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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007)

by Junot Díaz

Other authors: See the other authors section.

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingConversations / Mentions
12,078458434 (3.85)1 / 644
Publisher description: Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. From his home in New Jersey, where he lives with his old-world mother and rebellious sister, Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fukœ-the curse that has haunted the Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still waiting for his first kiss, is just its most recent victim.… (more)
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English (448)  French (4)  Danish (1)  Dutch (1)  Portuguese (Brazil) (1)  Catalan (1)  Swedish (1)  All languages (457)
date ▼ | votes
Showing 1-5 of 448 (next | show all)
couldn't get into. ( )
  LASMIT | Mar 22, 2022 |
Just a complete and utter mess I couldn't finish it. Don't bother yourself with trying ( )
  pgarri16 | Mar 5, 2022 |
Prosa fantástica, amena y contemporánea (al menos conmigo). Un placer de lectura. No aprendía tantos neologismos hermosos desde la naranja mecánica. ( )
  eduardochang | Feb 3, 2022 |
Award winning, highly praised - so you get beautifully written tragedy and suffering.
A lot of untranslated Spanish. Too much to figure out by the context with my non-existent Spanish. Since I was listening to it, it wasn't practical to stop and look things up.
It is not only Oscar's life, it is his sister, mother, and grandfather. ( )
  nx74defiant | Jan 11, 2022 |
This novel has an energetic distinctive voice that propels you through both interesting characters such as Oscar Wao and his sister and the narrator and less compelling characters such as some of Oscar's extended family, all mixed up with a healthy dose of comic book/fantasy geek lore and Dominican political history. The plot is loose and shaggy and the sprinkling of magical realism elements unfortunate, but Diaz's unique Dominican-American voice kept me involved. ( )
  AlexThurman | Dec 26, 2021 |
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▾Published reviews
Díaz’s novel also has a wild, capacious spirit, making it feel much larger than it is. Within its relatively compact span, “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” contains an unruly multitude of styles and genres. The tale of Oscar’s coming-of-age is in some ways the book’s thinnest layer, a young-adult melodrama draped over a multigenerational immigrant family chronicle that dabbles in tropical magic realism, punk-rock feminism, hip-hop machismo, post-postmodern pyrotechnics and enough polymorphous multiculturalism to fill up an Introduction to Cultural Studies syllabus.
added by Shortride | editThe New York Times Book Review, A. O. Scott (Sep 30, 2007)
 
It is Mr. Díaz’s achievement in this galvanic novel that he’s fashioned both a big picture window that opens out on the sorrows of Dominican history, and a small, intimate window that reveals one family’s life and loves. In doing so, he’s written a book that decisively establishes him as one of contemporary fiction’s most distinctive and irresistible new voices.
added by Shortride | editThe New York Times, Michiko Kakutani (Sep 4, 2007)
 
▾Other authors

» Add other authors (6 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Junot Díaz—primary authorall editionscalculated
Bragg, BillCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Corral, RodrigoCover designersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Pareschi, SilviaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Snell, StaciNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
▾Series and work relationships
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▾Common Knowledge
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Canonical title
Original title
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Alternative titles
Original publication date
2007
People/Characters
Oscar "Oscar Wao" de Leon
Dolores "Lola" de Leon
Hypatia Belicia "Beli" Cabral de Leon
Yunior
Important places
Bani, Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA
Paterson, New Jersey, USA
Rutgers University
Important events
Trujillo dictatorship (1930 | 1961)
Related movies
Awards and honors
Pulitzer Prize (2008.1 | Fiction, 2008)
National Book Critics Circle Award (2008)
Anisfield-Wolf Book Award (2008.1 | Fiction, 2008)
David Bowie's Top 100 (2007)
Massachusetts Book Award (Fiction, 2008)
Epigraph
Of what import are brief, nameless lives . . . to Galactus?? (Fantastic Four, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Vol. 1, No. 49, April 1966)
Christ have mercy on all sleeping things!
From that dog rotting down Wrightson Road
to when I was a dog on these streets;
if loving these islands must be my load,
out of corruption my soul takes wings,
But they had started to poison my soul
with their big house, big car, bit-time hbohl,
coolie, nigger, Syrian, and French Creole,
so I leave it for them and their carnival--
I taking a sea-bath, I gone down the road.
I know these islands from Monos to Nassau,
a rusty head sailor with sea-green eyes
that they nickname Shabine, the patois for
any red nigger, and I, Shabine, saw
when these slums of empire was paradise.
I'm just a red nigger who love the sea,
I had a sound colonial education,
I have Dutch, nigger, and English in me,
and either I'm nobody, or I'm a nation.
(Derek Walcott)
Dedication
Elizabeth de Leon
First words
They say it came first from Africa, carried in the screams of the enslaved; that it was the death bane of the Tainos, uttered just as one world perished and another began; that it was a demon drawn into Creation through the nightmare door that was cracked open in the Antilles.
Quotations
You wanna smoke?
I might partake. Just a little though. I would not want to cloud my faculties.
“They say it came first from Africa, carried in the screams of the enslaved; that it was the death bane of the Tainos, uttered just as one world perished and another began; that it was a demon drawn into Creation through the nightmare door that was cracked open in the Antilles. Fukú americanus, or more colloquially, fukú–generally a curse or a doom of some kind; specifically the Curse and the Doom of the New World. Also called the fukú of the Admiral because the Admiral was both its midwife and one of its great European victims; despite “discovering” the New World the Admiral died miserable and syphilitic, hearing (dique) divine voices. In Santo Domingo, the Land He Loved Best (what Oscar, at the end, would call the Ground Zero of the New World), the Admiral’s very name has become synonymous with both kinds of fukú, little and large; to say his name aloud or even to hear it is to invite calamity on the heads of you and yours.”
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
Some editions contain the short story "Drown," narrated by Jonathan Davis
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Jones, Edward P.
Mosley, Walter
Kakutani, Michiko
Original language
Canonical DDC/MDS
813.54
Canonical LCC
PS3554.I259
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▾Book descriptions
Publisher description: Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. From his home in New Jersey, where he lives with his old-world mother and rebellious sister, Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fukœ-the curse that has haunted the Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still waiting for his first kiss, is just its most recent victim.
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Melvil Decimal System (DDC)

813.54 — Literature › English (North America) › American fiction › 20th Century › 1945-1999

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