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.

Post #1 - My concerns with Slave Moth

I felt that the premise of this book seemed to call back to other such slave novels such as Toni Morrison’s Beloved sans all the mysticism and over the top violence. The main plot of this book I felt was wonderful, but not as accessible as I would have liked.

The layout of the paragraphs and how it was written in verse form seemed to hinder the movement of the story. This seemed to be a very original idea, but for me just lead me down a path of utter confusion when trying to decipher who was talking to whom about what, and what was going on in the story all together. I understand that as a writer you are looking for a way to re-invent the wheel, but this “verse” form seemed to draw more attention to the idea of trying to comprehend what was going on than it was to the main ideas moving the story ahead.

I understand that it could be considered that this was done for a reason, maybe to give the reader an idea of the importance of every word in the book much as every word on Varl’s “cocoon” was of a certain importance. This being stated it seems as if the author really took a long road to get to where she was going. Nevertheless, while reading this I found myself struggling, as some of the characters in the story, to understand and to follow what was going on not only on with the characters themselves, but with the relationships they had with each other. Just when I would begin to think that I had it figured out Varl would talk to Ralls Janet and my whole understanding would be blown away.

Maybe I am spiteful and unwilling to accept this form because I am not a fan of poetry and that I automatically denounce anything that seemingly stems from a poetic basis, but I really liked the idea of the book. I instantly was able to view the characters in a sense that I felt the author intended. The use of a vernacular that encompassed what I would assume to be the vernacular of an educated slave during that time also helped to make the story easier at some points and down-right confusing during others. I tend to forget that many of the expressions used by Varl have meanings that have been lost in time and now do not make much sense.

All in all the readings to this point have been fine, Drown is already surpassed Slave Moth in my mind, but I just do not know why the verse form was chosen as the form for this book. Again, I feel as if it would have been much more approachable in standard form, but then again I do have a bias against poetry. Who knows, maybe if I were more of a poetic soul, I would have something different to say about Slave Moth.