March 02, 2005

Reading Recap: Junot Diaz in Los Angeles

Yesterday I asked readers who planned to attend Junot Diaz's reading in Los Angeles to write in with their thoughts, and received two full reports, one from Alicia Gifford and the other from Ibarionex Perello. Here is Alicia's take on the event, followed by Ibarionex's.

I braved downtown Los Angeles (I lose all sense of direction there) for the opportunity to hear Junot Diaz at the Cal Arts Redcat Theater housed in the amazing Disney Concert Hall where there was a nice turnout of what I suppose were mainly Cal Arts students (young, shiny faced, earnest).

Diaz read an abbreviated version of his short story "The Sun, the Moon, the Stars" about a young Dominican man (Yunior) whose sabotage of his relationship with his girlfriend is inevitable; and then, he read from his novel-in-progress (he didn't give a title) about a 15 year old pregnant girl whose boyfriend is a 40 year old gangsta set in 1961 in the Dominican Republic, immediately before dictator Rafael Trujillo is assassinated. He read a scene where Belizia, the girl, is severely beaten in a cane field and loses the child she's carrying. The narration refers to the future when she will have two more children, Oscar and Lola. Oscar! The very same hero of his glorious novella, "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao"! So Belizia is Oscar's mother, and the novel is a prequel?

Aimee Bender sat down with Junot afterwards for the post-reading chat. Her first question was about a quote in an Other Voices interview where he says that he has a weird space in his mind where stories take the form of radical geometries instead of words and sentences, to which Junot replied something about the stupid shit you say that comes back to haunt you. He went on to talk about the negative space of writing, how he’s drawn to what shouldn’t be said. He said that what’s NOT on the page is most important, where topics appear as absences. If this sounds vague to you, you are not alone. He did give an example where men of color (Dominican cats) derive prestige from dating light-skinned women. No one acknowledges it, and this is what he’s drawn to explore in his writing—the unspoken. The culture of shame. He said silences are tracked by looking for the shame.

Aimee asked if there was any One Story he used as a prototype and he said he’s tried to rip off (has been inspired by) the structure in Stuart Dybek’s “Blight”.

He said 3rd person “received” tense works to fuck up writers of color, that it’s white and cold, and always sounds “really fucking stuffy.” He said urban English is invested with enough authority. Junot passionately identifies with being a writer of color, but the main gist of this seems to be expressed in his writing by the voice he uses: the mixing of Spanish and jive (no one does it better, yeah?) and his fuck-the-rules ‘tude. He said unintelligibility is a function of language; that in real life, a lot that goes on is unintelligible, and that the part the reader doesn’t get is therefore, true to life. Dude, yo, does that make Pootie Tang smack of verisimilitude? In case you aren’t familiar with this zany cinematic offering, Pootie is a superhero (of color) who spouts gibberish (sa da tay!) throughout the movie as he dodges bullets and battles evil Corporate America. You may not know what he says, but you know what he means (sine your pitty on the runnikine).

I’d brought my ragged New Yorker (with “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” in it) and my copy of Drown for him to sign, but he was besieged after the chat stopped, my head hurt, it was 10:30 and I had to go find the freeway.

And now here is Ibarionex's take:
Of, course Junot rocked the house. He read excerpts from the piece he read at [the VONA Workshop], "The Sun, The Moon, The Stars". He also read from the novel, "A Cheater’s Guide to Love" that he has been working on for several years now. From what I heard last night, once he’s finished it and gets it in the hands of the publisher, it's going to be amazing. I don't know what the delay is, but whatever it is, it has nothing to do with the man’s skills. He’s got game.

One of the most interesting things he talked about is the issue of voice in his work, particularly when something is written from the third person. Forgive me if I don't remember his exact words, but I will try my best to paraphrase it.

He made the point that much of what is written in the 3rd person assumes a voice that is distant and authoritative, that often lacks any emotional resonance to the story being told. He felt that that was often to the disservice of many of the stories. He finds that the voice, at least in the one used in his novel (and probably many of his stories) is a voice that embodies many of the qualities that are normally assumed by 1st person narratives, which include the common use of language, including the use of slang.

He says so many "voices" assume this Masterpiece Theatre tone, which seems to be accepted universally, but may not be appropriate for all stories. This could be the case with stories that occur in a more contemporary urban setting, but that nevertheless utilize the voice of a "authoritative" narrator that might not necessarily establish any sort of "connection" to the story being told. I hope that I'm getting that right for the most part.

It was amazing for me to become aware of this. I realize that often times in my life when people are telling stories of people in their lives (particularly when they are good storytellers), their "voice" becomes as big a part of the story as the story itself. And even with their use of current vernacular and humor, they add exciting elements to a story, which, with most literature today would be considered bad form. It's as if any of these elements are incorporated into the voice of the narrator, his or her voice loses some of its authority, which when you think about it seems a bit whacked. It's like if you don't use the "King's English", readers are going to question their trust of the narrator and the story.

That’s an amazing idea to chew on not only in my work, but also in much of the material that I'm reading.

Anyway, I hope I didn't make a mess in interpreting what Junot said. At least that’s what I came from the event with, making the few hours of sleep I got last night well worth the price of attending. It reminded me that his insight and words last summer, helped push my own work to another level, making me willing to take far more risks.

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