Blog Post 2/24/09

Junot Diaz’s Drown seemed to me a much more approachable, and readable novel than one of our earlier one’s titled Slave Moth. In Drown though I did not see as much interracial issues arising as intra-racial issues did. I felt like most of the terrible things done to the characters seemed to be done by members of their own race, where as in Slave Moth and Another Country the racial issues seemed to be white against black or so on. I could still see how race and stereotypes ruled the outer workings of this book, but I just didn’t see it as a race book that revolved around strife between two races as much as it dealt with the strife of a race with itself. It almost seemed to lack that feeling of racial unity that seems to be such a big part of race novels. Even in Another Country and Drown we had the opportunity to see a race come together to battle a common evil, whereas in this book we got to see a race slight itself in order to satisfy the might “I”. It is something that I have not seen a lot of before.

Diaz’s writing style was also very enjoyable to me. It was very straightforward and left nothing to decipher for yourself. Whether the topic be the tormenting of a child whose face was eaten by a pig, or the chronic infidelity of a Dominican man who lost sight of his own family in search of making it big in America. Diaz uses a vernacular that is consistent with the environments he describes. The intermittent Spanish terminology, the use of slang terms, and just how using these cultural turns-of-phrase can make characters seem that much more relevant to the reader. This use of vernacular was used in Slave Moth as well, but I cannot, as a reader, relate to that the way that I can relate to the slang used throughout Drown. Obviously one cannot write a slave novel in 21^st century slang terms, but I think that it is just easier to build character models when the language used is one that the reader experiences on a day-to-day basis. Language and it’s usage in our lives is just a much a part of culture as the food we eat or the music we listen to. Diaz captures this idea and helps to give the reader a glimpse into a place that many are not aware of. That place is the slums of South America, the gritty ethnic zones of metropolitan areas, and into the minds of people living it because Diaz grew up in this and is able to give the reader an account of this much different environment. The language is what built this story, and the language was the separating factor for many of the characters as they progressed through their story arcs. The language was also just as much an issue for the reader too as he or she has to now slow and immerse themselves in the language of a culture not like their own. Where it isn’t only English being spoken, but Spanish as well, and at times it can be as confusing as reading A Clockwork Orange, but in the end it pays off because you actually feel as if you are now a little more in tune to a culture unlike your own.