Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion (#5, Contemporary Literature)

My first Joan Didion piece, aside from half an essay in Slouching Towards Bethlehem that I skimmed during Newswriting one class period, I must say I was disappointed. I don't really know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't what I found. This book has an introduction, which should have tipped me off that it might not be such an easy, breezy read but I resisted reading it until after I finished the novel. And good thing too, seeing as how David Thomson gives away the entire book.

Play It As It Lays is a sparse and at times confusing book that tells the story of Maria Wyeth, a character that you just want to shake sometimes. The lean prose forces you to speculate on things which is also interesting but sometimes you need answers. Sometimes you want to know exactly what is going on. But then it wouldn't be a classic, and it wouldn't be considered a piece of literature. This novel is reminiscent of The Great Gatsby and other books that comment on the moral decline of society.

But you will not find a Jay Gatsby here. Maria is a cold character, whose personal tragedies fail to summon even the slightest twinge of sympathy. At the end I wasn't rooting for Maria. I wasn't rooting against her either but the indifference I felt toward her character is perhaps worse than had I secretly hoped for her literary demise. This may be the first and last piece of Didion fiction I will ever read, I haven't decided yet. The entire collection Slouching Towards Bethlehem sits on my shelf, though, waiting.