Goodbye To All That Presentation

The “Goodbye To All That” reading made me think of what New York is and what it's not and how outsiders can get the wrong perception of what lies beneath the surface of the city. The presenters did a great job of giving the class background information on the author and when the work was completed, as well as raising discussion about the author and her place once she arrived in New York.

In the beginning of the reading there was almost an anxiety to relate to the reader. It is clear that Joan was unsure of her self when she first arrived in New York. It was observed that the city was a place for the rich, poor, and young. To her it was a place where anything could happen but slowly this image of New York, in her eyes, faded.

I wonder how much judgment she is allowed to place on New York becoming mundane. I asked myself, what is her racial background? Class? Where in New York did she mostly live? Where did she go for entertainment? What were the things she spent her time and money on?

On page 4, she writes about these expensive perfumes that with the swipe of a credit card was forgotten, and how she hung out in bars such as Grand Central Bars and spent her time on Madison Avenue.

Joan had no sense of direction and it seems to me that she didn’t experience the grime of New York. Why did she go to New York? For work or to have fun? Who were the type that kept her company?

A comment in the class that stuck with me was “ Joan creates the tourist world of what she expected New York to be.”

Having grown up in New York for 19 years I find that there is a different perspective than from someone who moved to New York. I find that New York is about the experience, which is always constantly relative, and it is up to the individual living in it to decide how they perceive New York and what they have to offer it. Yes, New York is viewed as a lonely city but the matter of loneliness is relative as well. Subjectivity speaking, if one is comfortable with themselves then spending time alone can be the most pleasing experience. But if you are scattered and not stable, mental, emotionally, financially, then in this city you’re bound to loose site of yourself and what you want. Hence why she found herself crying in taxi cabs, Chinese food restaurants, etc. Those times of solitude could be viewed as precious moments for self-reflection, yet she chose the safe route in marriage.

The matter of timelessness was also raised in class. Didion uses decades in order to describe her time in New York, which I don’t think justifies each year of her stay by grouping it all into one experience as she remembers it. I would have been more beneficial if she went more in-depth and wrote about why she felt the way she did, the experiences that caused them, and people that influenced her.