Abstract Joan Didion’s prose style has frequently been praised but seldom analyzed for its rhetorical force. In her last two nonfiction books, The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights, Didion’s ability to invite the readers’ identification reaches its zenith, as she figuratively places before their eyes tableaus that evoke emotion rather than argue for it. Although they have been called, and often are, “spare,” “elliptical," and “pared down,” these works are also composed of sentences as long and sophisticated as she has ever written. And just as many of her sentences delay resolution until their inevitable ends, prolonged by parenthetical asides, repetition, and repeated modification, so too does the emotional impact of these works build subtly and linger long after the final pages. Written after the sudden death of her husband (TYMT) and the illness and subsequent premature passing of her only daughter (BN), these works reflect a mature writer in the process of confronting the dissolution of personal mythologies that have sustained her over the years. Turning her unflinching eye on her own life, past and present, a life that has increasingly become “terra incognita,” Didion achieves resonance more through omission than accumulation, more through implication than explication.

中文翻译：

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琼·迪迪翁 (Joan Didion) 的回忆录：实质与风格

摘要 琼·迪迪翁的散文风格经常受到称赞，但很少对其修辞力量进行分析。在她的最后两本非小说类书籍《魔法思考之年》和《蓝色之夜》中，迪迪恩吸引读者认同的能力达到了顶峰，因为她形象地将画面放在他们眼前，唤起情感而不是争论。尽管它们被称为，而且经常被称为“备用”、“省略”和“精简”，但这些作品也由她所写过的冗长而复杂的句子组成。就像她的许多句子一样延迟解决直到它们不可避免的结束，被括号、重复和反复修改延长，这些作品的情感影响也微妙地建立起来，并在最后几页之后久久挥之不去。这些作品是在她的丈夫 (TYMT) 突然去世以及她唯一的女儿 (BN) 生病和随后过早去世后写成的，反映了一位成熟的作家在面对多年来支撑她的个人神话解体的过程中。将她坚定的目光转向她自己的过去和现在的生活，一个越来越成为“未知领域”的生活，迪迪恩更多地通过省略而不是积累，更多地通过暗示而不是解释来获得共鸣。