Junot Diaz: "This is How You Lose Her"
I almost shouted, What is your fucking problem! But I didn't. I ended up hugging and babying her and asking her what was wrong. She cried for a long time and then after a silence started talking. By then the lights had flickered back on. Turned out she didn't want to travel around like a hobo. I thought we'd be on a beach, she said. (This is a bad-faith relationship. Yunior has cheated. Magda has consented to take him back--partly so she can score for herself a free trip to the Dominican Republic. She half-understands that she is going to leave him, and that she is using him for a vacation. This hypocrisy is the source of much of the story's humor. People do not say what they wish to say. "WHAT IS YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM?" becomes "Here, Baby. Here. It's OK." The story has a killer ending--highlighting the emptiness, the foolishness, of certain words. Magda has gone off to a club, perhaps to meet another gentleman, and when Yunior finds her, things are clearly, emphatically over. The relationship is over. But the terminus is not what you would expect; here is what a terminus looks like, and see if you don't cringe with self-recognition. "When I returned to the bungalow that night, Magda was waiting up for me. Was packed, looked like she'd been bawling. I'm going home tomorrow, she said. I sat down next to her. Took her hand. This can work, I said. All we have to do is try." But "trying" generally doesn't suffice, in matters of love, and God has plans for us that differ from our own hopes and dreams. This is a theme of Diaz's writing--the way characters ridiculously insist on refusing to read the writing on the wall. Nearly every story has a protagonist writing about his adulterous adventures in a journal; the girlfriend finds the journal; the girlfriend evicts the protagonist. This set-up seems to be a metaphor for the human condition--the way in which we are all divided against ourselves, the way we all manage to sabotage ourselves. "Both ways is the only way I want it." To try to be friendly with two warring camps--and to lose your ties to both camps in the process. People never compare Junot Diaz to Lorrie Moore, but that's what I think of every time I read Diaz. The way both writers seem to have invented a language. The way neither cares very much about conventional plotting; the way both pay close attention to human foibles, and to dark humor. Moore's first "novel"--"Anagrams"--took two characters and put them in meta-situations. Their roles shifted so abruptly, so ostentatiously, that we came to understand we weren't reading a conventional, linear narrative. Moore didn't care whether we believed X followed Y, and character A carried certain Act One wounds all the way through Act Three. She seemed to say, loudly: Look, there's artifice here. And get used to it. My stories are going to work in ways that other stories don't work. That's what it means to "be new." It seems to me that Moore and Diaz would have a good deal to say to each other.)
We're going to be on a beach. The day after tomorrow.
Can't we go now?
What could I do? She was in her underwear, waiting for me to say something. So what jumped out of my mouth? Baby, we'll do whatever you want. I called the hotel in La Romana, asked if we could come early, and the next morning I put us on an express guagua to the capital and then a second one to La Romana. I didn't say a fucking word to her and she didn't say nothing to me. She seemed tired and watched the world outside like maybe she was expecting it to speak to her.
By the middle of Day 3 of our All-Quisqueya Redemption Tour we were in an air-conditioned bungalow watching HBO. Exactly where I want to be when I'm in Santo Domingo. In a fucking resort. Magda was reading a book by a Trappist, in a better mood, I guessed, and I was sitting on the edge of the bed, fingering my useless map. (The finger plays with the map, because it can't play with the vagina.) I was thinking, For this I deserve something nice. Something physical. Me and Magda were pretty damn casual about sex, but since the breakup shit has gotten weird. First of all, it ain't regular like before. I'm lucky to score some once a week. I have to nudge her, start things up, or we won't fuck at all. And she plays like she doesn't want it, and sometimes she doesn't and then I have to cool it, but other times she does want it and I have to touch her pussy, which is my way of initiating things, of saying, So, how about we kick it, mami? And she'll turn her head, which is her way of saying, I'm too proud to acquiesce openly to your animal desires, but if you continue to put your finger in me I won't stop you. (Such a killer line. Magda is almost as ridiculous as Yunior, and the story's greatness grows out of its recognition of that fact. There's the comic ugliness of the transaction here: "I bought you a resort stay; I deserve sex." And then the subtext of the turned head: "I'm too much of a princess to look at the thing your finger is doing, but I'm also a kind person, so, out of generosity, I'll allow you to continue to abase yourself in my presence." The face conveys one thing; the lower regions of the body convey something else entirely. Once again, the soul is at war with itself.)
Today we started no problem, but then halfway through she said, Wait, we shouldn't.
I wanted to know why.
She closed her eyes like she was embarrassed at herself. Forget about it, she said, moving her hips under me. Just forget about it. (Beautiful use of subtext. "Forget about it" in fact means "Know that I am going to leave you very soon; and carry this knowledge with you wherever you go." Later, Magda will execute an A+ passive-aggressive move. 'She pulls on these super-tight gold lamé pants and a matching halter that shows off her belly ring. Her hair is shiny and as dark as night. We both end up in front of the mirror. I'm in slacks and a wrinkled chacabana. She's applying her lipstick; I've always believed that the universe invented the color red solely for Latinas. "We look good," she says. It's true. My optimism is starting to come back. I'm thinking, This is the night for reconciliation. I put my arms around her , but she drops her bomb without blinking a fucking eye: tonight, she says, she needs space. My arms drop. "I knew you'd be pissed," she says. "I didn't want to come here. You made me."' I love, love, love these lines because I so thoroughly loathe Magda's behavior--and so easily recognize traces of it within myself. She gets Yunior's expectations up--he's seeing stars!--then half-reveals (not fully, because she is a coward) that she actually wants to show her red dress to another man. When Yunior is understandably pissed, she doesn't apologize or make an effort to speak truthfully; she says, "I knew you'd be pissed," as if implying that the problem is Yunior's, then claims she is here against her will. I love Diaz for articulating the complicated dance that young people do with one another; language becomes a code, and affection, aggression, and hatred trade off--tag team, in, out, in, out. All of this happens without even three or four sentences of candid, truth-telling conversation. I'm reminded of Lena Dunham's "Girls"--the way in which characters insist on being strangers to one another, and to themselves. We can recognize our own silly mishaps in Diaz's writing, and then we can feel less alone. And then, also, all the unrepentant, giddy vulgarity: "she moved her hips under me," "I can remember the first time I kissed her curls, asking her, WHERE ARE THE STARS? And she said, THEY'RE A LITTLE LOWER, PAPI." Why can't all writing be this fun?)
And then: A nomination for the Wonderful, Dirty Paragraph Hall of Fame, from another Diaz story:
Both your father and your brother were sucios. Shit, your father used to take you on his pussy runs, leave you in the car while he ran up into cribs to bone his girlfriends. Your brother was no better, boning girls in the bed next to yours. Sucios of the worst kind and now it's official: you are one, too. You had hoped the gene missed you, skipped a generation, but clearly you were kidding yourself. The blood always shows, you say to Paloma on the ride to school next day. Yunior, she stirs from her doze, I don't have time for your craziness, OK?
So inspired by this guy. The way characters carry heavy weights, and try to share their insights with one another; the way people shut one another out. The loneliness and fear--and the humor that hums along under all the tragedy. I picked up "This Is How You Lose Her" (perfect, laconic title) this week when I could not talk myself into an interest in the recent biography of Montaigne. (Sorry, Bruce Springsteen. You recommended this bio in the NYT, but I can't see what you saw--there.) My advice: Skip the Sarah Bakewell, go for the Junot Diaz. Go for the Diaz every time. He hasn't published a book in half a decade, and evidence suggests that the next effort will be a picture book. Fine. But, Mr. Diaz, I wish that you could be a bit more like Stephen King. I'd love to see another adult novel before 2020. In the words of one artist to another, in a recent Twitter post I saw: YOU BETTA SING.
I almost shouted, What is your fucking problem! But I didn't. I ended up hugging and babying her and asking her what was wrong. She cried for a long time and then after a silence started talking. By then the lights had flickered back on. Turned out she didn't want to travel around like a hobo. I thought we'd be on a beach, she said. (This is a bad-faith relationship. Yunior has cheated. Magda has consented to take him back--partly so she can score for herself a free trip to the Dominican Republic. She half-understands that she is going to leave him, and that she is using him for a vacation. This hypocrisy is the source of much of the story's humor. People do not say what they wish to say. "WHAT IS YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM?" becomes "Here, Baby. Here. It's OK." The story has a killer ending--highlighting the emptiness, the foolishness, of certain words. Magda has gone off to a club, perhaps to meet another gentleman, and when Yunior finds her, things are clearly, emphatically over. The relationship is over. But the terminus is not what you would expect; here is what a terminus looks like, and see if you don't cringe with self-recognition. "When I returned to the bungalow that night, Magda was waiting up for me. Was packed, looked like she'd been bawling. I'm going home tomorrow, she said. I sat down next to her. Took her hand. This can work, I said. All we have to do is try." But "trying" generally doesn't suffice, in matters of love, and God has plans for us that differ from our own hopes and dreams. This is a theme of Diaz's writing--the way characters ridiculously insist on refusing to read the writing on the wall. Nearly every story has a protagonist writing about his adulterous adventures in a journal; the girlfriend finds the journal; the girlfriend evicts the protagonist. This set-up seems to be a metaphor for the human condition--the way in which we are all divided against ourselves, the way we all manage to sabotage ourselves. "Both ways is the only way I want it." To try to be friendly with two warring camps--and to lose your ties to both camps in the process. People never compare Junot Diaz to Lorrie Moore, but that's what I think of every time I read Diaz. The way both writers seem to have invented a language. The way neither cares very much about conventional plotting; the way both pay close attention to human foibles, and to dark humor. Moore's first "novel"--"Anagrams"--took two characters and put them in meta-situations. Their roles shifted so abruptly, so ostentatiously, that we came to understand we weren't reading a conventional, linear narrative. Moore didn't care whether we believed X followed Y, and character A carried certain Act One wounds all the way through Act Three. She seemed to say, loudly: Look, there's artifice here. And get used to it. My stories are going to work in ways that other stories don't work. That's what it means to "be new." It seems to me that Moore and Diaz would have a good deal to say to each other.)
We're going to be on a beach. The day after tomorrow.
Can't we go now?
What could I do? She was in her underwear, waiting for me to say something. So what jumped out of my mouth? Baby, we'll do whatever you want. I called the hotel in La Romana, asked if we could come early, and the next morning I put us on an express guagua to the capital and then a second one to La Romana. I didn't say a fucking word to her and she didn't say nothing to me. She seemed tired and watched the world outside like maybe she was expecting it to speak to her.
By the middle of Day 3 of our All-Quisqueya Redemption Tour we were in an air-conditioned bungalow watching HBO. Exactly where I want to be when I'm in Santo Domingo. In a fucking resort. Magda was reading a book by a Trappist, in a better mood, I guessed, and I was sitting on the edge of the bed, fingering my useless map. (The finger plays with the map, because it can't play with the vagina.) I was thinking, For this I deserve something nice. Something physical. Me and Magda were pretty damn casual about sex, but since the breakup shit has gotten weird. First of all, it ain't regular like before. I'm lucky to score some once a week. I have to nudge her, start things up, or we won't fuck at all. And she plays like she doesn't want it, and sometimes she doesn't and then I have to cool it, but other times she does want it and I have to touch her pussy, which is my way of initiating things, of saying, So, how about we kick it, mami? And she'll turn her head, which is her way of saying, I'm too proud to acquiesce openly to your animal desires, but if you continue to put your finger in me I won't stop you. (Such a killer line. Magda is almost as ridiculous as Yunior, and the story's greatness grows out of its recognition of that fact. There's the comic ugliness of the transaction here: "I bought you a resort stay; I deserve sex." And then the subtext of the turned head: "I'm too much of a princess to look at the thing your finger is doing, but I'm also a kind person, so, out of generosity, I'll allow you to continue to abase yourself in my presence." The face conveys one thing; the lower regions of the body convey something else entirely. Once again, the soul is at war with itself.)
Today we started no problem, but then halfway through she said, Wait, we shouldn't.
I wanted to know why.
She closed her eyes like she was embarrassed at herself. Forget about it, she said, moving her hips under me. Just forget about it. (Beautiful use of subtext. "Forget about it" in fact means "Know that I am going to leave you very soon; and carry this knowledge with you wherever you go." Later, Magda will execute an A+ passive-aggressive move. 'She pulls on these super-tight gold lamé pants and a matching halter that shows off her belly ring. Her hair is shiny and as dark as night. We both end up in front of the mirror. I'm in slacks and a wrinkled chacabana. She's applying her lipstick; I've always believed that the universe invented the color red solely for Latinas. "We look good," she says. It's true. My optimism is starting to come back. I'm thinking, This is the night for reconciliation. I put my arms around her , but she drops her bomb without blinking a fucking eye: tonight, she says, she needs space. My arms drop. "I knew you'd be pissed," she says. "I didn't want to come here. You made me."' I love, love, love these lines because I so thoroughly loathe Magda's behavior--and so easily recognize traces of it within myself. She gets Yunior's expectations up--he's seeing stars!--then half-reveals (not fully, because she is a coward) that she actually wants to show her red dress to another man. When Yunior is understandably pissed, she doesn't apologize or make an effort to speak truthfully; she says, "I knew you'd be pissed," as if implying that the problem is Yunior's, then claims she is here against her will. I love Diaz for articulating the complicated dance that young people do with one another; language becomes a code, and affection, aggression, and hatred trade off--tag team, in, out, in, out. All of this happens without even three or four sentences of candid, truth-telling conversation. I'm reminded of Lena Dunham's "Girls"--the way in which characters insist on being strangers to one another, and to themselves. We can recognize our own silly mishaps in Diaz's writing, and then we can feel less alone. And then, also, all the unrepentant, giddy vulgarity: "she moved her hips under me," "I can remember the first time I kissed her curls, asking her, WHERE ARE THE STARS? And she said, THEY'RE A LITTLE LOWER, PAPI." Why can't all writing be this fun?)
And then: A nomination for the Wonderful, Dirty Paragraph Hall of Fame, from another Diaz story:
Both your father and your brother were sucios. Shit, your father used to take you on his pussy runs, leave you in the car while he ran up into cribs to bone his girlfriends. Your brother was no better, boning girls in the bed next to yours. Sucios of the worst kind and now it's official: you are one, too. You had hoped the gene missed you, skipped a generation, but clearly you were kidding yourself. The blood always shows, you say to Paloma on the ride to school next day. Yunior, she stirs from her doze, I don't have time for your craziness, OK?
So inspired by this guy. The way characters carry heavy weights, and try to share their insights with one another; the way people shut one another out. The loneliness and fear--and the humor that hums along under all the tragedy. I picked up "This Is How You Lose Her" (perfect, laconic title) this week when I could not talk myself into an interest in the recent biography of Montaigne. (Sorry, Bruce Springsteen. You recommended this bio in the NYT, but I can't see what you saw--there.) My advice: Skip the Sarah Bakewell, go for the Junot Diaz. Go for the Diaz every time. He hasn't published a book in half a decade, and evidence suggests that the next effort will be a picture book. Fine. But, Mr. Diaz, I wish that you could be a bit more like Stephen King. I'd love to see another adult novel before 2020. In the words of one artist to another, in a recent Twitter post I saw: YOU BETTA SING.
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