This Is How You Lose Her
This is How You Lose Her is a series of short stories about failed and failing relationships. All but one of the stories is about Yunior, the narrator of most of The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (he dated Oscar's sister). The one that isn't about Yunior almost feels like it doesn't fit in the book at all, but it might be my favorite of the stories for that very reason.
Yunior is an asshole. A jerk. A cheater. A mysoginist. A bad, bad guy despite his opening claim that he isn't. He never quite seems to grasp that "keeping" a woman involves respecting her and talking to her and treating her like a person. As far as Yunior is concerned, women are sums of their beautiful parts: hair, breasts, ass, pussy. If one isn't up to hanging out, it's no big deal to go pick up another one. And so he cheats continuously, and he never sees anything wrong with it.
I was less interested in Yunior's failed relationships than the bits of his life that are revealed around the edges of them. His first winter in America, spent trapped in the apartment because his father felt it was too dangerous to go outside. His brother's long battle with cancer, and Yunior's unfocused grief after his death. His god-given punishment at the end when, after it is revealed that he cheated on his fiancee with 50 different girls (how? Seriously, how?), his body slowly starts to fail him. Every new injury made me cheer a little, because the last thing this guy deserves is a second (or hundredth) chance.
And then there's the story that doesn't fit: Otravida, otravez. It's about a woman who has come to America to find work and falls in love with a man who came to America after his son died, leaving his wife back in the Dominican Republic. Theirs is a life of hardship, but they have each other. They are ultimately able to buy (not rent!) a house, slum though it is. It's really just a beautiful meditation on the things we leave behind and the things we carry with us and the reasons for both.
Ultimately I didn't like this book as much as Oscar Wao, which is funny because it's the one I was more eager to read. But it didn't grab me in the same way. There wasn't that hint of magical realism to add spice to the story, or characters who actually learned from their mistakes (unless you count the string of women who leave Yunior behind). It was just a man who is baffled by women and makes no effort to change that.
Yunior is an asshole. A jerk. A cheater. A mysoginist. A bad, bad guy despite his opening claim that he isn't. He never quite seems to grasp that "keeping" a woman involves respecting her and talking to her and treating her like a person. As far as Yunior is concerned, women are sums of their beautiful parts: hair, breasts, ass, pussy. If one isn't up to hanging out, it's no big deal to go pick up another one. And so he cheats continuously, and he never sees anything wrong with it.
I was less interested in Yunior's failed relationships than the bits of his life that are revealed around the edges of them. His first winter in America, spent trapped in the apartment because his father felt it was too dangerous to go outside. His brother's long battle with cancer, and Yunior's unfocused grief after his death. His god-given punishment at the end when, after it is revealed that he cheated on his fiancee with 50 different girls (how? Seriously, how?), his body slowly starts to fail him. Every new injury made me cheer a little, because the last thing this guy deserves is a second (or hundredth) chance.
And then there's the story that doesn't fit: Otravida, otravez. It's about a woman who has come to America to find work and falls in love with a man who came to America after his son died, leaving his wife back in the Dominican Republic. Theirs is a life of hardship, but they have each other. They are ultimately able to buy (not rent!) a house, slum though it is. It's really just a beautiful meditation on the things we leave behind and the things we carry with us and the reasons for both.
Ultimately I didn't like this book as much as Oscar Wao, which is funny because it's the one I was more eager to read. But it didn't grab me in the same way. There wasn't that hint of magical realism to add spice to the story, or characters who actually learned from their mistakes (unless you count the string of women who leave Yunior behind). It was just a man who is baffled by women and makes no effort to change that.
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