Some people insist that anything in life is possible as long as you work hard enough for it; well, it seems those people are quite disconnected from the reality of things, one where external factors you cannot control dictate your success and failure, depending on what you do.
Such is the life of Oscar Wao, a tragically-overweight Dominican nerd who lives in a New Jersey ghetto, with aspirations of becoming known throughout the entire world as the Dominican Tolkien.
However, his financial and social situation leaves him quite challenged; his weight and interests make it hard for him to socialize in his environment, he is monetarily-deprived, lives with a mother with a very outdated mentality as well as a rebellious and conflict-prone sister. On top of that, it seems that Oscar’s family has been doomed to failure for generations upon generations, because of something known as the fukú, an ancient curse.
The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz follows Oscar on a very unusual adventure, and while it does pay a great amount of attention to Oscar himself, a huge part of it is also dedicated to the Dominican-American history, even if some of those parts are more subtle.
Needless to say though, the main attraction here is Oscar’s journey of self-discovery through a contemporary, and often grizzly America. As is customary with these types of stories, Oscar meets many strange and idiosyncratic characters along his journey, he is faced with physical as well as mental challenges, eventually testing his ability to persevere and put it all out on the table in the name of love.
While at the start it may sound like a story about Oscar going all the way to achieve his dreams, those goals were used more as a drive than anything else for the rest of the story. The mother, the sister and Oscar’s grandfather also often take up a great deal of space in the story, often having entire chapters dedicated to those characters.
However, his financial and social situation leaves him quite challenged; his weight and interests make it hard for him to socialize in his environment, he is monetarily-deprived, lives with a mother with a very outdated mentality as well as a rebellious and conflict-prone sister. On top of that, it seems that Oscar’s family has been doomed to failure for generations upon generations, because of something known as the fukú, an ancient curse.
The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz follows Oscar on a very unusual adventure, and while it does pay a great amount of attention to Oscar himself, a huge part of it is also dedicated to the Dominican-American history, even if some of those parts are more subtle.
Needless to say though, the main attraction here is Oscar’s journey of self-discovery through a contemporary, and often grizzly America. As is customary with these types of stories, Oscar meets many strange and idiosyncratic characters along his journey, he is faced with physical as well as mental challenges, eventually testing his ability to persevere and put it all out on the table in the name of love.
While at the start it may sound like a story about Oscar going all the way to achieve his dreams, those goals were used more as a drive than anything else for the rest of the story. The mother, the sister and Oscar’s grandfather also often take up a great deal of space in the story, often having entire chapters dedicated to those characters.
In the end, it seems as if Diaz also wants to explore the question of identity in relation to one’s nationality and family history; with every bit of information you receive about the characters and their lives, Oscar becomes increasingly understandable, in the sense that you can see how and why he makes his decisions.
All in all, I found this to be a relatively-interesting novel, and although it isn't exactly my style, I’m a hundred percent positive that fans of self-discovery books will see The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao as a real gem.
 | Junot DiazPersonal site Junot Diaz is a Dominican American writer, a fiction editor at the Boston Review, as well as a creative writing professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Much of his work has been centered on the immigrant experience, and his 2008 novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao won him the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. |
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