When real-life literary asshats go WANK!
Is it a small wanky world after all? Spooge knows no bounds, no nationality and now, not even language barriers. Ever since man wrote shit up and gave it to others to read, wank has been a constant companion to humanity, like a loyal dog, or maybe a nasty case rabies, following us to every single corner of the planet.

In tonight's adventure, real-life writers battle it out in a newspaper's 'printed letters' section, because Doctors in Literature can act like 14 year old girls if they really try. I read this and I thought of Fandom Wank. Oh, yes, did I ever…Sure, it's in Spanish. Sure, it talks about 'real' literature. But dammit, why am I getting flashbacks of Harry Potter slashers wanking each other to pieces?

Diálogo (Dialogue) is small, liberal publication of the University of Puerto Rico focused on covering the happenings of the literature world and investigative reporting. In wankspeak, it's a festering cesspool of elitist wankers that write books stuuupid normal people will never read and that every now and then pine for the long gone days when communism and socialism where TEH COOL.

Enter Julio Ortega, a BNF —oops— IMPORTANT LITERARY CRITIC, DAMMIT from Peru. In a section of his essay about contemporary Spanish poetry, he says, and I'm translating from the Spanish, why PR poets are never in his anthologies:

"Contemporary Puerto Rican poetry almost hasn't been able to get out of its insular encasement. Rather, it has been consumed in dividing debates and almost always lacks generosity."

(Ah, foreshadowing…)

In other words, you've been moaning about the same stuff since the 70's. Please, please, please write about something else, anything! I'll even take a LOTR fic!

As if it prove that behind every serious writer with a master in literature there lies a dumb bitch the likes of a Harry Potter fangirl, here come the clowns:

WATCH as 'important' *snicker* writer Carlos Esteban Cana gets his panties in a bunch and starts forwarding the text to all his fellow rejects friends! Not only that, he encourages them to show up for a conference Ortega is hosting near town.

"The anthologist Julio Ortega will offer this week a conference in the Ateneo, called something like "F in Puerto Rican literature". I think it'll be interesting to attend…"

*evil cackle* I'll say!

But WAIT! There's MORE! Somehow this call to arms reaches the newspaper and the next thing we know, the 'letters' section has become the writers very own LiveJournal!





READ fellow literary reject Cruz-Bernall questions Ortega's taste: Why are the ones with the words, the power and the cathedrals so stupid and myopic? (…) Who gives this individual the right to talk that way about our home, using distasteful words and to attack us like this?

He wasn't attacking your home. He was attacking YOU. There's a difference.

FEEL R. Cancel's angst as he ponders the meaning of the word 'insular' and demands an explanation!: Is it an appreciation of the entrapment in which our books are in and the difficulty they have in being appreciated in other countries? (…) Again, the ghost of the 'consecrated' overwhelms us…

Boo-hoo! The bully took my lunch money again! MOMMY!!

SEE how Martinez-Marquez says that though Ortega is great guy, he's letting his friendship with a few PR authors blind him. But then he pimps a fanfic essay that he felt was being censored by the Evil Overlords of the PEN Club (where he used to be president): Although I don't agree with him, I don't believe in censorship. (…) I think that in the same number of the magazine that Cana mentions, an essay of mine should've published. (…) I hope it's being published. Since my resignation as president and the following persecution, that has even kept me away from San Juan— including a threatening phone call— I haven't been able to sleep at night. But if you didn't like Ortega's review, please read my essay…

But the splooge just keeps going on for 12 more letters, all of them the size of a doctorate thesis, because, being 'real-writers', they feel it's their God-given right to abuse the Spanish language left and right.

Highlights include:

Mayra Santos-Febres: The arrogance of some critics amaze me! I'm shocked and offended! But I'll admit he has a point…

Rafael Acevedo: His long diatribe includes spelling 'peru' in minor caps, eating commas and trampling on punctuation marks. (OMGUSUCKDIEDIEDIE!!!eleventy!!!11!)

Eludio la Torres Lagares: the closest thing for a voice of reason in there says that maybe PR literature hasn't been marketed correctly. But then he blows his credibility by pointing out that 'Ortega' is also the name of a bird that runs, not flies. ("Tee-hee! I'm SO WITTY!")

Martinez-Marquez: The persecuted one comes back for more and says that Ortega is right after all and ADMITS to purposely living under a rock for most of the late 90s. Then proceeds to rip-apart fellow writer, Pedro Peitri, recently deceased, on how he was 'deified and divinized' by everyone else and wasn't 'teh hot shit' after all.

Uruayoan Noel: Oh no! A priest from the holy order of Pedro Peitri defends the honor of his fallen god! He then starts tossing in random English words (in a SPANISH LITERATURE MAGAZINE, mind you) in a long rant about how his poetry is too 'freaky' (his word, not mine, and he repeats it ad nauseaum) for a LAME old guy like Ortega to understand. Oh, and his friends in Peru told him Ortega isn't 'teh hot' over there neither. ("If Ortega isn't even the voice of the most recent Peruvian literature, why should we care about him after all?") Then he waxes philosophically on how he awaits the arrival of some sort of 'freaky' critic to understand his 'freaky' poetry. He also whines about being censored and concludes it's all the white people's fault. Other crimes include invoking Don Quijote's name in vain. (Call it a Spanish version of mentioning Hitler.)

Calandria Malipico: Insults his university's Spanish, Humanities, Hispanic Studies and Compared Literature departments because they all suck. The local PBS station sucks too. Sucksucksuck. Suckity-suck-suck-suck.

Esteban Cana: He who started the wank returns, pimps his own essays, pimps his writer's workshops and wonders why we can't all get along. (And the moment of zen: If we aren't anthologized by elitists editors and their elite circle of friends who are even more elitists than us… does it make us bad writers?)



This is why I hate my fandom country. It's depressing to see so-called 'serious writers' downgrade themselves to the level of mundane HP fangirls. The real irony is that 90% of the island population has no idea who they are and why should they care. Brings a tear to the eye, precious, oh yes it does…

Wank on, Puerto Rico. Wank on.

NOTE: Sorry about the lack of links. It's a Spanish printed paper, so I don't think a lot of people would understand it either…

EDIT: I have links! But only in Spanish and only the first half (because it spilled over to the paper's next issue...you'd think they didn't have life *snickers*) Better than nothing...