The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz: A review

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao racked up most of the major literary awards when it came out in 2007, including the Pulitzer. It was hailed as a tour de force by most critics. Now that I've finally gotten around to reading the book, I have to agree. It is an amazing work.

This was Junot Diaz's first novel. Of course, since then he's written another greatly acclaimed book, This Is How You Lose Her. I'm putting it on my "to be read" list.

We meet Oscar as an amazingly sweet-tempered, grossly obese teenage geek who lives in a fantasy world of gaming, anime, comics, and Lord of the Rings with his rebellious older sister and his Dominican mother in Paterson, New Jersey. Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien. Most of all, he dreams of finding love. He falls in love repeatedly, usually with the most highly inappropriate females, but his sentiments are never returned. He's never been kissed.

Things are not easy for this immigrant Dominican family. The mother works two and three jobs to support the family. The father is out of the picture - never been in the picture, really. The mother seems incapable of showing tenderness to her two teenage children, although it is apparent that she does love them fiercely. The arc of her life was bent early on in the Dominican Republic under the vicious dictator Trujillo. Her family, which had been upper middle class, was destroyed. She was the sole survivor, but she, too, was marked for life, both physically and mentally.

The family ever after feels itself cursed by something called the Fukú. The curse has doomed the family to torture, unjust imprisonment, tragic accidents, and ill-starred love affairs. Can Oscar possibly escape its effects?

The tumultuous history of Oscar's family and his own life are shown to us with humor and with warm and affectionate insight into the Dominican-American experience. Moreover, we are impressed again with the human capacity to endure and to persevere in the face of mind-boggling physical pain, tragedy, heartbreak and loss. All of this is slowly revealed to the reader by a narrator who is only gradually identified as Yunior, a friend and lover of Oscar's sister, Lola, and a friend and sometime roommate at Rutgers of Oscar's.

Throughout all the turmoil of Oscar's life, the things that remain constant are his devotion to his sister Lola, her devotion to him, and his need to express himself in writing. We might add to that his search for love. He wants a relationship with a woman so badly, but he seems doomed to die a virgin.

The ties of the American Dominican community to their country of origin are strong. Oscar and his family return to the D.R. from time to time, particularly at times of crisis, and visit with their abuela, La Inca. It was she who saved Oscar's and Lola's mother as a child when all the rest of her family was destroyed. She is in many ways the glue which holds the remnant of the family together. This family may be cursed, but it is also a family of strong women who will not allow it to be utterly destroyed.

These are all vivid characters and we get to know them intimately through the voice of Yunior. It is a straightforward but passionate voice.

This book is replete with cultural references to comics, anime, superheroes, and especially to J.R.R. Tolkien. I got the Tolkien ones, but I'm sure I missed some of the others that I was less familiar with; however, I never felt that I was missing something important. I was always able to discern meaning through context. Also, there are sentences and phrases in Spanish sprinkled throughout the text, but my college Spanish was generally up to the task of figuring out what was meant.

Junot Diaz writes with compassion and understanding about the Dominican-American community and about the life of the perpetual outsider. The nerd. The dork. The one who always gets picked last for the team. The one who never gets kissed. It is a life which many of us can relate to and for which we can have empathy. We badly want Oscar to finally win, but we strongly suspect that isn't going to happen. Diaz keeps us turning those pages to find out.

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

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