Sunday, August 7, 2016

Reading Journal "On Keeping a Notebook" Joan Didion


1.       In Joan Didion’s On Keeping a Notebook reading this essay made me think of the times I wanted to start a journal. I can go back in some boxes I have in my closet and read stuff I’ve written down. In Didion’s she says she “stop whining and learn to amuse myself by writing down my thoughts.” It’s funny looking back and reading some stuff like one of them was when I was seven and my aunt and uncle were yelling at me or how my mom made me go to my room and how I wanted to run away. I thought that when I was really mad or sad I could write out how I felt and that it would help. This essay makes me want to start back up and write in a journal to only read them 10 plus years later and reminisce.
2.       The section that contributed the best emotional when she talks about the notebook and its use. “It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about.” She can write down what her thoughts are how she feels good or bad and then go back and relive that point in time. When she talks about when her mother gave her the tablet when she was younger. When parents give us things we sometimes don’t understand how it will affect us in the long run.  
3.       She uses many different unanswerable questions like “(1960? 1961?)”, or when it may seem like random information actually is information she wants.  Things some of us might not get but in order for her to remember that point in time she puts some unanswerable questions that the reader may not get. I think this very much strengthens her essay by leaving the reader like myself confused about some information that looks like she just threw in. But that is Didion's way of Keeping a Notebook.


     


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