The Last Thing He Wanted

This is a great read. I wasn't sure if I was interested in the subject (not a big fan of conspiracy theories or the mid-80's), but I wanted to read a Joan Didion novel and this is the one that was on the shelf. I loved it. Reading this novel is like being Elena McMahon/Elise Meyer for 227 pages; her dreams and memories, the catch-phrases. A definite must-read.

Joan Didion's The Last Thing He Wanted is a mysterious, gentle little book that ultimately is quite sad. Elena McMahon does a favour for her father and through that favour and through her we see the large unfathomable world of conspiraces and esponiage boiled to very human elements. There is a cold spareness to the writing that left this reader unmoved until after it was over and then the sadness powerfully washed over me. It is an unique and haunting look at the choices people make and the lives and events that one can affect with simple, irrevocable gestures. A beautiful novel.

I bought this novel from a bargain bin (because of the cover design), put it on a shelf, and didn't open it for over a month. When I finally picked it up, I read only twelve pages before I grabbed my highlighter... The writing style is deceptively simple and highly structured--breathtaking, actually. And the story is fantastic (and well told). Highly recommended.

I'm a fan of Didion's pitch-perfect deadpan prose, but if you aren't, there are other joys in this novel. It offers a post-Orwellian assessment, in human, personal terms, of 1984, with a particular focus on the Fourth of July on an unnamed Caribbean island. Along with Don DeLillo's "The Names," Didion's novel is a masterpiece of American paranoia. It offers a dark yet plausible scenario of the collapse of American democracy under the weight of expansionist ambitions, mass media, and the stunning sang-froid of the silent majorities. A bit confusing at times, the novel is psychologically (and syntactically) complicated but apparently well researched--it is also very confrontational, relentless in its outrage and hopelessness.

If there was a church devoted to Joan Didion, I would worship there every Sunday. I think she's probably the greatest living nonfiction writer, and her fiction, too, is usually masterful and devilishly witty. I adored "Democracy" and "A Book of Common Prayer." I hate to sound politically correct, but one thing bothered me about "The Last Thing He Wanted": the lisping, blowsy, faggot hotel proprietor on the deserted island where Elena McMahon ends up before she's killed. This guy minces around talking about all the bathhouses where he's had sex with foreign men, listening to opera (what was it, Madame Butterfly?), and screeching show tunes. I don't understand why Didion would throw such a low stereotype into her story--surely she could have imagined a more complex, multidimensional gay man. For me, this diminished the credibility of the whole book. In a way, it's suggestive of the way Didion treats all her fictional characters when she's not at her best: as pop-up illustrations of the point she's trying to make. It's not quite human, and not quite satisfying.