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They let me put on her sunglasses.
You know the ones big, dark, Celine, tortoise shell.
How did they make me feel?
My first thought: run.
I pictured myself fleeing the gallery, bursting out onto the street.
The staff would have been surprised, so Id have had a head start.
Then the adrenaline would have kicked in.
Im confident I could have gotten away with the $27,000 sunglasses.
Maybe you read about it.
The auction included fine art, furniture, books, and bric-a-brac from Didions Upper East Side apartment.
I visited the week of November 7 and the items took up two rooms of the gallery.
In person, the scale was modest.
She read and reread her books from her library.
There was a brass Cartier desk clock.
A small stack of Elizabeth Hardwick books would have slipped easily into my tote.
Id have taken the Richard Serra painting, a black quadrilateral on a cream background, pleasantly severe.
It would have looked great in my house, and what a story.
She had nice things, Thomas and I agreed.
And then you mix it with this New York literary chic.
The Bat Suit, or something.
It seemed like a Planet Hollywood impulse, part of our national obsession with celebrity.
What are you going to do with Joan Didions hurricane lamp, I thought, make an altar?
But then I tried on the sunglasses.
Their final price tag could clear $5,000, I speculated (naively).
For $440, you could buy them brand new.
You could buy them anytime on the Celinewebsite.
But I cant deny that I felt a charge when I put them on.
I know it was imagined.
I know that nothing of a writers essence clings to her possessions after death.
I know genius is not transferable via luxury goods.
***The auction was held virtually, like all of Stair Galleries auctions since the pandemic hit.
Watching the bidding, I could see what she meant.
Founder and president Colin Stair ran it over an exciting, nerve-wracking several hours.
He took bids from three different online platforms.
A handful of people in the room with him shouted out call-in bids.
It went exactly like an auction from every movie youve ever seen.
Things began going off the rails when the first painting went for $110,000.
Up until then, the bidding had been competitive, but somewhat reasonable.
Lot 1, a group of Didions copies of her own books, sold for $15,000.
That made sense, I thought.
Hardcore book collectors would want those.
Lot 2, a photo of Didion in a black turtleneck, went for $17,000.
Well, okay, a beautiful, iconic photo.
Lot 3 was where the big spending began.
The bidding had been only $300 online but went up to $26,000 in a matter of moments.
Its rendered in peach, gray, and tan.
Didions sitting up in bed and looking at the viewer with one sad eye.
The bidding began, and it kept going.
At a certain point, it stopped increasing in $1,000 increments and switched to $5,000 increments.
Then we got to Lot 5, the sunglasses (my sunglasses).
Bidding opened at $10,000.
Final price $27,000.
The rest of the auction went much the same way for 224 lots.
Two photographs of Didion with her famous Stingray sold for $24,000 and $26,000.
The blank notebooks I spoke to Thomas about went for $9,000.
A kind of ugly rattan chair went for $28,000.
Maybe the funniest was Lot 50, a bunch of seashells and pebbles literal rocks, from the ground.
For rocks from the ground and shells from the sea, an anonymous bidder paid $7,000.
And, of course, the famed packing list from the title essay ofThe White Album.
The popularity of the list annoys me.
She packed like that to give a shot to impose order on a world gone mad.
The auction would indicate Im not alone.
Still, $27,000 for sunglasses.
$7,000 for pebbles.
Can we take the results of this auction to mean people care a lot about literature?
Can we feel comforted that so much money will go to charity?
Or is this a bizarre display of avarice?
Was what they wanted weird or gross?
You own the most intimate and personal piece of her it is possible for a stranger to own.
Its your unique interpretation of her work.
The way it lived in your mind as you read it.
I dont know how a pair of sunglasses can compare to that.
