(no subject)
If there was ever a book worthy of a Pulitzer fucking Prize it's Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I just finished about 120 seconds ago, and just, damn. I feel really sad now. I feel like it's appropriate that I finished it today. The last book I ever read as a college student, ya know? He has another book that's been out for a while, a series of what I'm assuming are at least semi-autobiographical short stories called Drown. I highly recommend them to ANYONE. As well as any of the other books I mention under the cut.
For those who have read the works of authors like Junot Diaz, Sandra Cisneros, and Nawal El Saadawi the captivating nature of their works are undeniable. But the question then must be posed, what is it about these works that grabs our attention so quickly and resolutely. Between the works I've read by these authors (Drown, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, The House on Mango Street, and Woman At Point Zero) I've always been hooked after just the first few pages. So why is this?
Part of the answer lies in the contrast between these authors (and others like them) and the authors we have been canonized (so to speak). The other part of the answer lies in the contrast between the works by this new wave of writers. Just as black literature was innovative and captivating in the stagnant realm of American literature, we now turn to writers whose experiences happened and characters created in countries other than ours. Our attention and imaginations can only be captured for so long by people who are so alike to us. Granted this is sometimes why we like books when we can find a kindred spirit and make that connection (kind of like how I felt after reading Perks of Being A Wallflower or The House On Boulevard Street). This is why we turn to Diaz and his ilk. At the very least we hope to find an experience we can relate to, but now we want it seasoned with the experiences of someone from the Dominican Republic, or Egypt, or Japan (Takashi Murakami anyone?). One could say we're looking for the spice of life here, but then one might get sidetracked but Herbert and Dune and then we'd end up about 30,000 years in the future on a desert planet suckin' down piss from a worm the size of the Chunnel. But, I digress.
It is the differences between these new works themselves that makes them so distinct rather than the differences between them and those of contemporary American literature. A good leaping off point here would be to look at Drown and The House On Mango Street. Both authors are of Latin American heritage with Diaz being from the Dominican Republic and Cisernos is of Mexican descent. In addition both of the books are written in a format where each "chapter" is a story unto itself, yet is also a part of the overarching story that the book itself is telling. While each book focuses on the troubles immigrants, and their families have in adjusting to city life in America they do so quite differently. The most evident is that Mango Street is narrated by Esperanza, a twelve year old girl, and runs congruently through one year (more or less) of her life. Drown on the other hand is narrated by looking back on the events that happened not just to the main character, but also to others and the stories are more or less told through hearsay and speculation. Interestingly enough, while both have such different types of narration, both narrators suffer from a lack of credibility.
Another important difference is that one story tells the story of a pre-adolescent girl while the other follows a boy growing into a man. This of course sparks back to why we read these. Regardless, we can relate to one book or the other at some level so that is why we read it, and we read the other one because it is something we cannot relate to, something we either are incapable of or will likely never experience. As for looking for that flavor, that spice, these are both coming of age books just like Perks of Being A Wallflower or even the now slightly antiquated Catcher In The Rye. Yet why might these books seem more captivating then those written by someone of similar descent to myself? Because in Drown and Mango Street we see these experiences through a new lens, like switching from black and white to color programming.
An element present in all four of these books (Drown, Oscar Wao, Mango Street, Point Zero) is rape. Yet in each one it is presented differently; in each one we have a different narrator, a different perspective. Whether it be gender, age, or race it doesn't matter, it's still there. In Drown and Oscar Wao, Diaz mentions it as though it's just another color on the palette, just a fact of life (and he makes you believe it). In Mango we get maybe one page, possibly five hundred vague words from our 12 year old narrator, mainly of her blaming her friend for never coming back. With Point Zero it is a core component, as the main character is raped repeatedly by her "husband" before she escapes and flees into a life of prostitution. All three of these authors put a very different face on rape, but none of them ever tries to hide it. So, where does this intersect with our desire for something new? I'm not really sure. I could go to the bookstore and easily pick up a dozen books that revolve around a white girl getting raped (or I could just turn on Lifetime or Oxygen), but for some reason when you read about a Mexican, Dominican, Egyptian, etc. girl getting raped it makes you pay attention. Party of me wishes I knew why, part of me doesn't. Are we more in tune with the suffering of the "other" these days then with that of our own people?
Something else present in all of these is what I can only describe as "the struggle." All of these stories follow children (at least initially) and part of what's so interesting about reading these stories is that we are watching the struggle they must endure and persist through in order to survive, let alone succeed. Much like watching a trout struggle upstream only to mate and die. (Are we naught but trout?) In each story we see this. In Mango the struggle is a microcosm, we see Esperanza realize that writing is a means of escape, and that she must come back for "those she left behind." In Point Zero we watch Firdaus struggle for many things: love, education, feeling, survival, money. Ironically in Point Zero it is only at the end, against death, that she stops struggling. Diaz presents us with the struggle of several characters in each of his books, all of them having to come over different and similar hurdles; the unifying hurdle is most definitely love/relations with the opposite sex. I think this struck me the most in the story/chapter "Aurora" from Drown. Just the way the he convey's his relationship with her so well, and just how fucked up that relationship is, and the fact that he just can't really let it go, that it's so hard for him to say no. That was something that I, and more than likely many others, have identified with. Maybe in the story they see themselves; see themselves with that one girl or guy they can never say no to, they can never get out of their heads. Or maybe they see the other person; maybe they see that one who got away, or that one who kept coming back; maybe they see that one who kept screwing everything up for themselves and in turn for them as well.
So, is this all just a trend? Are we just choking down the same ideas all over again, just fresh out of the shop with a new paint job; out of the kitchen with a new flavor? Or do these authors, and ergo their stories, really have something new to tell us? It's hard to say, perhaps it's something only time can tell us. Or, perhaps it's something we have to decide for ourselves. Maybe we just have to look hard enough to find something new. Maybe we have to find a whole new way to look in order to find it. Regardless, these new authors are cranking some of the best work in this genre that I've seen in years, and at the very least they're here to teach us the age old maxim of "Change or die." They're like a harbinger of doom for the armada of white writers flooding their market with tired ideas and tired images.
For those who have read the works of authors like Junot Diaz, Sandra Cisneros, and Nawal El Saadawi the captivating nature of their works are undeniable. But the question then must be posed, what is it about these works that grabs our attention so quickly and resolutely. Between the works I've read by these authors (Drown, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, The House on Mango Street, and Woman At Point Zero) I've always been hooked after just the first few pages. So why is this?
Part of the answer lies in the contrast between these authors (and others like them) and the authors we have been canonized (so to speak). The other part of the answer lies in the contrast between the works by this new wave of writers. Just as black literature was innovative and captivating in the stagnant realm of American literature, we now turn to writers whose experiences happened and characters created in countries other than ours. Our attention and imaginations can only be captured for so long by people who are so alike to us. Granted this is sometimes why we like books when we can find a kindred spirit and make that connection (kind of like how I felt after reading Perks of Being A Wallflower or The House On Boulevard Street). This is why we turn to Diaz and his ilk. At the very least we hope to find an experience we can relate to, but now we want it seasoned with the experiences of someone from the Dominican Republic, or Egypt, or Japan (Takashi Murakami anyone?). One could say we're looking for the spice of life here, but then one might get sidetracked but Herbert and Dune and then we'd end up about 30,000 years in the future on a desert planet suckin' down piss from a worm the size of the Chunnel. But, I digress.
It is the differences between these new works themselves that makes them so distinct rather than the differences between them and those of contemporary American literature. A good leaping off point here would be to look at Drown and The House On Mango Street. Both authors are of Latin American heritage with Diaz being from the Dominican Republic and Cisernos is of Mexican descent. In addition both of the books are written in a format where each "chapter" is a story unto itself, yet is also a part of the overarching story that the book itself is telling. While each book focuses on the troubles immigrants, and their families have in adjusting to city life in America they do so quite differently. The most evident is that Mango Street is narrated by Esperanza, a twelve year old girl, and runs congruently through one year (more or less) of her life. Drown on the other hand is narrated by looking back on the events that happened not just to the main character, but also to others and the stories are more or less told through hearsay and speculation. Interestingly enough, while both have such different types of narration, both narrators suffer from a lack of credibility.
Another important difference is that one story tells the story of a pre-adolescent girl while the other follows a boy growing into a man. This of course sparks back to why we read these. Regardless, we can relate to one book or the other at some level so that is why we read it, and we read the other one because it is something we cannot relate to, something we either are incapable of or will likely never experience. As for looking for that flavor, that spice, these are both coming of age books just like Perks of Being A Wallflower or even the now slightly antiquated Catcher In The Rye. Yet why might these books seem more captivating then those written by someone of similar descent to myself? Because in Drown and Mango Street we see these experiences through a new lens, like switching from black and white to color programming.
An element present in all four of these books (Drown, Oscar Wao, Mango Street, Point Zero) is rape. Yet in each one it is presented differently; in each one we have a different narrator, a different perspective. Whether it be gender, age, or race it doesn't matter, it's still there. In Drown and Oscar Wao, Diaz mentions it as though it's just another color on the palette, just a fact of life (and he makes you believe it). In Mango we get maybe one page, possibly five hundred vague words from our 12 year old narrator, mainly of her blaming her friend for never coming back. With Point Zero it is a core component, as the main character is raped repeatedly by her "husband" before she escapes and flees into a life of prostitution. All three of these authors put a very different face on rape, but none of them ever tries to hide it. So, where does this intersect with our desire for something new? I'm not really sure. I could go to the bookstore and easily pick up a dozen books that revolve around a white girl getting raped (or I could just turn on Lifetime or Oxygen), but for some reason when you read about a Mexican, Dominican, Egyptian, etc. girl getting raped it makes you pay attention. Party of me wishes I knew why, part of me doesn't. Are we more in tune with the suffering of the "other" these days then with that of our own people?
Something else present in all of these is what I can only describe as "the struggle." All of these stories follow children (at least initially) and part of what's so interesting about reading these stories is that we are watching the struggle they must endure and persist through in order to survive, let alone succeed. Much like watching a trout struggle upstream only to mate and die. (Are we naught but trout?) In each story we see this. In Mango the struggle is a microcosm, we see Esperanza realize that writing is a means of escape, and that she must come back for "those she left behind." In Point Zero we watch Firdaus struggle for many things: love, education, feeling, survival, money. Ironically in Point Zero it is only at the end, against death, that she stops struggling. Diaz presents us with the struggle of several characters in each of his books, all of them having to come over different and similar hurdles; the unifying hurdle is most definitely love/relations with the opposite sex. I think this struck me the most in the story/chapter "Aurora" from Drown. Just the way the he convey's his relationship with her so well, and just how fucked up that relationship is, and the fact that he just can't really let it go, that it's so hard for him to say no. That was something that I, and more than likely many others, have identified with. Maybe in the story they see themselves; see themselves with that one girl or guy they can never say no to, they can never get out of their heads. Or maybe they see the other person; maybe they see that one who got away, or that one who kept coming back; maybe they see that one who kept screwing everything up for themselves and in turn for them as well.
So, is this all just a trend? Are we just choking down the same ideas all over again, just fresh out of the shop with a new paint job; out of the kitchen with a new flavor? Or do these authors, and ergo their stories, really have something new to tell us? It's hard to say, perhaps it's something only time can tell us. Or, perhaps it's something we have to decide for ourselves. Maybe we just have to look hard enough to find something new. Maybe we have to find a whole new way to look in order to find it. Regardless, these new authors are cranking some of the best work in this genre that I've seen in years, and at the very least they're here to teach us the age old maxim of "Change or die." They're like a harbinger of doom for the armada of white writers flooding their market with tired ideas and tired images.