Didion attempts to educate herself as much as she can
about Quintana’s condition as a way of using knowledge to exert
control, but she finds that the process of understanding the dense
medical texts presents greater challenges than did her readings
on grief. With grief literature, Didion had to look only to herself,
examining her own responses and feelings and relating them to the
literary expressions and psychological studies that she read. Even
when their conclusions were frustrating, they gave her models to
which she could compare her own experience. Quintana’s subdural
hematoma presents a much more daunting challenge, since she must
use dense medical texts to figure out what’s happening, rather than
simply evaluating her own responses to what she knows has happened. Even
when armed with the right information, she again faces a situation
outside of her control. Didion realizes that, just as she could not
prevent John from dying, she cannot make Quintana better, no matter
how much she learns or how much she promises to protect her daughter.
The knowledge of her own fallibility once again puts her in the
frustrating position of the observer desperate to exert some kind
of control but unable to change the course of the situation.
Didion’s highly analytical meditations on grief distinguish The Year
of Magical Thinking from confessional memoirs that focus solely
on individual experience. In the past twenty years, personal memoirs
have flooded the publishing market and become increasingly popular
with audiences. The recent flap around the authenticity of personal
accounts like James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces highlights
the often sensational subject matter found in memoirs, which tends
to emphasize personal trauma as a way of creating catharsis, or
emotional release, for both writer and reader. Didion avoids this
model, choosing instead to mix her personal experience with observations
and reflections on cultural trends and behaviors. While the section
of the book that takes place during Quintana’s stay at UCLA stays
focused on Didion’s grief, she weaves in commentary about cultural
attitudes toward sickness and hospitals. By connecting her individual
experience to larger cultural trends regarding death, illness, grief,
and mourning, Didion avoids sensationalizing her experience.
