The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz was the winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
FOR THE FUTURE READER - A REVIEW
Oscar is a nerdlinger and fat to boot. His mother, a dominicana, immigrated to the U.S. prior to his birth. He, despite the famed dominican macho males, cannot find reciprocated love. Tales of his sister’s and his mother’s childhoods, steeped in Dominican lore and culture, along with a third-person recounting of Oscar’s attempts at love, illustrate the brief and wondrous life of Oscar Wao.
It turns out, I was pretty wowed by this book. Despite the somewhat irritating spanglish and the lengthy footnotes and the fractured narrative and the fact that probably 50% of the book wasn’t even ostensibly about Oscar, I was deeply moved. This disjointed narrative came together to paint a picture not just of Oscar, not just of a family, but of a generation, scarred and shaped by Dominican culture and the long-ago dictatorial exploits of Trujillo. It’s really a story of fate and choice and the tension between the two.
Warning: This book is sexually explicit, violent, and abounding in expletives.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz 
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FOR THE PRESENT READER - A QUESTION
The term fuku is used repeatedly throughout the book. Do you think the de Leon family really was cursed? What role does the fuku play?
FOR THE PAST READER - A RESPONSE
I was bewildered by the unorthodox opening of the book. The first section read almost like a conversational textbook on Dominican history and terminology. Fuku is immediately introduced and defined as “a curse or doom of some kind; specifically the Curse and Doom of the New World.” The fuku of the de Leon family and the Cabral family before it is oft referenced. Granted, things do go poorly for the characters. Every last one of the main characters ends up beaten to the brink of death in a cane field. The discussion of fuku prompts the question, “Are we fated for the lives we live or can we change our destinies?” Of course, like all good literature, the answer is not neatly packaged or even specifically proffered at all. In the end, though, I felt the book leaned toward choice - that we can choose how we react to the situations of life.
What do you think? Are some just destined to fail? Can your birthplace or the history of your parents decide the course of your life?
Buy The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
10 comments
I’m kind of intrigued by this book. I’m a firm believer in not using your past as an excuse. I’m sure that’s a soap box I’ll get on at some point. :D
I’m mostly annoyed by books that throw in random words in other languages (i.e. The Kite Runner, or the film ‘Code 46′).
Blake, do you mean like the Bible? Honestly, there’s a whole world out there. Expand your comfort zone.
Great review. I like your response at the end (even though I haven’t read it yet).
Trish - I agree with not using your past as an excuse, but I hesitate sometimes because I think the past can be a great obstacle for some. I loved that this book made me think about it, though.
Blake - I totally agree. It’s frustrating to not be able to understand what is being communicated to you, particularly when the point of a book (or movie) is the communication of ideas. I could understand most of the Spanish in this book, but I still felt like I missed a lot.
Dan - I think the Bible is kind of its own beast, as a translation, but I think there can be some merit to having other languages in the book. For instance, in this book, I thought that maybe the author was showing his readers what it felt like to be excluded by language boundaries, while at the same time capturing the dialect of his characters.
Rebecca - Thanks for reading. I hope I didn’t spoil anything for you because you should really read this book.
This story moved me a lot, too.
About the fuku, here’s how I interpreted it: I didn’t think the family was actually cursed, but that the fuku was introduced because the things that happened in these peoples’ lives were so horrific that it’s almost tempting to look for a supernatural explanation. If there were a curse, all that senseless violence would at least make some kind of sense.
The same goes for all the comparisons between Trujillo and Sauron. It almost suggests that the things he did are too horrible to be real, while at the same time underlining the fact that yes, they are indeed real. People do things that cruel to one another.
Amen, amen, amen! I really liked (and agreed with) your review… I didn’t think Oscar (or Junot) used his past as an excuse, but it certainly informed who he (they) became — complex! I was also irritated and wow-ed by this novel…
Excellent review. I agree with Nymeth’s comment about having or needing superstitions to explain the bad stuff. As well as the survival parts of the story being explained by mongooses and exceptional prayer power.
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If you’re bothered by the Spanish, jump on Google and look it up. The unfortunate truth is that it’s not written for you, but for us. You are warmly invited to observe, but we’re not changing the language to suit you. That happens enough day to day.
As for cane fields, Junot is right. They’re terrifying and you should never walk into one in the DR or anywhere else. Being led into one by either a gun or a paycheck spells a severely abbreviated life.
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