Let Me Tell You What I Mean

Let Me Tell You What I Mean is the last collection of essays from one of the greatest essayists in the history of literature. It gathers 12 previously published essays written between 1968 and 2000. The essays cover a spread of topics, but the topic of writing is given the most attention. Four of the 12 essays and 65 out of 147 pages deal with this topic.

“Alicia and the Underground Press” is an essay where Didion admires how underground newspapers write at the reader and don’t pretend to be objective. “Telling Stories” is the backstory behind some of Didion’s short story work from the 1960s. “Last Words” is an analysis of Ernest Hemingway, whom Didion respects for his writing skill. Even more than a love letter to Hemingway, “Last Words” is an argument for the power of sentences and the craft of writing as composing words into those sentences.

The star of the collection though is a not an essay but a lecture titled Why I Write given by Didion in 1975¹. That year, she returned to her alma mater, some 20 years after graduating, as a Regents’ Lecturer, a now retired program that invited distinguished people outside the circles of academia to come speak at UC Berkeley. The

reversal of positions that should have been settling, moved me profoundly, answered no questions but raised the same old ones

she would later write in Pacific Distances in After Henry. Despite her insecurity, Why I Write masterfully expresses the Didion philosophy of writing in the Didion style of writing. Writing is an act of aggression. The writer imposes their views on the reader. Writing is about images. The picture tells you how to arrange the words and the arrangement of the words tells you what’s going on in the picture. The points are made with anecdotes, where even the most subtle detail is crucial to the meaning of the essay. She repeatedly uses connective phrases to give her another chance to explain herself. Her writing often reads like she is lecturing to you, so it is not surprising that her lecture doesn’t read very differently than her essays.

In many ways

I stole the title not only because the worlds sounded right but because they seemed to sum up, in a no-nonsense, kind of way all I have to tell you.

In short

By which I mean

Just as I meant “shimmer” literally I mean grammar literally.

Let me show you what I mean.

At the end, like many Didion essays, she has one more punch, a final idea she wants to stick in your head. Writing is a process of discovery, powered by a deep impulse to construct meaning and impose narrative on experience. We tell ourselves stories in order to live.

I don’t think Let Me Tell You What I Mean is Didion’s best work. That title has claimed long ago by either Slouching Towards Bethlehem or The White Album although my favorite is After Henry, specifically the opening elegy for longtime editor Henry Robbins. But it is a good work, buoyed by the large number of essays from 1960s when Didion was, frankly, better. It is an essential work that every Didion fan should own.