I agree with your feelings here about Diaz; I love his books and this collection of short stories was wonderful to me. I have thought about the character of Yunior in retrospect, because I read that character before what was 'known' about Diaz, and he was always intensely flawed but I loved how he was written and how complex he could be. Diaz perhaps used Yunior to grapple with some of his own...issues. I've read a couple recently published books that are so binary about their characters; there is a hero, there is a villain. But that's not reality... they don't feel realistic and I barely gave them a thought when the book wasn't open. I'll never forget Yunior.
I agree with your feelings here about Diaz; I love his books and this collection of short stories was wonderful to me. I have thought about the character of Yunior in retrospect, because I read that character before what was 'known' about Diaz, and he was always intensely flawed but I loved how he was written and how complex he could be. Diaz perhaps used Yunior to grapple with some of his own...issues. I've read a couple recently published books that are so binary about their characters; there is a hero, there is a villain. But that's not reality... they don't feel realistic and I barely gave them a thought when the book wasn't open. I'll never forget Yunior.