/lit/ - Literature

>>And I think that this a huge challenge for boys, because they want to pretend they can write girls. Every time I’m teaching boys to write, I read their women to them, and I’m like, “Yo, you think this is good writing?” These motherfuckers attack each other over cliche lines but they won’t attack each other over these toxic representations of women that they have inherited… their sexist shorthand, they think that is observation. They think that their sexist distortions are insight. And if you’re in a writing program and you say to a guy that their characters are sexist, this guy, it’s like you said they fucking love Hitler. They will fight tooth and nail because they want to preserve this really vicious sexism in the art because that is what they have been taught.

>>And I think the first step is to admit that you, because of your privilege, have a very distorted sense of women’s subjectivity. And without an enormous amount of assistance, you’re not even going to get a D. I think with male writers the most that you can hope for is a D with an occasional C thrown in. Where the average women writer, when she writes men, she gets a B right off the bat, because they spent their whole life being taught that men have a subjectivity. In fact, part of the whole feminism revolution was saying, “Me too, motherfuckers.” So women come with it built in because of the society.

Junot Diaz should stick to fiction because his literary criticism comes dangerously close to being the same thing

once again proving poetics is the true realm of literature

What a tosser.

All men who write female characters are sexist? Yet all woman are perfectly capable of writing male characters without any glitches, sexist or otherwise?

No wonder his students get angry at him when he calls them sexist.

White males could be in chains and even whip-in-hand, minorities would claim a state of oppression.

This guy.

>>4159661
... is the best American writer since Melville?
Yes, I agree.

>>4159637

I'm pretty convinced that this is a masterful ruse on Diaz's part. He's admitted that women make up the majority of his readers. He's also admitted that he has trouble with fidelity. Most of the young women he's in contact with are hyper-feminists.

Dude's trying to sell books and get laid.

Capcha: cajing Venus

Why does he refer to men as 'boys', but not women as 'girls''. Is he fighting the patriarchy?

Is this what modern literary critique is, exorbitant amounts of checking one's privilege?

>>4159696
In America at least.

>his use of the word 'subjectivity'

We should return to those bygone eras in which any scholar was expected to understand philosophy. I'm weary of this touchy-feely method of essay writing and criticism; the abuse of language and so on.

Is that his actual style? His writing is poor.

more like Homo Gayass

I'M SORRY I'M WHITE

I'M SORRY I'M MALE

I'M SORRY I'M WHITE

I'M SORRY I'M MALE

>referring to your pupils as 'motherfuckers'
At last I see, Kaczynski...now I know why academia should be destroyed.

>>4159711

Shit like this makes me think I should just read books written before about 1980.

Everyone responding in this thread is a goofy pasty moron so I thought I'd change the subject and ask: if this guy worth reading? I've read one short story of his and sorta liked it but also thought it was sorta gay, and he looks pretty gay, and the way he talks is gay, and even if he has a point about sexist male writers he says it in the gayest possible way.

So is he actually worth a shit or is he just the token exotic latino for white people who read The New Yorker? (As an Exotic Latino myself)

>>4159721

Worth reading? Maybe. Oscar Wao was mid-tier.

There are so many other, better books to read, though. Why waste time on writers like Diaz?

>>4159718
Wait, what? Swear words bother people in 2013?

>>4159637
>I never had any female friends so I can't write female characters
>it must be like this for every man

This guy can go suck a dick.

I almost think people like this should be admitted to mental hospital, this seriously borders on mental illness

>>4159721
>token exotic latino
lol if you think that's an archetype.

>>4159727
Not the swear words...referring to students in such a nakedly derogatory manner.

>>4159731
This. It's seriously a more just, weird and convoluted worldview than most racists or or vehemently dogmatic people's.

>>4159637

Did this guy grow up in 1200 B.C?

>>4159733
>lol if you think that's an archetype.

>implying the jew yorker doesn't

>>4159734
How is that derogatory? It probably removes a bit of the distance the students feel from the teacher.

>>4159637
>heteronormative masculine privilege

Did he actually say this in real life?

>>4159637
>you grow up your entire life being told that women aren’t human beings

funny. i grew up being told the exact opposite. repeatedly. in school and on television.

>>4159637
>shitty writer I've never heard of talking about women
Why bother giving him free publicity?

I grew up being told they're equal with men and now all my girlfriend does is does my shit and fucks me

>You're characters are sexist.

That's because I'm a sexist. Blow me, you fucking pussy.

>>4159749
I recently saw a "phillosopher" talking at length about the privilege of the rich white man on German TV, in a show that may or may not have been about books. Before you ask, no, I don't watch TV, I came across it by chance when I was visiting my parents.

>>4159750
you sound a little bitter about it.

I guess Diaz is trying to steer young male writers from the pitfalls that are most common in his own writing.
The nigger can't write anything but male jersey/new york dominicans for shit.

>>4159637
So what does he want exactly? Should my novels only include men because those are the only people I can write well? Wouldn't that be sexist?

>>4159746
>calling students motherfuckers removes a bit of distance between them
Maybe if they are masochists.

>>4159796
Basically, he's saying that men can never understand women. We are forever doomed to a world of ignorance, and pretending like we are more than second-rate human beings would be disgusting and arrogant.

>>4159721

I wasn't huge on Oscar Wao, though it has great parts. But I absolutely love his short story collections. All three books tie in together to form a sort of overarching story, though (the same characters and universe).

>>4159795
>The nigger can't write anything but male jersey/new york dominicans for shit.

Even then, he doesn't write them well enough to be at all remarkable.

>not so subtle womyn thread

not here, please.

try this link.

>>>/pol/

>>4159637
> the worst women writer can write a better man than the best male writer can write a good woman
First off:
>women writer
>women

Moving on, yes, Junot Diaz, those sophomore creative writing major girls all write male characters that are better than any female character any man ever created. Sure.

Also, does he just expect his students to write only realist, psychological novels?

And finally:
"I’m like, “Yo, you think this is good writing?”"

If I ever had a professor whom I thought had that attitude towards his students, I might just not skip the class all semester.

>>4159679

>Updike
>the best American writer since Melville

Stop reading. You're shit at it.

>>4159728
>>4159802

Yea, basically his point. Pity too, I actually liked him in a might read his work one day kinda way. Maybe I still will.

I do understand his point though, however skewed it is. And it has a lot more to do with how women are different than how differently they perceive the world.

But basically it seems all he's saying is "I had trouble with women growing up, and I think all guys did too. Also, I had shitty writers in my classes to select from as a sample to prove this."


>>4159685

I would like to think this is true.

>>4159637

>if I'm a sociopath, everyone else must be!

Not sure it works that way, m8.

privilege is the new original sin

>>4159784
I laughed out loud.

>>4159714
>Junot Diaz
>white

>>4159720
HIs books are good, regardless of his views.

>>4159728
This. He has a broadly valid point but overstates it to the point of ridiculousness because he was a hikikomori and writes about it in all of his books.

Guy makes a decent point, even though it's clouded in a lot of hyperbole.

>>4159907
No he doesn't

>>4159828
Nabokov gave him lots of praise.

>>4159709
Lol, he's middlebrow trash. He's for people who like to think they're smartr and literary, but actually aren't, like Franzen (who is also insufferable, but in a different way)

What does it matter if it's sexist or not? You should judge a story by itself. Heck if a writer can (mis)represent Hitler as good guy and the story is good, that's all it matters.

>also implying there is an objective image of woman

Please, read some Judith Butler. It is narrative that constructs reality.

>>4159637
>the worst women writer can write a better man than the best male writer can write a good woman

What I really don't understand is that people don't realize they are doing feminism a collossal disservice with shit like this. It would be funny if militant feminists punched him in the face because they think he is doing some false-flag undermining of feminism.

>>4159637
>boy writer
>woman writer

Hrmm

>>4159907
The only 'decent point' here is the observation that one could never accuse a woman of not being able to write men, because that would make you sexist, whereas if one accuses a man of not being able to write women, you get to call him sexist ON TOP OF THAT.

>>4159637
>you grow up your entire life being told that women aren’t human beings, and that women have no independent subjectivity
what?

>A writer I've never heard of has said something idiotic, better get offended.
- Tao Lin

>>4159642
>And I think the first step is to admit that you, because of your privilege, have a very distorted sense of women’s subjectivity.

Remember, children; Being a white male in America is a disease. But don't worry, we have programs for that now.

>>4159655
lol
reactionary shithead

>boy writer
>yo motherfucker

This guy TEACHES other people to write?

>I need to start using my colored privilege better, before the liberal lose power.

White guilt is the best thing that ever happened to minorities.

Do you think these people ever have a flash of self awareness where they realise they're the only ones getting these revelations when they enter the "real world"?

>>4159707
This, I'm seriously confused. Men have a subjectivity? What does that even mean?

Wally Lamb writes women better than women. He's a cis gendered white male. A named Junior, calling all males boys. I'm not rocket psychologist here, but I feel like he has issues he never worked out with his feminist mother.

>>4160056
I think he meant "capable of making subjective judgements" or something

>>4160054
they keep among themselves, they intellectually shield themselves from any criticism

>>4159637
>“If you’re a boy writer, it’s a simple rule: you’ve gotta get used to the fact that you suck at writing women

Say that to my face, motherfucker.

But books about women are boring.

Phillip K. Dick wrote awful women characters, in fact he generally wrote awful characters full stop, but the fact he focused on the more interesting parts is what I enjoy about his stuff.

>>4160064
Who the fuck is Wally Lamb?

>>4160074
Had to look this guy up and then loled like I never lolled before. Faggot nerd

So far we've covered

>confirmation bias
>psychological projection
>mommy issues
>looking to score

Any other possible reasons he'd say this wacky, obviously wrong stuff??

>>4160098
Good old-fashioned trolling?

>Doing something you love other than a technical subject in academia.
lelelel

>>4159822
I think I'd just cram my sentences full of "yo" from then on, yo. Yo. Yo, professor, do you think it's racist to demand that various races and ethnic groups stick to their supposed "own" forms of language?
>Yes, yo.
Yo, I agree bruh. We also gotta break down dis insistence on people in my race using supposedly "white" spellin and words n' shit bruh, yo. Yo. Yo... Yo? Yo.
*repeat until ideologically broken*

>>4160119
no one made a point to protect old ways of speech, only among extremely linguistically conservative places like the south in the us are old variants of english still alive. There exists a standardized english vocabulary and grammar for writing in school, and most peoples' spoken english is influenced by this. What this means is that your english in india is the same as my english in california or hong kong, as opposed to being like chinese and having thousands of local mutually unintelligible dialects

>>4160140
sorry, I forgot to say at the end that while this is both a good thing because it's helpful internationally, it's a good thing internally to countries, because it means that a nigger can understand by english and I can understand his, it makes much sense that he should have to keep using standard english

>>4160042
>>4159637
Exactly. And Diaz just makes himself even more sexist by lumping all women into one group that's difficult to portray by men.

>>4160080
Dick gets a lot of undeserved flack for that. Sure, his characters weren't the most interesting, but that was more often than not done on purpose. PKD's work was all about trowing the most mundane, regular people into fucked up situations. In fact it could be argued that they serve as an anchor of normality amidst all the craziness.

>>4160143
I just think that there are no ultimate rules to language. It's just usage in specific contexts. And by trying to crassly buddy up to and seek the approval of his students as one of them by saying "Yo" while simultaneously having contempt for them, he displays massive insecurity and a disrespectful status to his office that actually makes it more unpleasant to work under. It's ultimately nicer and more respectful to your students to at least appear, and preferably to be, indifferent to their opinions and to act within the role. Otherwise it turns into a hell of interpersonal relations + power and it's like having parents again. The only way to be one of your students is if you are, and the only way to have a frivolous attitude to your office is if you're awesome at it and just don't focus on the formalities. He's the equivalent of an official with neither ren nor li, and it's even worse because he engages in a very historically specific, politically oriented, personal moralism and acts like: 1. It's true. and 2. It matters., while apparently living a life counter to it.
Basically, he's being /even more/ authoritarian in a more personal manner than if he purely had contempt for them and simply carried out his office. (Not that prior forms of authority have necessarily been better.)
All of which really highlights the greater point to be gained here: Never do something you love at uni, unless it's a relatively technical subject, or you never think.

>>4160080
His characters are great. Not literary or compelling, but they're people you meet all the time. The have a feeling of reality. Not heightened reality, or real reality behind appearances, or archetypal or anything, but they seem like the clerk at a 7/11. Or a cop. Or a person with boring insecurities.

So this is basically reverse-sexism, right? Trying hard to not be sexist, which in turn makes you sexist as fuck.

why has no one asked OP for source yet?

you faggots are so easily trolled

Junot Diaz is the most talentless, insufferable cunt currently writing.

>>4160298
lol 'reverse sexism'

>>4160298
it's just sexism

the term 'reverse-sexism' is, ironically, 'reverse-sexist' itself, since it suggests that sexism only applies to women

>>4160298
No, it's just sexism.

>using women as an adjective

>>4160351
More so than Jonathan Franzen?

>>4160406
By a long shot. The Corrections is not bad.

The amount of butthurt in this thread is adorable. No-one is even entertaining the idea that they might be wrong about this for a split second before continuing on the theme of their moral outrage at those noisy feminists that ruin everything.

As someone who has taught English to a lot of students, the OP is pretty much on the ball for 90% of kids. He's just providing an explanation to a real phenomenon, like it or not.

>>4159721
"looks pretty gay"
who still thinks this way

>>4160053
he teaches at MIT

The signs of a man are always the same. Where he walks, heads turn. Where he speaks, people listen.A man, a real man, is the definition of madness. He is the embodiment of struggle, against himself and everything around him. The internal struggle of a man takes primarily as the fight between the two halves of the brain.Some say emotion is the domain of women and logic the domain of men, but never give into this mandate. Emotion is the rightful kingdom of men, as is Logic. To be a man means to neglect neither, to live in the heart of struggle. Feel nothing and feel everything. A man knows how sacrifice himself and others to save many and knows the weight of the sacrifice.Outwardly, a man must be mutable. In every encounter he must tailor himself flawlessly to the situation, yet remain consistent. A man must be a paragon of morality, for that is the core of his strength. A man could have any woman, yet chooses only one. A man could kill many men, yet he shows restraint to those who deserve it.A man is fair. A man is cruel. A man’s heart bleeds for the cruel things he does, yet is hard enough to bear the wounds.To be a man is being like madness made flesh. To be a man you must understand at a primal level that you are a creature created by a primal and angry God, something he considers his greatest creation; not scoffing that his little blue planet cannot be important, but defiantly shouting to the heavens that we come.Be a man, its incredible.

>>4160444
I don't know. Sometimes things just look gay.
I mean yesterday... I say this ad. For. Fuck if I know. A movie or a game or something. And the guy, he had like a buzz cut, but shorter on the sides, than the top and a stubble and no sleeves.
I'm not even kidding. Couldn't look more gay if he were sucking three dicks at the same time.
And I mean, only red neck hillbillies would actually take offense at something being gay, right?

>>4159714
sperg harder, Texan

>>4159802
>implying men are taught to consider the feelings of others
>implying men are taught empathy
>imblniyg

>>4160474
you're a retard.

>>4160509
I'm also gay, which means you're a biased fuck.

>>4159637
How can he possibly build such a conclusion? How would he know if 'boys' created atrocious examples of women? I'm afraid he is a male. i think...

>>4160516
he got told by women.

>>4159637
Junot Diaz is such a faggot. If he were white, nobody would care about his books and they wouldn't find it charming if he said things like "women aren't people who does my shit and fucks me" in interviews.

>>4159799
lol you have to be masochist to not be offended by a professor calling you a motherfucker? am i on a board full of toddlers?

>>4159791
if i'm bitter about anything it's growing up in that climate and being told i was brought up in the exact opposite climate. it's gaslighting.

>>4159872
I just want to take a step back from the rest of the thread to appreciate how actually observant that comment is.

>>4160595
eh. people have been talking about the lingering of religious morality in culture for a while.

>>4159872
your face when you realize that original sin was meant to be interpreted as an allegory for the existential dilemma faced by man rather than a cause for self-flagellation

>>4160580
This. This is the problem with the dude's statements. He has a few dickwads in his class, and that qualifies him to pigeonhole every guy out there? Fuck that.

>>4160351
I'm 40 pages into Oscar Wao right now. So far, it's been an alright light read. No fucking clue how it won the Pulitzer though.

Oscar Wao is meh tier. Drown is good tier. This is a fact.

>>4159637
>"Oh, women aren’t people who does my shit and fucks me."

>>4160627
>>4160634

I really hate the narrator's voice in the book. It's supposed to be fresh and irreverent, I think, but it comes off as more annoying than that.

Why do these people always put "yo" before "that's racist/sexist/check your privilege"?

>>4160644
Thanks to America's culture of affirmative action, this man is a Pulitzer Prize-winning MacArthur fellow.

>>4160655
Most people who are into social justice have a need to affect casualness. That's why they don't capitalize or use punctuation, go out of their way to phrase things like they're retarded ("The Armenian genocide is a thing."), etc.

>hurr durr I'm smarter than you
I can't stand this holier than thou faggot

I kind of understand what he means, in that there are an awful lot of male writers who are fucking atrocious at writing female characters and instead of making them actual characters just make them check lists of what they think the perfect female character should be like.

It is probably because of the media's (and societies) representation of women but I think it has more to do with a lot of 20 something year old males being a bit self indulgent.
This isn't the biggest problem ever though it's like how a lot of twenty something year old females aren't very good at writing drama. It's just something that people grow out of a lot the time.

No, the best writers who wrote strong women characters arguably were men.

Wimmin pls make a sandvich

Diaz says some stupid and pointless things sometimes, but his writing is very good. Oscar Wao is excellent. Just excellent.

>>4160705
i agree anon. he's obviously not referring to 'all' male writers; he's speaking hyperbolically male writers in general. it's kind of like how women can't drive (obviously some of them can but on average...)
/lit/ just gets all defensive because every autistic neckbeard here thinks he's talking about them personally.

protip: authors sometimes exaggerate when they tell a story or give an interview. the world does not revolve around you.

>>4159637
The funny thing is that his female characters are pretty bad. I could select a book from my shelf at random and it would have better female characters than Oscar Wao (except for the end-of-the-bell-curve cases where I pick Hemmingway)

>>4160056
I guess he meant agency.

>>4160705
how to write women:

write them like a person

where's my Pulitzer

>>4160723
>/lit/ just gets all defensive because every autistic neckbeard here thinks he's talking about them personally.

we're just tired of this phony overly enthusiastic male feminist bullshit.

>>4160719
Oscar Wao is light high-school fair. As in, I don't think his writing or that novel in particular really appeals to many on a emotional/literate level unless you're a teenager who realizes it's ok to like Evangelion in public without being one of those greasy weaboos.

>>4160740
You would be amazed at how many kids just write their dream girl into a story or try to write a character the ticks every feminist box they can think of. instead of actually writing them as people.

This is his response to a question he was asked during an appearance at a community bookstore (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR3eXPsouyc); it's asked around 36:18.

did a white man write "BITCH GET OUTTA MY WAY"?

>>4160771
counter wrong generalisations with more wrong generalisations. /pol/ pls go

>>4159642
Oh that it is complete bollocks. If your making claim to the fact that it's impossible for men to sufficiently inhabit the mental space of a woman to write a convincing female character without prejudice, then it has to work both ways.
Watching a dog doesn't allow me to understand their mind, so why would the fact that women see more representations of men than vice verca suddenly give them a shocking insight. It has to work both ways or not at all

>>4160782
when the male POV is taught as the norm, women adapt to this by adopting it as their second POV, like bilingual children grow up speaking two languages. In a matriarchy, the reverse would be the case.

>>4160790
>the male POV is taught as the norm

give concrete examples of this and make sure to include proof that it's a strictly male POV and that it's the "norm"

>>4160791
give me examples of it working both ways, you were the first one to refute it after all. See, I can use /pol/ logic too. Burden of proof, motherfucker, do you feel it?

>>4160791
You're replying to Quentin for fuck's sake, apply yourself.

>race/gender/sexuality shouldn't matter
>feel bad about being white/male/straight

How the fuck do these people not see the problem with this logic?

>>4160766
comes off even worse in the video. jesus christ.

thing is, i'm willing to bank on this being a public persona of his rather than having much to do with how he really behaves and thinks.

>>4160791
"protagonist" in the Greek sense from which it was derived is explicitly masculine and within a masculine context of "agon"

this is just center and periphery though

>>4160796
they don't think, they just process the rhetoric.

>>4160799
I've never thought less of a person or their writing. I'm at a loss.

ITT: people buttmad and insecure because they can't write women well

>>4160805
I'm beyond the point of giving a shit. Maybe Diaz has a point, maybe he doesn't and if he does, it's not exactly "his" point anyway. I try my best and that's it.

>>4160795
>you were the first
fallacy of assuming i was the person you were talking to and basing your reply on that assumption. this is the legendary quentin? lmao.

>invocation of /pol/ in order to ease dismissal followed by 'le burden of proof' misunderstanding

yawn. burden of proof is absolutely on the person making the claim. which is that the male POV is taught as the norm. learn your terms you fucking child.

>>4160747

yeah but he's not talking to you. he's entitled to be annoying. does justin bieber annoy you? it doesn't matter because you're not his target demographic. diaz is pandering to his niche and what he's saying is correct (i.e. that aspiring male writers IN GENERAL cannot write convincing women)

however, we're all playing his game anyway by even having this discussion. diaz is an intelligent troll.

>>4160800
>"protagonist" in the Greek sense from which it was derived is explicitly masculine and within a masculine context of "agon"

this is not true at all. proto (first) agonistes (mover, contestor...loosely actor)

>>4160811
>his game

it was never his game to begin with. he's piggybacking on an issue people talk about all of the time and we're just using his name as an excuse to talk about what we would talk about regardless of who said it.

>>4160796
What I hate about it is the way people use the whole Cis white guy thing, it's nearly always as an insult. When the actual idea behind it should be that cis white males should realise how much of a difference they can make to everyone else and themselves as long as they realise they are in a favourable position to make a difference.

But as it is used now, it's just divisive and idiotic that straight white males should feel bad about who they are to the point where they are the ones to blame for the prejudice and oppression against minorities. In that sense it really goes against the entire social justice cause that a lot of people fly the flag of.
But that's just my two cents.

>>4160823
sad day when /lit/ gets the original meaning and the activists don't.

>lumping people together by gender and race

these giant generalizations will surely serve humankind

>>4160811
The fact that he is relatively influential is reason enough to be critical of the things he says.
>aspiring writers IN GENERAL cannot write convincingly
FTFY

>>4160822
>he's piggybacking on an issue people talk about all of the time and we're just using his name
>using his name
>using his name
>using his name


like i said, we're playing his game.

more like JEWNAUT DEEASS

wrecked

>>4160846
if you want to register this in your mind as diaz making us dance like puppets feel free. this thread has been made a thousand times before he said those things. we're just revisiting an old dance at this point. could have written all of that on construction paper and posted pics and it'd still be 100+ omitted.

>>4160844
>aspiring writers IN GENERAL cannot write convincingly

i agree with you. however, i think diaz is deliberately being provocative so that we'll talk about it. if he just said 'aspiring writers can't write well' no one would care. but by singling out heterosexual males he's suddenly becomes either a 'hero' (to tumblrfags) or a 'hack' (to chanfags) and threads like this get started and diaz gets just a little more famous.

>>4160861
note: diaz may or may not be consciously doing this but it's whats happening regardless.

didn't know junot diaz wasn't not a girrl im so confused

>>4160861
I'm not convinced that Diaz has ever considered anything far beyond the next opportunity he'll have to locate the nearest non-Latino, and make use of a preparative term for their race with holy impunity.

>>4159637
Feminists are a blight, fuck that fag.

>Junot Díaz (born December 31, 1968) is a Dominican-American[1] writer, creative writing professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

>"Higher" education

>>4160873
And by preparative, I mean pejorative.

>>4160861
Your suggestion that this is all a publicity stunt and an effort to gain more fame is valid. But what is the consequence of this? If he uses a controversial topic only to slap his name on it and become more known, he is a cunt and nobody will know whether the things he says are his true convictions or simply a pathetic attempt to be talked about.

>>4160876

How's virginity treating you?

Women have smaller brains on average; that's probably why they're not as good at writing.

I've read stuff by the worst female writer, and believe me: I've written better female characters.

shut up stupid sandnigger

This guy came to my university a couple weeks ago and christ he is just a deluded fucktard.

I'd never heard some actually use the term privilege and say people need to check their privilege until I heard him speak. I'm also not very impressed with his writing.

I just wanted to say I've seen and heard a best selling author.

are we being 'le raided' right now?

>>4160954
why are best selling authors usually shit

I don't even consider myself an elitist, it's just that serious fucking drivels sells real well

>>4160954
le messican face

>>4160916
there are far more connections between the neurons of women on average. Probably why they already understood that there's no sense in giving a shit about the opinion of Diaz.

>>4160957
I don't know man. I just want to meet a well read author, with stimulating ideas and understands story telling.

>>4160957
>why are best selling authors usually shit

Because they have to appeal to a wide variety of readers. In order to garner the most amount of readers, one has to be very simple and easy to access and understand.

Mostly this translates to texts where you leave-your-brain-at-the-door, which spells out S-H-I-T to serious readers.

It isn't complicated.

>>4159872
That was very well put

>>4160895
>he is a cunt and nobody will know whether the things he says are his true convictions or simply a pathetic attempt to be talked about.

it doesn't matter what his true convictions are, his image is what is important. he's only a cunt to you, other people will strongly identify with his position (even if he is disingenuous). his work becomes more influential the more people talk about him.


literature has always been a dick measuring contest (from shakespeare and christopher marlowe to dfw and john franzen)

>>4160873
>>4160894

you seem mad

>>4160015
>Butler

You know what I recently realized, her whole narrative constructs reality thing is basically Shelley's Defence of Poetry only reworded in philosophic terms

>>4161051
>his work becomes more influential the more people talk about him.
There is no correlation between those two. Influential authors are and remain influential because of their works and not because of the fact that they were the talk of the town for some time or uttered some unreflected drivel.

He came to my school. He was such a vaccuous idiot. He had nearly nothing to say. In an hour he read from Life of Oscar Wao five times, five minutes each and spoke for ten. He did ten minutes of half-assed question. Patriarchy in literature came up. The fiction writing professor who brought him to campus prodded me to ask a question. I said something akin to: I write fiction, or try to. I tried to find a realistic balance in the character studies of my female characters and the relationships they have with my males. In the Universe of my novels the most powerful character is female, another female having evolved to be the most handily capable and intelligent. I've been writing these characters since I've been eight; twenty two now. I was wondering how you feel we should write male characters in a believable manner if we are putting the female first in terms of importance? Do they become secondary characters or is it possible that all characters can just be on an even playing field, hightlighted for different, meaninful reasons devoid of providing a 'nod' to the modern plight of the woman; especially if your literary universe provides for nuetral equality between races and genders?

I'm still waiting on a response. I got a free copy of Oscar Wao and he signed it though. What should I do with it, /lit/?

>>4161086
>Influential authors are and remain influential because of their works and not because of the fact that they were the talk of the town for some time or uttered some unreflected drivel.

shakespeare was considered 'drivel' by some: he wrote bawdy works that shamelessly pandered to the vulgar. diaz is attempting a 21st century version of this kind of pandering. it remains to be seen how effective he'll be.

>>4160426
lol everyobody just ignored this guy

>>4160660
true,m,,

>>4160719
Shut the fuck up, Sunhawk.

>>4160723
I think it's more likely he's mentally ill.

>>4160725
Hemingway writes some great female characers you piece of shit

>>4160810
>this is the legendary quentin? lmao.

you're fucking retarded

>>4160811
>diaz is an intelligent troll.
No he isn't.

>>4161280
>le youre fucking retarded loleoeleooe

eat my ass, faggot

>>4161101
Huh? I don't understand why Junot Diaz is now supposed to be some sort of oracle who has any correct answers when it comes to writing--let alone writing female characters.

You may as well ask him about Palestinian/Israeli Conflict. I can't fathom this. Some twat writes a novel and suddenly he's supposed to be some sort of sage with keen insight on topics he's never proven to handle adroitly.

>>4160861
> diaz gets just a little more famous.
lol no he doesn't

>>4160909
That person likely has more sex than you (you have none, I'll bet, lol)

>>4161125
Lol if you think most peopel from late 16th century London were smart enough to appreciate Shakespeare on any level then Lol

>>4161101
Lmao I'll bet yoru books are shit

>>4161292
>>4161291
>>4161287
>>4161286
>>4161281
>>4161280
>>4161277
>>4161276
>>4161273
>>4161271
>>4161267
Same person. Lol.

>>4161294
Lol.

Bump. Let's get some more of this trolling on.

Bump.

These last ten or so posts have been me. Bump.

Dilettantes... Dilettantes everywhere.