The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007)

A humorous, self-conscious style coupled with evocative descriptions of locales and a strand of the supernatural put this above rank-and-file coming of age novels. ( )

I've had this novel on my shelf for a year or more and meant to get around to reading it. After Diaz' entertaining appearance on the Colbert Report, I thought it was time to grab it and begin. I'm so glad I did.

This is a hip, fast-moving, deeply loving ode to chubby and geekish Oscar, the least Dominican of Dominicans, the most nerdly of his neighborhood. I LOVED Diaz' use of language throughout, especially of his characters' slang (most of which I didn't understand, but could either guess at or grab a quick Google translation for) - there's no stilted speech here. Instead there is fire and depth and fascinating, broken, yearning characters plunging headlong into a cursed life. Fuku indeed.

A ton of reviews here on GR have slammed this book for its unclean language, its frivolous descriptions of love and sex - but that dirty reality seemed like truth to me, even though that culture isn't my own.

I'll read more of Diaz for certain, and I'm passing this book around to folks who I think will also appreciate it. ( )

There was very little in this book to inspire me. It was a dark, despairing story. The sarcasm is not my cup of tea, nor is the deprecating sense of humor. I really tried to see some semblance of message, purpose or coherence and was left bland. It proves you cannot please everyone and some of us are dense. As a story of history of the Dominican Republic it was horrific and that is an important historical lesson. ( )

How can one book be so brilliant and hilarious and so depressing and brutal at the same time?? ( )

I've not made a lot of progress in this book. Like the story in itself, but I absolutely dislike the notes.
If it's not a scientific work you're writing, why put notes in DURING the story? The interrupt and deflect. The contents may be interesting, but the form is bad for reading properly.

Finished this book. I got over my aversion of the notes and actually started to like Oscar's story. Mixed with the Dominican background/history, in was an interesting read.
In the end I had had enough, did the form in which the book was presented make me wish the story wad finished. ( )