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Loading... The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007)by Junot Díaz
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Interesting book, not sure what was really going on with the main storyline but I learned a lot about the history of the Dominican Republic. (If you read this and don't know Spanish, get ready to use your translator a lot.) Can't see why it won the Pulitzer but maybe I missed something. Like 3.5 stars. ( ) My feelings on this book are complicated but also super easy to explain: I think it's probably brilliant for a lot of readers, I think Diaz is a fantastic writer, and I completely understand all of his techniques, and I think they are used masterfully... but I didn't enjoy it at all. Which is just to say, this book and I are not compatible. I think it is very good if it suits. I wanted to like this book more than I did. I could see on an intellectually level what was being done. The contrast that's drawn between Oscar, the decidedly irregular Dominican man, and Yunior, the clear authorial stand-in and ultimate player is engaging at times. Clearly there's a lot to uncover there about masculinity, stereotypes and expectations, but I just wasn't that into the language and the voice, particularly the chapters narrated by Yunior. Glad I finally read it though, it is interesting even if I didn't necessarily enjoy it all the way through.
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. 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. Belongs to Publisher SeriesIs contained inHas as a student's study guideAwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
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 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. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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