I may not mention books often here, but once upon a time I was a voracious reader (or as my parents like to say: I don't read books, I devour them). Nowadays, I don't read nearly as often as I'd like to. Part of it is lack of time, part of it is a lack of desire to abandon the easier world of shows and devote said time to the more tasking effort of reading, part of it is disillusionment with the quality of today's books and another with the importance of the classics: how can a book be this praised yet this boring? But every once in a while, I still get completely sucked into the world unfolding on the pages of a particularly good novel. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz is one such book.
As the title implies, the story revolves around Oscar, a young second generation Dominican-American and his family: his beautiful elder sister Lola, their hard downtrodden mother Hypatia "Belicia" Cabral, and their ancestral past. Narrated by Oscar’s college roommate and Lola’s sometimes boyfriend Yunior, the book chronicles Oscar’s family’s multigenerational misfortune as they are plagued by a particularly strong fukú, or evil eye type curse.
I won’t delve into the plot as that defeats the purpose of recommending a book. Obviously, the title gives the ending away, but for once the ending is mostly an end to the means. And what a means it is! Díaz’s style is charmingly, hilariously heartwarming; you fall in love with every broken, imperfect character and root for them to make it. A character-driven writer in a character-driven novel, he is a Dominican David Foster Wallace with gangster rap flavourings and a Trekkie thrown in for good measure, breaking down just about every expectation or stereotype that must exist about who and what should constitute such labels.
He also does that with his deliberate juxtaposition of two polar personalities: Oscar and Yunior. Both are Dominican-Americans with dominant matriarchs and lustful tendencies. Both are aspiring writers. But that is where the similarities end. Oscar is overweight, a dork with a thesaurus for a tongue, a loser, a hermit and a virgin – even though he desperately tries to lose that latter title. Yunior is a gangster player, a typical Dominican culo-chaser and as academically unmotivated as they come. Throwing such characters together is Díaz’s way of throwing the spotlight on how being Dominican, or black, or white, or Asian or Arab does not mean you need to think, act, speak, or believe a certain way. It is his way of tackling conformity, stereotypes and ethno-racial expectations. The novel is rife with similar multicultural points. It should have been required reading for the Tochni course I mentioned in my last post, as it would have made several pertinent arguments without touching too many American or Arab nerves.
Surprisingly, Oscar’s story is probably the weakest story in the novel. Díaz’s brilliance comes in his portrayal of the women in Oscar’s family. He depicts the Dominican woman beautifully. All three major female characters are strong in both will and body, loyal, steadfast, stubborn and gorgeous. A subtle comedic note is the fact that Oscar’s sister, Lola, puts their mother through the same hell as Beli put her own matriarch, La Inca, through. Karma can be a bitch, can’t it.
However, it has to be said that in several parts of the book, it feels more like a Sparknotes version of events rather than the actual novel. More books like this and we won’t need Sparknotes for lit classes anymore.
Parts of the novel are set during Oscar’s grandfather’s lifetime under the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo who is, in true Latin American form, a Saddam Hussein meets Ghaddafi meets Hitler tyrannical philanderer. Díaz provides the reader with very funny footnotes throughout the historical sections of the novel to keep the reader informed on the often-gruesome history of the Dominican Republic. Many of the stories hit home, as this could have very easily been an Arab ‘president’. Who hasn’t heard of someone mysteriously disappearing after being dragged off by the secret police?
Díaz’s sentences average 75% English 25% Spanish, but you won’t need a translator handy to catch his drift. I might get around to looking some of it up just for the comedic appreciation aspect, but I didn’t need to to understand what he was going on about. It again reminds me of Egypt; most of us speak in that sort of Arablish reminiscent to the Spanglish he uses.
Even though the ending was merely an end to the means, I wish it weren’t. Díaz’s biggest flaw here was fizzling out towards the end. He may have been too attached to Oscar (who very much resembles Ignatius J. Reilly form A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole) to let him go, but I think he did his otherwise brilliant first novel a disservice by ending it as nonchalantly as he did. It felt like the Sparknotes of the CliffsNotes, and even the luminously written final paragraph couldn’t make up for a rushed or underdeveloped ending.
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