The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Junot Diaz
Faber

Meet Oscar Wao, a rare breed amongst the Dominican male-itude: a virginal sci-fi loving ‘ghetto-nerd’ living in New Jersey and fantasizing about all the girls he will never have. Oscar has two passions in life: to write a best selling epic Tolkien-esk fantasy novel and to fall in love. Alas, he seems to be luck-less in both fields. He blames his lack of sucess on Fuku – a curse which has brought devastation to his family for generations. Yet even Fuku cannot dampen Oscar’s enthusiasm. He falls hopelessly in love on a daily basis, with the intensity of ‘a dwarf mother-fucking star’ and he continues to write page after page of his epic tales. The book takes us on a journey, edgy and sharp, following Oscar, his mother Beli who once lead a rebellious youth in the Dominican Republic, and his punk-rocker, track-star, beautiful sister Lola. Surprisingly, the most interesting narrative voice comes from Yunior, who emerges half way through the book as Lola’s two-timing boyfriend and Oscar’s college roommate.

Although The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a work of fiction, Diaz draws heavily from his homeland’s history under the dictator Rafael Trujillo. Diaz cleverly weaves Oscar and his family’s tragic history with the escalating violence of Trujillo’s reign.Diaz writes with energy, wit and insight, although at times his footnotes do get a bit tiresome. The ending was a little far fetched and possibly the only weak part of the book. Even so, once I reached the book’s conclusion, I was satisfied that I had finished something wonderfully original.