Approximately a week or so ago, my English 3 Honors class started a new book, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. According to a colleague, the novel is one of those books that most of the Lawrence High campus are thrilled to be reading. Although, I have my doubts on whether or not my class will enjoy the book as every one of them apparently hates reading in any form and only want to watch movies. <sigh> But that being said, before I could have my class read the novel, I needed to read it first.
Synopsis: "Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd who – from the New Jersey home he shares with his old world mother and rebellious sister – dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, finding love. But Oscar may never get what he wants. Blame the fukú – curse that has haunted Oscar’s family for generations, following them on their epic journey from Santo Domingo to the USA. Encapsulating Dominican-American history, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao opens our eyes to an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience and explores the endless human capacity to persevere – and risk it all – in the name of love." (Amazon.com)
Review: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2008, Oscar Wao is a riveting, amusing, heartbreaking, and interesting novel. At the most basic level, this novel is the story of the ultra geeky, morbidly obese, socially inappropriate, Dominican-American, Oscar and his attempt to make a difference in his life. But at its heart, it is a modern hero's journey, and is told 'mostly' from the point of view of Oscar's college roommate (Yunior). (Chapter 2 is interestingly told by Oscar's sister (Lola).)
But the story is so much more than that! Through Oscar's story, Diaz reminds us of our inhumanity to our own kind, but also celebrates that inner spirit that shines through despite it all.
More deliciously, this is a subversive novel – politically attuned to our modern world, underscored by the presence of the Dominican dictator, Rafael Trujillo, who amazingly is not even a character in the novel, but has a momentous impact on the life of our hero and his family. What Diaz tells us about the psychopathic Trujillo and his influence on his country through Oscar and his family, somehow serves as poignant and powerful reminders about how most of America is made up of immigrants and how many left their countries due to similar atrocities, as well as throwing light onto the dark side of history: genocide, slavery, racism, life in poverty, and torture.
The novel also introduces the idea of 'fukú' – which is a kind of Dominican curse (the "evil eye"). (These types of curses inhabit so many different cultures: Malocchio in Italy, Maka Pilau in Hawaii, Nazar in Turkey, Mal de Ojo in Spain, etc.) Most of us would agree that it is human nature to be in denial about our trials and tribulations and to place blame on other factors when things go horribly wrong. (My grandmother insisted that two of her babies died because of the malocchio!) The author very successfully ties together the concept of 'fukú' with Trujillo and his brutality, but that's not the actual message.
Instead, it's more about how important it is to face with clarity and awareness our past, especially the misfortunes and how those misfortunes affect us, else we and our children are driven to repeat the past. In the novel, it is Oscar who carries the bulk of the weight of the family's past, literally and figuratively, and though he is not aware of it consciously, he, therefore, is driven almost with a sense of joy to repeat the past mistakes. I assume that you can made a prediction of what happens to Oscar based on the title of the novel.
Diaz is letting us know that without societal long-term memory, we are destined to repeat the past. That is why books like this one and Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, movies like Schinder's List, and organizations like the USC Shoah Foundation are so important for everyone's future. "Oh yes, the past can hurt. But the from way I see it, you can either run from it, or... learn from it" (Rafiki in The Lion King).
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Even more interesting is the biography of Junot Diaz. I highly recommend reading up on this amazing author's life. Due to work responsibilities, I missed this year's Newburyport Literary Festival and am severely disappointed over that fact because Mr. Diaz was there. I would have liked to have heard him speak.
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