Shelf Life: Light in the East

special sense of the “tradition” from Homer through the present, but one reaching far back behind Homer, which, contemplated with sufficient intensity, can form a “simultaneous order.” Ezra Pound’s own Odyssean quest petered out among the glittering particulars along the Aegean shore, but Pound was not famous for intellect.

It is not yet clear whether Joan Didion—her uniqueness deserves that this generalization be sensed as a particular—will end up in the nowhere of a sandstorm of particulars, as far from possible from “where I was from”; or find, instead, a paradigm—perhaps of universal order—implicit in syntax itself as well as in her authentic experience. We are informed by her dust jacket that Didion now “lives in New York.” That city does possess still palpable history, a great architecture, a famous spirit, and neighborhoods: thus much there there. Los Angeles it is not; hope lives.

About the Author

Michael Potemra

Michael Potemra was a literary editor for National Review.

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special sense of the “tradition” from Homer through the present, but one reaching far back behind Homer, which, contemplated with sufficient intensity, can form a “simultaneous order.” Ezra Pound’s own Odyssean quest petered out among the glittering particulars along the Aegean shore, but Pound was not famous for intellect.

It is not yet clear whether Joan Didion—her uniqueness deserves that this generalization be sensed as a particular—will end up in the nowhere of a sandstorm of particulars, as far from possible from “where I was from”; or find, instead, a paradigm—perhaps of universal order—implicit in syntax itself as well as in her authentic experience. We are informed by her dust jacket that Didion now “lives in New York.” That city does possess still palpable history, a great architecture, a famous spirit, and neighborhoods: thus much there there. Los Angeles it is not; hope lives.