Betty White or Joan Didion?
On my idyllic desert island, I pick both
Who would you bring with you to a desert island if you had to live there forever?
Betty White made us laugh. Joan Didion made us think.
Joan Didion was cynical, radically honest, and her words cut into our bones.
Betty White was never young, as far as most of us saw, but she was always happy. Betty made us think getting old was palatable, even delightful.
Didion exposed the persistent burden of seeing the world too clearly, of being utterly un-tone-deaf.
Didion made me love writing and thinking.
White made me love optimism and levity.
Like another great Lorrie Moore once wrote, “ Life is hard. Here is someone.”
Why do I have to choose? I pick two someones — Didion and White.
If I am going to be sunning indefinitely on a desert island, I’ll require some literary genius with a hard dose of optimism.