people who conceived you.I don't have a child, nor pl
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Nederland