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This was not an easy book to read. Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking sounds like it might be about fairies or princesses, but it’s actually about the shifting mental stability and swirling chaos of having lost your life partner. It’s raw and unapologetic and terribly frank.
The book traces Joan Didion’s first year after having lost her husband to a heart attack. She seems to hold it together well enough for everyone, but at the same time is really falling apart. The fascinating thing is that she’s able to analyze her emotions and mental shortcomings with a clarity that is almost insane. For instance, at one point in the book she discusses being unable to throw out her husband’s shoes. “He will need them when he comes back,” she says. Then proceeds to explain that she understands this is a ridiculous statement but that understanding does not even remotely help her discard his belongings.
Some books are brilliant in their own merit – funny, thoughtful, fascinating. Other books are very difficult to judge objectively because they are so important to you or someone you love. I fear I may be falling into the latter category here with Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!, the first in a series of short, playful autobiographies by the Nobel-prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman. Then again, it’s exactly the kind of book that pushes my buttons and gives me that insatiable itch for adventure. I must, in the end, enthusiastically endorse this book.