The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

“GhettoNerd at the End of the World

1974-1987
the golden age

Our hero was not one of those Dominican cats everybody’s always going on about – he wasn’t no home-run hitter or a fly bachatero, not a playboy with a million hots on his jock.

And except for one period early in his life, dude never had much luck with the females (how very un-Dominican of him).

He was seven then.

In those blessed days of his youth, Oscar was something of a Casanova. One of those preschool loverboys who was always trying to kiss the girls, always coming up behind them during a merengue and giving them the pelvic pump, the first nigger to learn the perrito and the one who danced it any chance he got. Because in those days he was (still) a “normal” Dominican boy raised in a “typical” Dominican family, his nascent pimpliness was encouraged by blood and friends alike. During parties – and there were many many parties in those long-ago seventies days, before Washington Heights was Washington Heights, before the Bergenline became a straight shot of Spanish for almost a hundred blocks – some drunk relative inevitably pushed Oscar onto some little girl and then everyone would howl as boy and girl approximated the hip-motism of the adults.”

~from The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

My latest read, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2008. It also has a very clever title and holds the promise of a new voice, a new style, and an exceptional reading experience. Or maybe I just had lofty expectations.

The story follows the life of Oscar, an overweight, geeky, Dominican, teen from New Jersey, and the curse (the fuku) that has plagued his family for generations. The novel jumps between Paterson, New Jersey and the Dominican Republic. The narrators shift throughout the book, starting with Oscar and jumping alternately to his sister Lola, and then Lola’s boyfriend, Yunior.  There are also chapters that recount the story of Beli, Oscar’s mother, and Abelard, Oscar’s grandfather, both narrated in third person.

The book started out feeling clever and quickly left me wanting more substance and less style. Diaz gives us multiple foot notes throughout the story, mostly referencing Dominican history. I found that these antidotes quickly became obnoxious. I never wanted to real the whole footnote, but then I’d move on and felt like I’d missed something.  I couldn’t help but think, “if it was really important to the story your telling, why wasn’t it embedded in the narrative?!”

My other beef was that Oscar, the main character and the closest thing we have to a protagonist, is so unbearably sad. I mean, we all have our teenage sadness, and his is particularly isolating, but then his luck never picks up. And yes, there is this thing about fuku, the curse on the family, but when this is the guy who you’re most engaged with and he’s so completely, unrelentingly shit out of luck, it’s just a downer.

I can’t really grasp the fact that this book won the Pulitzer. I can understand how it’s originality and offbeat charm would catch the eye of readers, but to hold this up as an exceptional piece of writing for generations to come? Not so much.

If you start this one you’ll probably finish. It’s got enough going on to keep you interested in the story, but ultimately it left me feeling just ‘meh’.

Next up: I’ve joined a book club! So I have a book that has been selected for me. How will this fage, you ask? We’ll see…this month’s book is: Obasan by Joy Kogawa. I’ve also taken out Nino Ricci’s The Origin of Species from the library with hopes to tackle it soon. And last by not least, look for an upcoming review of the children’s book My Fairy Uncle by Kat Lanteigne.

Happy Reading,

Amber