Oscar Wao is a “fat sci-fi reading nerd” who can’t get laid to save his life. In short, a promising main character but in Junot Díaz’s Pulitzer Prize winning debut novel ‘The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao’, his story occupies less that a third of the 300 plus pages.
The rest is about Wao’s family (mother, grandfather ,punk chick sister Lola) and life in the Dominican Republican under the tyranical regime of Rafael Trujillo.
I confess that I knew nothing about the history of this nation before reading the novel and Díaz didn’t really bring it to life much. I wanted to learn more about the nerd than the tyrant.
I got impatient too with the constant Spanish words which pepper the text many of which are apparently slang terms and none of which are translated.
Díaz uses a lot of footnotes too but these are in the realm of irritating distractors rather than David Foster Wallace gems.
I guess , not for the first time, I’m in a minority in not being bowled over by this book which has gained widespread critical acclaim. I found it poorly structured and smug so it’s not one I’d personally recommend.
You know what??? I actually agree with you. Almost fully. While I am not yet done with the book, upon a little hindsight Junot is a bit smug, but I think every one who likes it gets the feeling of being spoken to by a real person reminiscing… Diaz is a professor dontchaknow… anyway, its hard not to like though, all the characters have such character. I think that is the reason behind the acclaim the author has received… He painted a vividly colorful portrat of a people and a place.