(no subject)

[pearwaldorf]

Went to go see Junot Diaz at Benaroya tonight. (This is indeed my week of Pretending I Have a Life and Whatnot.) I was disappointed he didn't talk more, because he's kind of shit at reading his own stuff. The pacing was all off, and he can't do voices. I've gotta say, Neil Gaiman has completely spoiled me for that. But he's cool and has obviously thought a lot about Art and Being an Artist without being pretentious about it. I liked how he made no apologies for the Spanish and nerd cant in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (which is a truly fabulous book and you should read it immediately) and pointed out that the point of reading is to be challenged (he said it's partially meant to bring back the experience of learning to read and those gaps in comprehension) and create community around the book, despite reading being a solitary endeavor. I'd never thought of it that way, but it makes sense.

The most interesting question he got was about Oscar (who is a nerd extraordinaire and Dominican) being self-hating because of his love of Tolkien. And then he totally dismantled that shit politely but incontrovertibly by talking about how there's enough in Tolkien's narrative to get past his totally racist descriptions of orcs and Southrons and how the value of a book is created in the reader's head, which just dovetails so nicely with all the stuff in a class I'm taking. So it was cool, and a nice break from bullshit stats homework.

[edit:] SLOG writeup of event, w/book recs from Diaz.