A collection of twelve early Didion essays and pieces of journalism from 1968 to 2000, ranging from literary criticism of Hemingway to reflections on writing, self-doubt, and the craft of nonfiction, with a foreword by Hilton Als.
Books mentioned in Let Me Tell You What I Mean (43)
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway: “So goes the famous first paragraph of Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, which I was moved to reread by the recent announcement that what was said to be Hemingway's last novel would be published posthumously next year.”
The Aeneid by Virgil: “This question of what should be done with what a writer leaves unfinished goes back to, and is conventionally answered by, citing works we might have lost had the dying wishes of their authors been honored. Virgil's Aeneid is mentioned.”
The Trial by Franz Kafka: “Franz Kafka's The Trial and The Castle are mentioned.”
The Castle by Franz Kafka: “Franz Kafka's The Trial and The Castle are mentioned.”
The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway: “he had already written that story, in 1936, and called it 'The Snows of Kilimanjaro.'”
Islands in the Stream by Ernest Hemingway: “the novels later published under the titles Islands in the Stream and The Garden of Eden”
The Garden of Eden by Ernest Hemingway: “the novels later published under the titles Islands in the Stream and The Garden of Eden”
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway: “Hemingway himself, the following year, published the fourth part of this manuscript separately, as The Old Man and the Sea.”
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway: “'the Paris stuff' (as he called it), or A Moveable Feast (as Scribner's called it), which Hemingway had in fact shown to Scribner's in 1959 and then withdrawn for revision”
True at First Light by Ernest Hemingway: “This piece of work, for which the title True at First Light was chosen from the text ('In Africa a thing is true at first light and a lie by noon...')”
The Dangerous Summer by Ernest Hemingway: “what Mrs. Hemingway called the 'original treatment' of the bullfighting pieces published by Life before Hemingway's death (this became The Dangerous Summer)”
Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald: “Hemingway had written to F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1929, when Fitzgerald was blocked on the novel that would be published in 1934 as Tender Is the Night.”
The Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald: “I recall listening, some years ago at a dinner party in Berkeley, to a professor of English present The Last Tycoon as irrefutable proof that F. Scott Fitzgerald was a bad writer.”
How It Was by Mary Welsh Hemingway: “'I went downstairs,' his fourth wife, Mary Welsh Hemingway, reported in her 1976 memoir, How It Was, 'saw a crumpled heap of bathrobe and blood...'”
Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917-1961 by Ernest Hemingway: “granting permission to Carlos Baker to publish some six hundred others in his Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917-1961”
Papa Hemingway by A. E. Hotchner: “The widow tried to stop the publication of Hotchner's Papa Hemingway”
Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell: “'The hills opposite us were grey and wrinkled like the skins of elephants,' Orwell had written in Homage to Catalonia in 1938.”
Politics and the English Language by George Orwell: “'A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up all the details,' Orwell had written in 'Politics and the English Language' in 1946.”
Why I Write by George Orwell: “Of course I stole the title for this talk, from George Orwell.”
Nostromo by Joseph Conrad: “a friend at Stanford asked me to write him a paper on Conrad's Nostromo, and I did, and he got an A on it”
Washington Square by Henry James: “I had a sharp and dolorous image of myself growing old in it, never going to school anywhere, the spinster in Washington Square.”
The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James: “I could locate the house-and-garden imagery in The Portrait of a Lady as well as the next person”
The Golden Bowl by Henry James: “to risk having the result compared widely and unfavorably to The Golden Bowl”
Paradise Lost by John Milton: “talk about the cosmology of Paradise Lost, to certify me proficient in Milton”
As You Like It by William Shakespeare: “the purity of his enthusiasm for making, say, an As You Like It to run for a few nights at a community theater”
Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare: “an Antony and Cleopatra starring television actors at a theater in downtown Los Angeles”
Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway: “consider Hemingway's 'Hills Like White Elephants' and you will see the form at its best”
The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving: “The book does not deal with the work he did during the seven years between The Hotel New Hampshire and the time he died.”
The Shining by Stephen King: “The most chilling scene ever filmed must be, for a writer, that moment in The Shining when Shelley Duvall looks at the manuscript”
Carousel by Rodgers and Hammerstein: “makes me feel like the barker's barefoot daughter in Carousel, watching the Snow children prance off to Sunday dinner”
Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion: “I began Play It as It Lays just as I have begun each of my novels, with no notion of 'character' or 'plot' or even 'incident.'”
A Book of Common Prayer by Joan Didion: “I recall having a number of pictures in my mind when I began the novel I just finished, A Book of Common Prayer.”
Run River by Joan Didion: “I wrote not a story about a woman and a man in New York but a novel about the wife of a hop grower on the Sacramento River. The novel was my first and it was called Run River”
Coming Home by Joan Didion: “The first of these stories, 'Coming Home,' is cast in an extremely simple and highly conventional form...'Coming Home' appeared in The Saturday Evening Post.”
The Welfare Island Ferry by Joan Didion: “My impatience with 'Coming Home' applies equally to 'The Welfare Island Ferry'...'The Welfare Island Ferry' appeared in Harper's Bazaar.”
When Did Music Come This Way? Children Dear, Was It Yesterday? by Joan Didion: “I am not at all impatient with the third of these stories, 'When Did Music Come This Way? Children Dear, Was It Yesterday?'...The story appeared in the winter 1967 issue of The Denver Quarterly.”
Some Women by Robert Mapplethorpe: “'Some Women' originally published as the introduction to Some Women by Robert Mapplethorpe.”
The Long-Distance Runner by Tony Richardson: “'The Long-Distance Runner' originally published as the introduction to The Long-Distance Runner by Tony Richardson.”
Just Desserts by Jerry Oppenheimer: “the 1997 publication and ascension to the New York Times best-seller list of Just Desserts, an unauthorized biography of Martha Stewart by Jerry Oppenheimer”
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray: “misspelling 'villainous' in a review of William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair for the Nutley High School literary magazine”
Martha Stewart Weddings by Martha Stewart: “while Martha was on the road promoting Martha Stewart Weddings, the preface to which offered a possibly prescient view of her own 1961 wedding”