"The half-life of love is forever."
I already ranted a bit about Junot Diaz's This Is How You Lose Her on this here blog, but now I have finished it, and then I immediately reread (some of) it, and now I'm about to reread (more of) it, again, so it's imperative that I communicate to absolutely no one that this book is wildly, stupidly, just-go-ahead-and-punch-yourself-in-the-face important.
IMPORTANT.
It's filthy and raw and disrespectful and emphatically real. I appreciate nothing more than brutal truth, so this was a marvel to read. And though I tend towards being effusive and dramatic, I don't use words like "marvel" lightly.
I can imagine tons of people not liking this book. It's crude, overtly sexual, racist, and plain depressing. And though I suppose we must give people the right to their own opinions (eh) I would have to counter that it's the very foulness of it, up against language so perfect it feels like fire in your hands, that makes it so special. It combusts.
Light and dark. High and low. It's the mix of the two where art is found.
"Instead of lowering your head and copping to it like a man, you pick up the journal as one might pick up a baby's beshatted diaper, as one might pinch a recently benutted condom. You glance at the offending passages. Then you look at her and smile a smile your dissembling face will remember until the day you die. Baby, you say, baby, this is part of my novel.
This is how you lose her."
People. Read it. Love it or hate it, but I promise that you won't be bored.
No comments:
Post a Comment