Reading Journal: "On Keeping a Notebook" Joan Didion

1)Joan Didion's essay makes me rethink thoughts I have had in the past. Didion makes a comment about keeping up with her diary. She says "At no point have I ever been able successfully to keep a diary; my approach to daily life ranges from the grossly negligent  to merely absent[..],on [a] few occasions [..] I have tried [..] to record a day's events"(8). Immediately when I read this , I could relate to her. As a little girl I would always see girls on t.v. and books write their everyday experiences in a diary. Seeing that made me want to do the same. No mater how much I tired it just was not for me. As a couple days went on, I would get over that desire to write in my diary. At that time, there was not any passion in me to keep writing.


2)There is a section at the begining of the essay that touches me emotionally. Didion says "[,,]the girl has been on the Eastern Shore, and now she is going back to the City, leaving the man beside her, and all she can see ahead are the viscous summer sidewalks and the 3 a.m. long distance calls[..]"(8). When I read this it really caught my attention. It made me want to read more. To me this line was very deep. As a reader, she caught my attention with this line.

3)Didion incorporates unanswerable questions in her essay. This technique draws the readers into her essay. In other words, it makes readers stop, think, and question what she means when she is saying certain things in her essay. If she did not incorporate the unanswerable question technique in her essay, she may not catch the readers attention as much as she does with the technique. Therefore, the technique has a huge impact on her essay.