Review: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz

Oscar Wao, a 300lb teenage virgin of Dominican heritage, endures humiliations galore in Junot Diaz's second novel. His family is a mess; his father disappeared long ago, his emotionally and physically scarred mother has breast cancer, his brother is an ex-con sexual dynamo, and his sister is such a handful that their mother sent her to live with her grandmother in the Dominican Republic. His friends, nerds themselves, are embarassed to be seen with him. His only dependable refuge lies in the role-playing universes he creates, where he envisions himself rescuing the damsel, showing her the carred body of her boyfriend, and then riding off with her into the nuclear-blasted sunset.

I was just beginning to get really into Oscar, and start rooting for him, when Diaz completely switched tactics, abandons Oscar for over a hundred pages, and instead tells the story of his sister, and his mother's adolescence. The time-jumping and character-shifting made it hard for me to really develop a relationship with the characters, and by the time Oscar was re-introduced, I had all but lost steam for the book. Neither Oscar's mother nor his sister are very likable, so getting through their portions was a struggle in itself.

Another difficulty arises in the constant switching between Spanish and English. While most of it isn't too hard to figure out, for a person who isn't fluently bilingual it definitely took away from my enjoyment of the book simply because there was so much of it. A phrase now and again is one thing; several sentences in a row, and peppering of almost every sentence, was too much. I know that there are probably additional nuances and meanings to many of the words that I missed out on by inferring their meanings and that would have increased my enjoyment of the book had I been able to understand. Additionally, there is a lot of social and cultural history of the DR presented in footers and which is constantly being referenced; this added to the language barrier was a lot to cope with.

I understand why this book has been popular, and I think I might enjoy it if it came out in movie format, simply because there would probably be some subtitles and I would have the visual connection to help bridge any gaps. Also, Diaz's descriptions are incredibly lush, and while reading extensive descriptions can be dull, actually seeing them, particularaly the scenes in the DR, would be wonderful. I have heard that Diaz's reading of the book-on-cd is great, too.

I wish there had been more of a focus on Oscar, and that he hadn't been dropped for so long right after we really got to know him. Even if it had made the book longer, to jog back and forth a few times to visit him between the backrounding of other characters, it would have been a massive improvement. The family is incredibly disjointed, so it makes sense that the novel would translate that fact, but that in turn translated into my feeling disjointed myself the entire time I was reading.

Rating: three out of five stars for my personal enjoyment; had I been able to speak Spanish, it would probably have been a lot higher