Junot Díaz - The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao

I loved this book, and precisely for that reason - that Junot didn't bother to pander to non-nerds, non-Spanish-speakers. It feels very true. Plus, I love in Washington Heights, so even if it wasn't geographically perfect, it felt very much about this community.

But yeah, I agree that there's something more essential about comics here than in Fortress of Solitude or Chabon -- tho maybe that's because it's not so much about the comics themselves but about this kid that reads them. While Fortress is about both.

I liked this book, while finding it a bit disappointing (the more the story stayed away from Oscar himself, the less interesting I found it). What was interesting was that I found myself wondering just how much sense it would make to people who had grown up on comics and SF/fantasy novels and movies--I imagine it reads to them the way other people using sporting metaphors sound to me.

Met him a couple months ago. Seemed like a nice guy.

I was kind've surprised by how, well, compressed it was - even with the Oscar (or Yunior) parts, it'd skip through time pretty rapidly and without too much warning. Not being from the Americas, I'm k-rusty on Haiti & the DR, so the non-NY sections were pretty compelling - reminded me a bit of some Russian writers I like.

i found the opposite of someone above, that the 'family-saga-for-people-who-don't-read-family-sagas' bits were more interesting than oscar himself by the end ...

there was an IL(E? B? C?) thread a while ago about the room for a new aesthetic where people could suddenly be all SERIOUS about their childhood affection for comics and not be mocked for it, it's all cultural literacy y'know, it's not that they need to grow up, etc - i think that stuff applies a great deal to this book, probably more than whatever book that thread was actually arguing about, i forget

i found the opposite of someone above, that the 'family-saga-for-people-who-don't-read-family-sagas' bits were more interesting than oscar himself by the end

I thought I would too, but they seemed to drag on a bit repetitively and in the end I just wanted to find out what would bring about the implied 'end' of Oscar.

about halfway through and just read the passage where he compares Beli's surviving a DR secret police beat down to Superman in DKR. REALLY enjoying Diaz's use of language. Have been reading Richard Price and translated Swedish detective novels all summer, so am perhaps extra sensitive to an engaging narrator.

Big Diaz blurb on the back of 'Pluto'

OTM: reminded me a bit of some Russian writers I like

my wife: It was okay. I guess I just didn't connect with the voice the same way you did.
me: was it all the comic references?
my wife: that, and the spanish. I feel like I missed some big stuff because I don't know any Spanish.
me: do you want me to tell you who Darkseid is and why he's awesome?

In Spanish, please.

hahah

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2011/06/what-im-reading-this-summer-junot-daz.html#entry-more

http://www.npr.org/2012/08/30/160324187/guest-dj-pulitzer-prize-winning-author-junot-diaz

― fauxmarc, Tuesday, September 11, 2012 2:21 PM (6 days ago)

(from the Le1f thread!)

DJ Pulitzer Prize Winning Author Junot Diaz would be a good DJ name

this is just so enjoyable, http://www.grubstreet.com/2013/08/junot-diaz-grub-street-diet.html

Can you enjoy this book if you only have basic conversational Spanish?

Yes. You don't actaully need to know any Spanish at all

met him last weekend and he's like the nicest guy ever! also his girlfriend writes for x-men. And she is also nice.

just gave it to my sister who has never read a single comic book, has no point of reference for the geek refs but she absolutely loved it and promptly moved on to Drown which did not move her as much

think for her part ofit was all the resonances she felt (as did i when first reading it) between the dominican republic horrors and our experience of growing up under the Derg in Ethiopia

A grim read:

I was raped when I was eight years old. By a grownup that I truly trusted.

After he raped me, he told me I had to return the next day or I would be “in trouble.”

And because I was terrified, and confused, I went back the next day and was raped again.

I never told anyone what happened, but today I’m telling you.

And anyone else who cares to listen.

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