The White Album, essay by Joan Didion

THE WHITE ALBUM (Excerpt)
by Joan Didion

We tell ourselves stories in order to live. The princess is caged in the consulate. The man with the candy will lead the children into the sea…We interpret what we see, select the most workable of multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the “ideas” with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience. Or at least we do for a while.…
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The White Album (1979), a book of essays by Joan Didion, is available at Amazon.com.

The White Album by Joan Didion

THE WHITE ALBUM (Excerpt)

Essay by Joan Didion

We tell ourselves stories in order to live. The princess is caged in the consulate. The man with the candy will lead the children into the sea…We interpret what we see, select the most workable of multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the “ideas” with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience. Or at least we do for a while. I am talking here about a time when I began to doubt the premises of all the stories I had ever told myself…this period began around 1966 and continued until 1971…

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Find The White Album (1979), a book of 20 essays by Joan Didion  at Amazon.com.