This is How You Lose Her

I started this book about a decade ago in a Half Price Books and thought it was time to finally finish it. Though it was very nostalgic read for that reason, it was also a strange read because I cannot imagine such a sexist book being as popular of a release today. I know bad characters don't always equate to a bad worldview, but plain awareness isn't enough to justify being a shitty person, especially when you attribute awfulness to heredities and the book itself seems so autofictitious. Beyond, but not excluding or excusing, all that, the book just made me feel bad and I didn't very much enjoy reading it.

Stole this from my mom, and read it in 24 hours heading back across the country. I'm not sure why I love Yunior's voice so much, but I do. I first read a bunch of these in The New Yorker, but they were a pleasure to re-read. “The half-life of love is forever”...

The whole book felt completely fresh and surprising, and even a day after finishing I'm still feeling hopped up on it. It's an unabashedly hetero-masculine point of view, in a way that specifically excludes women from identifying with it. This sounds negative but that's not at all how I (as a woman) experienced the book; rather, it was eye-opening and exhilarating and, well, fresh and surprising.

There were a lot of slang words, which I had to look up. There were a lot of Spanish words, which I had to look up. There were a lot of $50 Harvard words, which I had to look up. This mix of street/Latino/highbrow made the book vivid and vibrant.

Highly recommend.

Junot Díaz may have put himself into a corner. In 1996, the author penned Drown, a collection of short stories about the Dominican immigrant experience, as told through the perspective of one Yunior de Las Casas. Eleven years later, Díaz produced his debut novel, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, a story about Oscar Wao told from the perspective of the same Yunior. This was Díaz's breakthrough, the book that brought him to the attention of many. Now Díaz has put out another book, This Is How You Lose Her—not surprisingly filled with more Yunior. Thing is, Yunior's quite an asshole. He's fun to hate and as long as you don't associate him with the author, it's easy to see this Yunior as a figure meant to illuminate the flaws of the character and stand as a rally cry against the machimso. Problem is, word has gotten around that Yunior is semi-autobiographical. What does this mean about the author? Is he this big of a jerk? Several articles that can be found on the Internet seem to say “no,” but this won't stop some readers from saying “yes.” It's difficult to know what to belief, and probably should be irrelevant, but some readers are going to associate Díaz with his favorite creation. But even without having been identified with Yunior, Díaz may have put himself in a tight spot. Three out of three well-known works, all with similar themes, all featuring the voice of Yunior. And now Díaz wants to write an epic science-fiction novel. In regards to talent, I believe he can do it, but will his readers follow him? What is the term for authors who “typecast” themselves?

Yunior perhaps shows some hope of redemption in This Is How You Lose Her. He at least seems to be mildly aware of his faults. And this, in my opinion, is what makes this Díaz's most mature book yet. I enjoyed Drown, but its scope was broader and Díaz was, after all, a young writer. ...Oscar Wao was good, but it failed to completely engage me. This one, however, was more mature, better written, and so clearly focused that I couldn't help but enjoy it despite Yunior.

I hope to attend a talk Díaz gives next week, and it is then I hope to get a clearer sense of who Díaz is. It doesn't matter much—the man can write and that's what should count—but I think if I can disassociate Díaz from Yunior, I will be able to enjoy his work at a deeper level. And if I can sever the association of Junot and Yunior, I think it will make the next journey with Díaz a smoother one, whether it be the far reaches of space, or the streets of New Jersey.

The experience is 4/5, but I can't really judge the lasting merit. It's unlike most of my other reads, and full of extremes: punchy but distant, matter-of-fact but kind of an extended bildungsroman, full of Diaz's deference to the task of writing ‘women' but somewhat constructing that by plot and character, and only occasionally explicitly talking role.

cries

I was going to go on about how Yunior is such a unique and distinctive voice until every review I read talked exactly about how unique and distinctive his voice is.

So instead I will say that I love these veiled, semi-autobiographical memoirs. Maybe talking about oneself frees the author to really flex some narrative muscle. I'm thinking of Michael Ondaatje's Running the Family - still one of my favorites.

Diaz can leave you spinning in the wake of his ever changing narrative voice though. Chapters jump from first to third to tangential characters. But through it all it's a compelling read on the manifestations and muddling of love.

Yunior is a misogynist cheater. Incapable of monogamy and hair rending, teeth gnashing full of remorse when it all becomes uncovered. In less deft hands it would be unreadable but it's rendered so clearly it rings true. You probably know people like this.

There's something beautiful about the way the author strings words together into stories of love, heartbreak, infidelity and sex. The nine stories tell very different tales, but share the same theme. There are some lines in the book written in Spanish, and thankfully reading it on a Kindle and using the translation feature helps.