Junot Díaz: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

[Stewart]

For the rest of the world, who had been waiting over ten years for Díaz’s first novel, following on from his short story collection, Drown, I hope the wait was worth it. For me, having never heard of Díaz until his book, The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao (2007) took the 2008 Pulitzer Prize there was no weight of expectation hanging around, waiting to confirm him as a genius or to wallow in what could have been. And were it not for the Pulitzer I would probably have remained ignorant of it as the cover is…well, ugly. Not something I’d pick up, never mind read.

Wao being a distortion of Wilde, used to ridicule him, the Oscar of the title is actually Oscar de León, an overweight nerd of Dominican heritage living in the United States who, unlike his skirt chasing contemporaries, is more into sci-fi, fantasy, role-playing games, and writing novels. Not that he doesn’t attempt some skirt chasing himself, it’s just that his lines, along with the rest of him, need a bit of work:

Anywhere else his triple-zero batting average with the ladies might have passed without comment, but this is a Dominican kid we’re talking about, in a Dominican family: dude was supposed to have Atomic Level G, was supposed to be pulling in the bitches with both hands. Everybody noticed his lack of game and because they were Dominican everybody talked about it.

Dominicans talking is nothing new - it’s in their history. And the history of the Dominican Republic plays a large role in The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao. While the idea of Oscar’s bad luck, to some, is something to be skeptical about, it could possibly be attributed to a curse in the family, referred to as fukú:

But the fukú ain’t just ancient history, a ghost story from the past with no power to scare. In my parent’s day the fukú was real as shit, something your everyday person could believe in…But in those elder days, fukú had it good; it even had a hypeman of sorts, a high priest you could say. Our then dictator for life Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina.

The life of Trujillo, whose reign was one of the 20th Century’s bloodiest, and lasted over thirty year, mixes with the history of Oscar’s mother and grandfather and ties them neatly together. And with a narrator -who doesn’t reveal himself until late into the novel - that wasn’t actually there at the events he relates, there’s much filling in of the blanks. There’s footnotes, too - loads of them - providing further history about Trujillo and the Dominican Republic, and it’s an unsettling experience, being dragged between narrative and notes, that soon becomes annoying.

And when it comes to annoying, The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao has another ace up its sleeve in the use of ghetto Spanglish. It’s understandable why Díaz has done this, given that it’s his narrator’s voice and to not do so would lessen its power but the Spanish is sometimes laid on so thick that, save taking time out to look up words and phrases, the context sheds no light. Reading this was reminiscent of the white boy in the wrong neighbourhood stereotype. However, I didn’t feel too fussed by the peppering of sci-fi and fantasy references, mostly alien too, because they seemed more like texture, whereas the Spanish felt important.

Yet, even when it annoys, the novel has an energy to its prose the likes of which I’ve not enjoyed for a while. It picks you up, and carries you along, to the end. Personally, I found the sections detailing Oscar’s relatives’ lives the least engaging, perhaps because of the distance between the narrator and the tales, whereas the Oscar sections flow with warmth, love, and humour. That they do is a pity because Oscar’s role, despite being the titular character, is minimal on the surface, with Díaz using him as a way in to writing about his political interests in the Dominican Republic.

I know I’ve approached the novel from the wrong angle - or at least, not that which Díaz likely intended - but when the book became a lost cause for me, I relied on the sections about Oscar to get me through. Who couldn’t love the nerd, even if some of his interests….well, you know:

Could write in Elvish, could speak Chakobsa, could differentiate between a Slan, a Dorsai, and a Lensman in acute detail, knew more about the Marvel Universe than Stan Lee, and was a role-playing fanatic…Dude wore his nerdiness like a Jedi wore his light saber or a Lensman her lens. Couldn’t have passed for normal if he’d wanted to.

While he may not pass for normal, Oscar certainly makes an interesting character and it’s a shame that, for all the interesting history and story there, I couldn’t enjoy the book, except for the brief and wondrous pages of Oscar Wao.

[fausto]

Speaking Spanish, I didn't have the same issues even though Díaz uses very local expressions.

Oscar Wao was a fun pleasant and often clever book but it was nowhere near as good as most critics would have you believe. Its flaws were way, way too important. In her NYT review, Kakutani said, admirative, the book "is so original it can only be described as Mario Vargas Llosa meets Star Trek meets David Foster Wallace meets Kanye West". This actually encompasses all the issues I have with the book. The Vargas Llosa bit is due to him writing La fiesta del chivo about the Trujillo dictatorship. While the Peruvian writer focused on the upper-class, Díaz does on people of lesser social standing. Very good, and very interesting but he can't prevent himself from trying to take cheapshots at Vargas Llosa's book: he shouldn't, as La fiesta is better written, better documented and most of all much more subtle. The Star Trek thing is true enough, but as Stewart said, it's there more for the flavour than anything else and it's probably too nerdy for the non-nerd or not nerdy enough for the real nerd. It also allows Díaz to indulge in far too many silly metaphors. The DFW thing comes, I guess, from the footnotes. DFW uses of same in Infinite Jest was creative, intriguing and interesting. Here, it's mannerist, most of the times a distraction rather than an interesting / funny / witty aside. DFW is maybe namedropped because of Díaz original take on popular culture. As for Kanye, well one can only guess... Probably the ghetto talk. Again an issue here: it's too polished, too artificially perfect to add the realistic factor obviously desired by Díaz.

It also struck me that the book had probably been written in three phases with additional layers brought to the plate. It often feels like three stories rather than an integrated novel. Díaz worked on it for 10 years and I can't help to think it was not out of perfectionism or desire to polish everything but rather because he just didn't manage to find his direction. That's at least what it felt like reading it.

Overall, it is, I'm afraid, a case of an author who wanted to do much more than he could deliver.

It's not a bad book, it's just not worthy of the silly praise it received and continues to receive.

[Stewart]

Originally Posted by fausto

It also struck me that the book had probably been written in three phases with additional layers brought to the plate.

I got that too. The last sections of Oscar didn't have the va va voom of earlier passages. And, as I've said to someone on my blog, I think that the narrative's familiar tone trivialises the weight of certain events it tries to relate.

[elcalifornio]

Not quite sure why Diaz has the Dominican Republic flag by his name. He's very much American, albeit of a culture that people outside this country might not see as "American" (possibly because there are no stereotypes of fat Latinos slurping Coke and banning all things French). It's not as simple as classifying such immigrant strands of American identity by the fact that they do spend a lot of time psychologizing about their immediate past in either oppressive political situations or oppressive poverty. One cannot talk about being in a " Dominican" family if one is in the DR; it's an American discussion, the immigrant's discussion.

Additionally, I think Diaz, though very close to his roots in the DR, would probably have trouble with the flag as representing a national identity. There is a particular brand of Dominican "nationalism" that places authenticity with those Dominicans who stay on the island, despite holding an affinity for their Urbano-American brethren. There's a difference between the urban (rich) and rural (poor) lives, which I think he even discusses in his writing.

His writing is also very American, having some clear antecedents in American literature, not Dominican literature.

(Not to mention, some Dominicans do not wish to be identified with the ultras back home who persecute Haitian minorities; and in some cities, like Boston, they live next door to each in a mirror of their home island).

[Stewart]

Originally Posted by elcalifornio

Not quite sure why Diaz has the Dominican Republic flag by his name. He's very much American...

I had a quick glance at his Wikipedia page and saw his nationality listed as Dominican Republic, although it does list him as Dominican-American. My thinking is, for those that straddle nationalities (Nabokov, Coetzee, etc.) then, ony able to pick one flag, I choose whichever came first. In concede in this case, since it won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction (!), that it should be the American flag and have therefore changed it.

[sprollie]

Really interesting review. I'm afraid this book wasn't for me. It's the only book I've failed to finish this year. Disappointed as I was looking forward to reading and reviewing it for Vulpes. The extensive footnotes were very off-putting, I thought. Oh, and I agree with Stewart about the cover.