Joan Didion and Her Own California

I have a belief that Joan Didion agrees that Californiafrosty; Mark Twain was allegedly quoted as saying
is not precisely the place it is made out to be. In her"The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in
essay "Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream", sheSan Francisco". The weather is only one legend that
thinks about The San Bernardino Valley. She portraysDidion talks about in her writings.
this place as if it were similar to torture. "Not theIn Didion's book "Where I Was From", she tells the
harsher California, haunted by the Mojave justlegend of the history of her family. She tells us how
beyond the mountains, devastated by the burningher family struggled to transfer west back in 1846.
dry Santa Ana storm that comes down through theWhen Didion talks about the women in her family she
passes at 100 miles an hour and whines through theis gratified. They were very hard workers, who
eucalyptus windbreaks and works on the nerves". Iworked with what little they had. "These women in
believe that in what she wrote here she is sayingmy family would seem to have been practical and in
that California is thought to have stunning climate, buttheir innermost instincts clinically fundamental, given to
it can be awful as well. At times California's warmthbreaking clean with everyone and everything they
becomes awful. It becomes so burning you feel like itknew. They could shoot and they could handle store
is hard for you to take in air. You'd think that withand when their children outgrew their shoes they
the blustery weather blowing it would help to cold itcould learn from the Indians how to make
down, but when it is that hot it only makes it feelmoccasins". I trust that by Didion telling the story
that much hotter and more awful. Similar to lots ofabout her female relatives she is trying to contradict
things in California, the weather tends to be onea legend.
great or the other. California at times can get very