![]() ![]() These sacred illusions might be fictional, as stories are fictional, but, as Didion has said, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live. ![]() Such illusions-even though they are doomed to lead to failure-are sacred. ![]() Didion’s final implication, then, seems to be that people need to strip away all illusions, except those that help them to care for others. Each novel ends with the heroine learning to care for others-for a husband, for a lover, for children, for friends-and yet this caring is generally based on illusion and seems doomed to failure. The fragile hope that each novel holds out, however, is not offered in terms of this disillusionment but in terms of new illusions and almost meaningless gestures. To some extent, in each novel, the heroine is disabused of her illusions. The novels are generally explorations of characters crippled by illusions. ![]() Her essays generally seem intended to force the reader to strip away illusions about contemporary life and accept realities, even if they are bleak. Almost all of Joan Didion’s (1934-) works are concerned with similar themes, and there is an interesting complementary relationship between her essays and her novels. ![]()
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