- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (April 25 1995)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0679754857
- ISBN-13: 978-0679754855
- Product Dimensions: 13.1 x 1.7 x 20.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 249 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #373,117 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
Review
A gem . . . a beautifully composed story that moves with effortless authority and becomes astonishingly moving. . . . Stirring and memorable." —Newsday"Striking, provocative, and brilliantly written." —The Atlantic
Book Description
Inez Victor knows that the major casualty of the political life is memory. But the people around Inez have made careers out of losing track. Her senator husband wants to forget the failure of his last bid for the presidency. Her husband's handler would like the press to forget that Inez's father is a murderer. And, in 1975, the year in which much of this bitterly funny novel is set, America is doing its best to lose track of its one-time client, the lethally hemorrhaging republic of South Vietnam.As conceived by Joan Didion, these personages and events constitute the terminal fallout of democracy, a fallout that also includes fact-finding junkets, senatorial groupies, the international arms market, and the Orwellian newspeak of the political class. Moving deftly from Honolulu to Jakarta, between romance, farce, and tragedy, Democracy is a tour de force from a writer who can dissect an entire society with a single phrase.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Democracy: A Dud,
By Jameel (Toronto, ON, Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Democracy (Paperback)
Joan Didion's novel "Democracy," is one about American Politics and the Vietnam War, public and private live, the media, and to an extent image management. The story, however, focuses mostly on Inez Victor, the daughter of a powerful Hawaiian congressman. I personally found the book to be quite a bore, as there simply weren't many "jolts" to keep a teenager like me interested. This being said, I did enjoy a couple of things about the novel. The first would be the way that Didion inserts herself into her novels. She puts herself into the novel as a character narrating the events and inserting her own thoughts as if she was there, in the novel. I also enjoyed reading about the mysterious Jack Lovett. I felt that this character was a brilliant creation by Didion. This is simply because, although he is very close to Inez, no one ever knows what he actually does. He is described as an army officer, a man who sets up export credit programs and AID funding, and an aircraft executive. He refers to himself as a "business man." Those were probably the only two things I really enjoyed about this novel. I wouldn't recommend it as a summer reading, but if you choose to defy my wishes, then read it for stylistic analysis of Didion's writing, if anything.
5.0 out of 5 stars
An old-fashioned story with post modern mannerisms,
By A Customer
This review is from: Democracy (Paperback)
Joan Didion's Democracy is more evidence that she's a writer always worth reading. I have some questions about why she chose to insert "Joan Didion" the report-writer into this story, and why she spends so much time discussing the book she decided not to write (a big epic family Hawaiian novel--but didn't James Michener or someone already do that?), but there is a really good love story here, intense and tight, with lots of gripping details about Hawaii and political campaigning
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars (7 customer reviews) 14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exceptional,
By algo41 "algo41" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Democracy (Paperback)
Didion has a unique, powerful style. It reminds me of Joseph Heller's Catch 22 in its irony and suppressed rage, but Didion's prose is just so elegant. "Democracy" is both a romantic and a political novel, with both themes beautifully intertwined. This is an exceptional work. Didion's heroine reminds one of several of her other heroines, coming from a background where she is expected to be an adornment and where the strains of playing that role take a psychological toll. In Democracy, the heroine is psychologically stronger than in some of the other novels, plays on a larger canvas, and is ultimately able to more successfully express her inner strengths and morality. Interestingly, Didion injects herself into the novel as the narrator, and yes, Didion did work briefly at Vogue, and of course was both a reporter and a novelist. My guess is that the conceit of starting to write one novel, and ultimately writing a different one, was probably accurate.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
At The Edge of the American Century,
By Lohr E. Miller "quondam historian/academic" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Democracy (Paperback)
Joan Didion's "Democracy" is worth reading for the style alone. There's nothing to match Didion at the top of her form, as in "A Book of Common Prayer" or "Salvador", and "Democracy" is as good as anything she's ever written: austere, pitiless, unblinking, tinged with irony dry as the finest gin. Here we are in Hawaii in 1975 as Saigon falls and the American Century unravels, and Didion moves back and forth between a tropic lushness and the chaos in Vietnam, telling a love story that reaches back to the days when Honolulu was still a dreamy colonial outpost and outward to the ugly side of American electoral politics. She sums up her characters-- and her countrymen --near the end: believers in the "American exemption", believers in the idea that individual wishes and efforts can change a world shaped by too much history and too many faceless forces. She gives us Jack Lovett, too, her central male figure-- player and fixer in the clandestine games of the Cold War in Asia, lover of the teenaged Inez Victor, rescuer of Inez's drug-addled daughter, who runs off in April 1975 to be a waitress in Saigon. "Democracy" should be paired with Didion's "The Last Thing He Wanted"--- both letter-perfect treatments of love and family and the frayed edges of empire.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Glimpses Of Democracy,
By Jon Linden - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Democracy (Paperback)
Didion's style in this book is truly arresting. At points, the reader is just stopped, in consideration of what the author has just revealed. Her book is interesting in its style. She does in fact talk to the reader several times through the book. She develops the characters in glimpses and the plot as well; as she moves through the story of her protagonist's life. She describes a prior attempt at Democracy, that did not come to fruition. And she mixes in a dash of American Democracy and its elections and nominations.Set in circa 1975 mostly, it speaks about the end of the Viet Nam war, but through the side long glances of people who were involved, but not talking about the fighting. Her depiction of the era and the locales is very precise, despite its exposition in little bits and pieces. The story is gripping, although not suspenseful. The book surely does exhibit Didion in one of her best written fictional books. As a journalistically styled piece the book does a very fine job of helping people start to understand the ephemeral attitude of the people and the country in the days of the war. Disillusionment abounds. Death and destruction and human suffering are implied, but not explicitly discussed. And the message, that of one who is always trying to find oneself, but may be lost in her own mind, is universal. The book is especially recommended for readers who are interested in the late `60's early `70's era in America. The book is truly a fine piece of literature, surrounded by events and scenery, much more than driven by the plot. But the statement is well worth reading. |
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
