"The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao"

Well, I must admit that the bar was set pretty high for Junot Diaz and his book, "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao." Two years ago, I couldn't turn around without seeing this book on a top-ten list. It even won a pulitzer prize...

(A.O. Scott's NYTimes review is a pretty good primer; so, if you end up reading this book, which I wholeheartedly endorse, I would recommend paying attention.)

The titular character is practically a background character. Once you finish this book, you'll see the world through the eyes of Oscar, his mom, sister, and roommate; you'll get your fill of history (Dominican-Republic style), dictators -- well, I guess just Trujillo, but Castro makes an appearance -- and plenty of science fiction. At one point, Oscar claims his life's goal is to become the Dominican Tolkien -- and he includes enough references to Mordor, Sauron, the Nazgul, et al, to fill a notebook.

On the surface, this novel is a coming-of-age story about a fat, nerdy Dominican kid growing up in New Jersey. But its deep structure is more concerned with the power of myth (in the DR, they have a particularly potent curse called the fuku). Rooted in the cruel regime of Trujillo, this curse expands outward to (seemingly) influence everything in the DR -- or, at least Oscar and his family perceive it as such.

I particularly enjoyed the history: I didn't know much about the Antilles (or the Caribbean in general), and I tend to enjoy history. This particular strand resonated with me because I recently TA'ed a class on Global Hip-Hop. One of the more interesting topics in that class concerned the migration patterns between NYC and the Caribbean -- a topic that is central to the Oscar and his family. And again, it was another fact of which I was unaware.

My only concerns about the book were its mixed language...were you're writing about a family transplanted from the DR into New Jersey, and you want to keep it realistic, you're going to include Spanish -- it's a must; but, unfortunately for me, my Spanish chops are non-existent. But, I soldiered through the statements that I didn't understand and pieced together some meaning from the general context. Overall, it's not a deal breaker -- but, it's an issue nonetheless.

If you're looking for a deeply-layered novel, which reads almost like an Intro to Cultural Studies, and constantly surprises you with new points-of-view, then this is your book.