The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (edit title)

• Rated 4 stars

“I enjoyed this book. It reminded me of Tom Robbins because of some of the hip language - like 'the dictatingest dictator that ever dictated'. I also enjoyed how it interspersed Dominican Republic history with the modern tale and how the story really spanned several generations. I would recommend this book. ”

• Rated 4 stars

“One of the things I love about reading fiction is that it is a painless way to learn about other places and times. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao did an excellent job for me in teaching me all about the Dominican Republic and its recent history. This novel is a bit of a tough read because of the heavy use of Spanish colloquialisms by Diaz - most of the time you can guess what they mean but it can make for slower reading and an impatient reader might just ditch the book. Hang in there - it is worth it! Set in New York and the Dominican Republic, Diaz writes a family saga about the Cabrals, Beli the mother, Lola the sister and Oscar, the fat, nerdy hero. Oscar is the kind of kid who has read Lord of the Rings fifty times and who can translate things into Klingon and Elvish (Silvan Elvish no less!) Oscar is always in love and always rejected. Wound into the history of this family is the history of the Dominican Republic and its merciless dictator Trujillo. Diaz tells this history with a darkly sardonic comic sensibility - it is hard to describe how he does it, but he is a masterly writer - adept at both creating character and telling the family story. He begins the novel with a definition of Fuku - a Dominican or more largely Caribbean superstition of bad luck or the evil eye - it seems the Cabral family has massive amounts of Fuku surrounding it - that horribly ironic bad luck that drives the narrative. This is a funny but important book too if you want to know about the Dominican Republic and its close neighbour Haiti. ”

• Rated 5 stars

“I finished "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz today. The 2008 Pulitzer award winner was an absolute masterpiece. The novel is the history of three generations of one Dominican family with the focus on Oscar, the youngest member of the trend.

The social background of the novel is very important in order to understand it. The history of family starts during the reign of Raphael Trujillo, the evil dictator of DR during the 30s-60s. The US backed dictator ruled the colonially damaged DR in the cruellest fashion. The Dominicans and people and families who suffered from his reign believed in a curse called Fuku. The power of this curse was said to be so immense that it remained in generations and generations of the poor victims. Oscar’s family is an example and that is what the novel is about. Fuku, this superstitious belief is treated in a beautiful way by Diaz who transforms Fuku into a fabulous colonial and hegemonic symbol.

What strikes Oscar’s family from his late grandfather, into his mother, his sister and himself is not really a supernatural curse. Although it’s even worse than a curse – a curse no scapegoat could eradicate. Fuku, I think, is the consequence of Trujillo’s brutality, and Trujillo himself in not responsible. They whole misery goes back to the first European settlers who entered the New World, Hispaniola so to speak, for the first time.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao explores how the destructive forces of colonialism, and cultural materialism resulting in the instalment of puppet regimes, could destroy societies, families, and even individuals. As Junot Diaz himself points out in an interview, Trujillo is not a Dominican, but a typical American. A person any American thrives to be like.

Oscar, whose virginity and death opens a psychological colonial approach to the text, is an alien both in America and DR (he is born in DR, though holds a US greencard). It is his unhomeliness, and double consciousness which drowns him in his fantasies and hinders him from fulfilling the real world.

I do recommend you do to read this novel. It is a piece with which you form an intimacy from the first page and which finally moves you up to heaven until the end with its touching epiphanies. It is a debut novel by a fresh voice: Junot Diaz is a young American-Dominican who teaches creative writing in MIT.”

• Rated 0 stars

“April 2009 Book Club”

• Rated 5 stars

“This book is the story of a young Dominican named Oscar de Leon. He is more commonly known as Oscar Wao. The book not only shows life from Oscar’s perspective, but from his sister’s and an omniscient narrator as well. Oscar is obese and he has an obsession with science fiction and fantasy. His vocabulary resembles something that would only be found in the flash cards attached to an SAT prep book. The only thing he wants most in the world is to find “pure and unadulterated love.” Despite his numerous attempts to lose weight and channel his ‘inner Dominican girl-bagging skills’ Oscar is left stranded without much hope. He finally falls in love with an unexpected person. The things that she involves him with are also unexpected. ”

• Rated 3 stars

“Heartbreaking! I learned a lot about the Trujillo Regime...”

• Rated 2 stars

“I really wanted to love this book! But the narrator's voice didn't resonate with me at all -- too hectic, too busy, too jive-talkin' and boy did I hate the footnotes. That said, the characters were compelling. I love a multi-generational family story and was disappointed that this didn't deliver more for me.”

• Rated 3 stars

“a solid, fun, empty book. just not worthy of the pulitzer, which it won. so i had much bigger expectations than for what the book delivered.”

• Rated 5 stars

“The brief wondrous life of oscar wao begins from the perspective of Oscar. He is a Dominican boy who is a player when he is younger having two girlfriends at once. Then a trematic where the girlfriend he decides to be faithful to dumps him for another boy. This starts the dominican myth of the Fuku. Oscar gains a lot of weight over the years and becomes a nerd. They move to new jersey where the other switches to the point of view of the sister who is in a relationship with a boy who just uses her. He takes her virginity and treats her like dirt. She always feels sorry for Oscar who never became more popular trying to look out for him as much as she could. She breaks up with her boyfriend and decides to go back to Santa Domingo where so can reground herself. Then we switch to the mother POV where she shows the past of Santa Domingo where the dictator Trujillo took over raping every girl that was attractive in the country. She was attached to a man who had a double life in Santa Domingo. He promised her everything that he could and led her on over and over again. He finally left her. She fled to the United States. They switch to the room mates perspective of Oscar. He wants to be in a relationship with the sister but he isn't doing well so he wants to give charity to her brother. Oscar doesnt adapt to college so well. The roomate tries to help him but he falls in love with any girls that talks to him so his roomate cant do anythign about it. Oscar has a meltdown and graduates as a manic deppresisve and is sent to Santa Domingo where he meets a woman who is about 50 years old. He falls in love with her even though she is prostitute and he dreams of finally losing his virginity. The woman warns him that she is dating a cop who is very jealous. He is determined to be with her though. He gets beaten up by the cop and almost killed but he is still determined. The cop finally goes overboard and shoots him. That is The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.”

• Rated 0 stars

“it was an interesting book - my book club read In the Time of the Butterflies a few years ago and this was a good follow up, exposing life in the Dominican Republic during more recent times. Aside from the politics, the story of Oscar is sweet and sad, and the author apparently "spoke" as if he knew Oscar.”