Three questions came to mind while I was on my way to hear
Anita Desai and Junot Diaz at the 38th Annual Writers’ Festival last
Thursday at Agnes Scott College
- Would Desai & Diaz outdraw Billy Collins, the keynote speaker at last year’s Decatur Book Festival?
- Would Diaz’s selection be as graphic as the bulk of his Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao?
- And
would Memphis
The answers were: no,
(but close), yes, and no (not even close).
After the announcement of the winners of Agnes Scott Festival Competition, Diaz read excerpts from his short story, “The Sun, the Moon, the Stars” (which appeared in the New Yorker a decade ago). Diaz has a unusual style of reading in short bursts and pauses, allowing the crowd a moment laugh almost on cue with Diaz’s every colorful phrase —with responses stronger from the student section toward the front as opposed to the back of the auditorium where mature types like myself smiled politely.
Desai followed Diaz and read her story “The Man Who Saw Himself Drown” I’ll admit I knew nothing of Desai’s work until I arrived on campus, but considering that she published her first novel in 1963, the Indian-born Desai is impressive in her body of work. In contrast to Diaz, Desai, read quietly and flawlessly for about 25 minutes – her diction reminding me of those strong female characters out of a Mira Nair film (like Namesake).
After the readings, Desai and Diaz sat on comfy chairs on
stage, and allowed the crowd to interrogate them as they shielded their eyes
from the klieg lights. (I was envious of
their chairs as my theatre seat was lumpy and sinking to the floor.) Their most
revealing comments were in response to the question of “What are you writing
now?” Desai said she had believed that
her last novel would be her final work (she’s in her seventies), but she
changed her mind when she realized “I was not very happy.. I didn’t feel fully
alive” and has since returned to her desk. Diaz confessed that for the last two
years he has been “feeding the beast” – a reference to his new life as a famous
writer on tour – and admitted that he had not been writing. To me it was a
troubling irony of the evening—the thought that a well known author (telling me
at a Writer’s Festival, no less) can become sidetracked by his own success.
I also went to this reading and must say I was disappointed in Diaz' choice, which I found tedious and snarky in a leering sort of way. He got much better at working this type of subject matter by the time he wrote "Oscar Wao", infusing it with far more energy and style.
Posted by: Book lover | April 05, 2009 at 10:42 AM