Junot Diaz and Francisco Goldman

Actually went to hear writers talk of my own accord last week--and hope to go to another talk at the end of the month (April 29 at the Strand: Sherman Alexie and Peter Cameron). I must be getting over the MFA. Anyway Junot Diaz and Francisco Goldman had an interesting conversation about writing at the Grad Center at City College. The talk was supposed to be specifically about writing historical experience--and one of them (my notes suck) defined the historical novel as another genre of the fantasy novel, "pure fantasy." One of them--Diaz, I think--said that writing about history is like creating a Tolkien "subworld"--like "elves are this, dwarves are this."

They also talked about reading, and how reading is an individual practice; you do it by yourself unless you're reading to or being read to by someone else (one of the best things about being a teacher--both ends). But although most of us read alone, you learn how to read by, with, and from other people. I have lots of thoughts about that, especially lately--I grew up in a house full of books and full of readers, I was read to both before and after I learned to read myself, and the library was so essential to my life, probably more important than the TV--though I did watch so many hours of "Different Strokes" and "Facts of Life" as a kid. But I think I got told to put the book away and go to sleep or put the book away and look out the car window ("You're just gonna read a book, why are we even going on vacation, you could've stayed home and done that!") or put the book away and do my homework or the dishes or the laundry more than I got told to turn off the TV and do these things... though I also was told to get off the phone and ______, especially as I got older. But. Point being. I continue to be shocked by how many of my sixth grade students don't have library cards, don't read at home, don't have family members who take reading for granted. Reading is learned behavior, of course. I'm embarrassed by how long it took me to realize that the parents of my students who can't read also not surprisingly often can't read.

There was of course the question about how much Spanish is/should be/can be included in a novel written primarily in English, and neither writer gagged or groaned at it, which was thoughtful and polite and patient of them. Diaz said that he includes Spanish in his books like "adding pebbles to the back of English" and sometimes ends up taking stuff out if it seems to be breaking down meaning. He also noted that the Spanish itself doesn't tend to be a problem as much as all the different Spanishes, with slang, various vernaculars* and degrees of formal speech.

Diaz said, "Reading creates community" [wrote that down in my notebook but didn't note context, though it is part of the conversation about learning to read being a social activity], and and in answering a question about who he saw as the audience for Oscar Wao he said that a story is a collaboration between the person telling the story and a person who wants to hear it, and that real readers know how to work hard, and he trusts readers to do the work if the book is right for them. Also that "It's okay to lock some people out--just means there are words people have to figure out," and "a book isn't a piece of art if it's 100% intelligible to everyone." Which is so true--and the Spanish is intrinsic to the art in both their writing, though of course not the only thing.




*vernaculars? is that the plural? or is it a plural singular?