So they have to be a part of same age generation to be part of the same professional "club?" These big names in contemporary American lit all share the quality of being heavily degree'd-- having been formally "educated" in creative writing at big name schools. They are symbolic of the awful institutionalized creative writing/MFA system in America. They are largely NYC based and all write immigrant or foreigner stories that include things like hip, adorkable "voice" and circle jerk each other because they're all friends. You won't see Kakutani put out anything less than a glowing review for any of these people.
Lahiri is the only one who actually has any talent, and she still limits herself and plays the part.
Eli Perry
>the MFA spook m8, the fact that they're all in New York jerking each other off has more to do with their bland, unoriginal writing than some degree.
Lucas Scott
How the fuck can you do this and not end up killing urself my man?
Luis Flores
i didn't like "everything is illuminated" very much. there were some good bits but i didn't like the way he made the guide guy a typical borat-like character like he's saying "haha look at you funny foreigners, why aren't you more like americans"
i liked "eating animals". it's a pretty good takedown of the meat industry and although it is americacentric it pretty much applies to most countries where factory farming is the norm. there was one glaring omission in the book, which is that religious slaughter- kosher and halal- is not mentioned. i am guessing this is because the author didn't want to upset his own family.
Brayden Nelson
>having been formally "educated" in creative writing at big name schools
Diaz's BA was from Rutgers, which is just the state university for NJ. Pretty much any New Jerseyite with a high school diploma could go there. He later got his MFA at Cornell, but accepted on the strength of the work and writing he did at Rutgers. The way you wrote it makes it sound like he didn't work for anything and was given his career quid-pro-quo like GW Bush going to Yale as an undergrad as a legacy with shit grades and then the presidency on the strength of his pop.
Diaz put in the work and climbed the ladder, that's how it's supposed to work.
OP, I read Everything Is Illuminated on the strength of browsing it from the new table at the library back when, before I knew about Veeky Forums and before this board existed. I thought it was great. I liked GG Marques's 100YoS and Borges already and EiI told a story that I wanted to read, presented in a way i hadn't seen before.
Evan Rivera
Kek.
Nolan Perez
Joke of a writer
Extremely loud ... was so terrible, I still cringe whenever I think about it
