Amazon Best of the Month, September 2007: It's been 11 years since Junot Díaz's critically acclaimed story collection, Drown, landed on bookshelves and from page one of his debut novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, any worries of a sophomore jinx disappear. The titular Oscar is a 300-pound-plus "lovesick ghetto nerd" with zero game (except for Dungeons & Dragons) who cranks out pages of fantasy fiction with the hopes of becoming a Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien. The book is also the story of a multi-generational family curse that courses through the book, leaving troubles and tragedy in its wake. This was the most dynamic, entertaining, and achingly heartfelt novel I've read in a long time. My head is still buzzing with the memory of dozens of killer passages that I dog-eared throughout the book. The rope-a-dope narrative is funny, hip, tragic, soulful, and bursting with desire. Make some room for Oscar Wao on your bookshelf--you won't be disappointed. --Brad Thomas Parsons
Diaz has produced a book that is original and important in that it is a new genre, an American-Dominican American novel. The text is so full of sci-fi references I, a female reader who avoids fantasy, was lost. I respected the book, but found it unsatisfying.
writes,
Oscar is the outcast of outcasts. The tragedy of tragedies. A Dominican boy growing up in New York in a cursed family (a particular Dominican curse, called a fukú). He is into all things nerdly: Dungeons & Dragons, sci-fi/fantasy. He is a hopeless romantic, falling in love with women he passes on the street. Oh, and he is 300+ pounds. Not your typical hero.
Oscar's story is told through the eyes of people around him: mainly his drop-dead gorgeous sister, Lola, and his reluctant friend and college roommate, Yunior. We also get a fair amount of family history, Oscar's family's unfortunate relationship to the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic, and his mother's tortured relationship with his grandmother.
The history and culture of the Dominican Republic are woven into the story with the Marques-esque skill, but the voice of the narration is wholly modern and original. It's straddles conversational and literary and bounces from person to person and time to time with ease, slowly building a story that feels immediate, yet firmly placed in a long history.
I really enjoyed this book. It drags at parts, but about halfway through, it really takes off. I've never read anything quite like it, stylistically, and Oscar is a very memorable character. That said, I was hoping for a little more out of Oscar. Not as a character; he is who he is--a rather pathetic, dorky guy with a quixotic heart and a head full of fantasy. He is sympathetic, but he is also a frustrating character to love. He walks headlong into tragedy with stubborn determination, and all we can do is cover our eyes, helpless, and wait for the inevitable.
writes,
This is not a good book. I really wanted it to be. I have faith in the American reading public, or at least I want to. But this is poorly written to say the least.
There is no constant narrator through much of the book. But when you get about three quarters of the way through, the author pretends that there is.
The author says the "n" word about four hundred times in the first three pages. I'm all for shock value, but it's a little much. Cussing does not a work of art make.
There are a lot of little footnotes about the Trujillo reign of terror in the DR. It is good to know history, but this particular history has nothing to do with the FICTIONAL story taking place.
Most importantly, the book forgot to be about anything. There are frightening stories and touching moments, but there's no point to it. It is obvious the author writes short stories because that is how this book reads. Like a bunch of short stories with some history and profanity slopped in. Then he realized he needed an ending and tried hard to make it deep. It was not deep.
Reading this book was like wading through mud. I cannot believe it won a Pulitzer.
