Junot Díaz - The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao

a very affecting read. feel like I've had the wind knocked out of me

^^

just reread This is How You Lose Her, it certainly reads differently after this article, it always seemed autobiographical but it's like there's this dark elipsis so much clearer now

It's a thorny topic, but heard some rumbling from writers who felt that the essay was a way of getting out in front of possible accusations from women he's treated poorly

I've been thinking something similar, although it may seem a cynical way of considering whether the explanatory potential of the sexual assault in relation to his later actions is overplayed

TiHYLH is plenty apologetic as it is, gets quite close to conveying a similar idea in Miss Lora, the story of Yunior's affair with an older woman:

It takes a long time to get over it. To get used to a life without a Secret. Even after it’s behind you and you’ve blocked her completely, you’re still afraid you’ll slip back to it. At Rutgers, where you’ve finally landed, you date like crazy, and every time it doesn’t work out you’re convinced that you have trouble with girls your own age. Because of her.

You certainly never talk about it. Until senior year, when you meet the mujerón of your dreams, the one who leaves her moreno boyfriend to date you, who drives all your little chickies out of the coop. She’s the one you finally trust. The one you finally tell.

It's a thorny topic, but heard some rumbling from writers who felt that the essay was a way of getting out in front of possible accusations from women he's treated poorly

― change display name (Jordan), Wednesday, May 2, 2018 5:12 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i didn't make this connection but he's definitely got something coming for him if his short stories are as autobiographical as they seem...

My twitter timeline is acting weird about him, anyone know what has happened?

There were a couple of good pieces written right after about how it's very important that he opened up about his trauma as a child but he harmed so many brown and black women who were trying to love and help him. So again, women become wounded, one dimensional footnotes on a man's journey to betterment.

xpost Oh, yeah I see he was finally, specifically called out.

As a grad student, I invited Junot Diaz to speak to a workshop on issues of representation in literature. I was an unknown wide-eyed 26 yo, and he used it as an opportunity to corner and forcibly kiss me. I'm far from the only one he's done this 2, I refuse to be silent anymore.

— zinziclemmons (@zinziclemmons) May 4, 2018

...and many others that followed this

i wish the dialogue around all this shit wasn't so one-dimensional. i need to get off twitter. it just makes me hate people

it's p obvious he's a major creep imo

The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao is an extremely horny book

like def that kind of "literature" book written by a man where there's tons of sex stuff in there that seems extraneous but the writer obv really enjoyed writing it. which is not to besmirch libidinal motivations in art in general but like, yeah, it's notable

eh i love the horniness of oscar wao. creepy vibe is more from his countless short stories about womanizing professors of creative writing at colleges in Boston. i guess the sister's boyfriend character in oscar wao is sort of close to that

yeah that's what i was thinking about

There's nothing wrong with the creepiness or the raunch or the excess, as long as you're willing to overlook the occasional weapons-grade misogyny - which I was perfectly happy to do when I read Oscar Wao as a younger, much less empathetic reader ten years ago - I couldn't do that now. Also, TIHYLH was a snooze and it didn't make me want to revisit his work.

haven't read it for so long i thought the misogyny was the narrator who was the sister's boyfriend and was partly expressed through the "raunch"? maybe i should just admit to myself that i can't remember anything

This thread is pretty messed up

During his tour for THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE HER, Junot Díaz did a Q&A at the grad program I'd just graduated from. When I made the mistake of asking him a question about his protagonist's unhealthy, pathological relationship with women, he went off for me for twenty minutes. https://t.co/7wuQOarBIJ

— Carmen Maria Machado (@carmenmmachado) May 4, 2018

I'm definitely someone who assumed there was some critical distance between Díaz and his characters, but looks like that really i any the case. Even more surprised because he is so outspoken politically.

*really isn't the case

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-junot-diaz-zinzi-clemmons-metoo-20180504-story.html?outputType=amp&__twitter_impression=true

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/11/06/the-ghosts-of-gloria-lara-fiction-junot-diaz

new story out in last week’s new yorker — I assume it’s yunior and his family, though there aren’t a lot of names. it’s just ok imo