The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao | Junot Díaz

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao | Junot Díaz | Pretty good, but a little exclusionary

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The Brief Wondrous...

	The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Junot Díaz Riverhead Hardcover, 2007 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 272 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

One of the Best

There are very few novels that I've actually enjoyed reading. Diaz's falls into that category. It may just be at the very top of the list.

This guy's writing is superb. It's the sort of writing that leaves you staring - jaw dropped, eyes widened - at a page. Each paragraph (maybe each SENTENCE) is a work of art, blending sheer humanity with beauty and pain and humor. This is truly a book that you can't stop reading...and it never lets you down.

Well, that was my rant. Hope it got some of my enthusiasm across. Now back down to earth:

The plot revolves around a grossly overweight Dominican nerd and his family, all of whom are fascinating and full of life. That's all you really need to know. To give it to you in laundry list form: there are curses, violent beatdowns, an inhuman dictator and his unscrupulous cronies, people to hate, people to love, Dominican history, sci-fi references galore, hard reality...and the constant, unsettling presence of what can only be described as "the supernatural." I certainly can't put it into words, but there is one man - un hombre - that can (and did): Junot Diaz.

Here are the usual complaints about this novel, and why you should ignore them:

Uno) Too much profanity: Honestly - this is a novel about human experience! Live a day in the real world and you'll see what I mean. 'Nuff said. (Oh...and "Fuku" is not as much of a double entendre as you might expect.)

Dos) Too many sci-fi references: If you don't know them, consult Wikipedia. Or watch the movies/read the books yourself.

Tres) Too much Spanish: I've studied Spanish, so it was actually sort of fun to decipher the phrases (and learn las malapalabras!). If you're not familiar with the language, context should provide some clues. Hey - learn something new! It'll benefit you in the long run, I guarantee it.

Cuatro) Too many footnotes: Actually, this complaint is rather overblown. There are very few footnotes - and they are all INTERESTING, ENRICHING, and (often) FUNNY forays into the finer (read: horrifying) details of the Era of Trujillo.

Cinco) Too disjointed: I read it for a few days, put it down for two weeks (had some schoolwork to take care of), and finished it in a weekend. It felt like a solid story to me.

Y Finalmente: PLEASE READ THIS BOOK. It will inspire you. (Plus, it's packed me with enough Latino culture to ensure a decent grade on my upcoming Spanish midterm.)

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Pretty good, but a little exclusionary

The book is well-written and interesting. However, since I am not Dominican, I feel like an outsider, especially when comments are made throughout the book to that effect. In addition, there are really long footnotes about historical events throughout the book, which another reviewer had commented on. I didn't think it would bother me, but because they're so long (they take up about half a page to a page of small text), they start to wear on you after a while. If not for those two things, the book would be really good.

too many footnotes

I would have liked this better if I was more familiar with the history of the Dominican Republic. There were a lot of footnotes to help but I think it distracted from the story. It took me a long time to finish this one.

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