Political Fictions

Political Fictions by Joan Didion is a series of extended essays ranging chronologically from the Dukakis campaign in 1988 to the 2000 Election. As it was released a week after September 11th, 2001, it was immediately forgotten. I rarely see this book in bookstores, and even though Didion is my favorite writer, hadn't read it until now. The central thesis of the book is that during that time the American "political process did not reflect but increasingly proceeded from a series of fables about American experience." Didion's own politics are mentioned in the foreword, a disillusioned, laissez-faire Goldwater conservatism that switched to the Democratic Party in the wake of Reaganism. If she ran for office and had a constituency, it would be the enormous percentage of Americans that prefer not to vote in elections. 

Political Fictions is great, of course, but it's a product of the times. A lot has changed since 2000. I wonder how she'd write about the Trump Administration. On one hand, President Trump appeals to a hazy sense of spiritual nostalgia, exactly as she describes political language in her essay "God's Country." On the other hand, the nonsensical campaign discourse that she spends a good portion of the book deconstructing is absent in his unorthodox rhetoric. Political Fictions was a good document of its era, and I wish that we still had Didion's laser focus on our own. 

The Lathe of Heaven

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin keeps the streak alive. It's the third great book I've read from her--totally different than her others, but still terrific. In it, a man in the dystopian near future discovers that his dreams have the ability to alter reality. The natural consequences of this, when revealed to his therapist, become the stuff of fable. Indeed, the novel is a brisk 180 pages, and reads more like a parable than her other works. 

One thing I loved about the story is its specificity. Le Guin is a proud Oregon writer, and in the novel we encounter small towns like Zigzag and French Glen, Portland landmarks like the Lloyd Center and the St. John's bridge, and geology like the Coast Range and Mt. Hood. Aimee Bender, another good writer prone to the magical and fantastic, takes the opposite approach, deliberately making her worlds vague and universal. But I liked Le Guin's persistence in rooting her spiritual fantasy to a very real place. The Lathe of Heaven had just enough authority, in its reality, to make the subconscious flights of fancy that much more jarring. 

This House of Sky

This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind by Ivan Doig is a ruminating, reflective memoir of early-life sheep ranching in Montana. Doig is a well-known western voice, one of the giants, and this is my first time reading him. I liked it: it's a thoughtful, well-constructed book--maybe a little dense, but satisfying. It reminded me of the works of William Kittredge, an Oregon State grad and fellow western thinker. Both writers situate their lives' stories within the context of colonization and the changing American West.

I liked Doig's description of Glacier National Park, as seen from the East: the mountains "armored with rimrock and icefield . . . all the hundred miles of gashing skyline . . . the reefline of the entire continent." I've seen that, too, and he gets it right. I've spent some time in the Big Sky State--my wife and I try to get over there every few years--and there's something about that place that amplifies the West. For the unintroduced, This House of Sky is a good place to begin.