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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao |  | Author: Junot Díaz
Publisher: Riverhead Trade
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
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Rating:  488 reviews
Sales Rank: 421
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5 x 1
ISBN: 1594483299
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781594483295
ASIN: 1594483299
Publication Date: September 2, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, September 2007: It's been 11 years since Junot Díaz's critically acclaimed story collection, Drown, landed on bookshelves and from page one of his debut novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, any worries of a sophomore jinx disappear. The titular Oscar is a 300-pound-plus "lovesick ghetto nerd" with zero game (except for Dungeons & Dragons) who cranks out pages of fantasy fiction with the hopes of becoming a Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien. The book is also the story of a multi-generational family curse that courses through the book, leaving troubles and tragedy in its wake. This was the most dynamic, entertaining, and achingly heartfelt novel I've read in a long time. My head is still buzzing with the memory of dozens of killer passages that I dog-eared throughout the book. The rope-a-dope narrative is funny, hip, tragic, soulful, and bursting with desire. Make some room for Oscar Wao on your bookshelf--you won't be disappointed. --Brad Thomas Parsons
Product Description
The most talked aboutand praisedfirst novel of 2007, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd whofrom the New Jersey home he shares with his old world mother and rebellious sister dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, finding love. But Oscar may never get what he wants. Blame the fukúa curse that has haunted Oscars family for generations, following them on their epic journey from Santo Domingo to the USA. Encapsulating Dominican-American history, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao<./I> opens our eyes to an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience and explores the endless human capacity to persevereand risk it allin the name of love.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 488
 Subject-matter worthy of real answers, not cheap wittiness. September 2, 2010
M. Fernandez (NY, USA)
Diaz, in his inability to understand how to get his characters out of their dilemmas (understandable, as for most writers this means a weak fairytale ending), creates a book that exploits situations that are tragically very common: rape, murder, child-neglect, etc., to sell us what we have long eaten up: a social issues novel with no solutions.
Books that are fiction, posing as non-fiction, are, in my opinion, the worse, because they're essentially a projected mass of the author's ideology and viewpoint, without real facts for the reader to use in critiquing the author's viewpoint/baggage. If you google Mr. Oscar Wao, you will only find information Junot Diaz.
All of the characters are essentially Mr. Diaz, they are his view of the world, his philosophy on life, and, so, the madness we read about is not even the notes from some cold cultural field study that can quantitatively and qualitatively enlighten us on something real.
There would been some sort of saving grace, if his view was open and questioning enough, if, in his role of pitying narrator, he could offer some sort of allusion to a missed way out for his characters. Another saving grace would have been fiction that does not exploit serious issues for what seems like no legitimately selfless reason.
I give it three stars for being entertaining. I deduct two for the above-mentioned reasons.
Suggestion for Mr. Diaz: either entertain or engage in social commentary (with your ideas on possible solutions).
Diaz Weaves a Witty Web with Wao September 1, 2010
Robert Reyes
In Junot Diaz's The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007), Oscar is the geeky, overweight, socially awkward protagonist, who stumbles, spins, and salsas in and out of the grip of a family curse. A story of multi-gender, multi-generational focus, Wao also follows Beli, (Oscar's grandmother), Lola (Oscar's sister) and Yunior (Oscar's supposed friend) on their road to adulthood. Their journeys are all affected by a fuku. A fuku is not a profane word, but a cultural curse; one that has haunted the De Leon family since the era of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. Diaz weaves together their heart-wrenching and humorous coming of age stories, against a backdrop of terrifying national history. Will Oscar and family succeed on their quests for love, dignity and maturity? Or, will Oscar remain a virgin, Lola loveless, Beli heartless and Yunior immature? Will they finally break from their country's hex? Diaz offers some answers, but you will need to decide others on your own.
I would caution my fellow readers that Wao can be a difficult read. The prose can be somewhat challenging. The author's use of language is a combustible fusion of challenging academic vocabulary, "Spanglish" and crude profanities. In addition, Diaz takes us on a cultural crash course, making copious cultural and historical references along the way, involving everyone from Trujillo, to Haitian president François "Papa Doc" Duvalier. The historical layer, the language, and the multiple points of view, might make Wao hard for some readers to keep up with.
Despite the challenges, I highly recommend this novel. That may leave you wondering, "If the novel is so difficult, why should I read it?" Though sometimes complex, Diaz's writing is always entertaining. His style grabs the reader by the collar and demands attention. Once the reader is hooked by the author's more foul-mouthed strokes, he or she will be motivated to grapple with the novel's more challenging vocabulary and content. Finally, from a thematic perspective the novel is very easy to relate to. It deals with issues like teen angst, isolation and adolescent pressure. And while Diaz spins a tale in a voice that marginalized readers and outcasts will recognize, all readers can relate to its perennial themes of love, loss, and pain. So, a better question is: why not read Oscar Wao?
Bibliography
Diaz, Junot. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. New York: Penguin Group, 2007. Print.
 Is it possible to conquer a curse? August 3, 2010
Mark Gilroy (Brentwood, TN)
If not for a recommendation from my son, I would never have read this book.
Honestly, I really wasn't interested in a novel that deals with the political history of the Dominican Republic under the brutal Trujillo regime - I can watch the news if I want to be depressed was my first thought - but my son recommended it - and Diaz's first novel did garner a few little awards like the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critic's Circle Award. But on the issue of awards, that's not necessarily a dealmaker for me; after all, there's more than a few Oscar-winning movies none of us liked. So it came back to my son's recommendation. I ordered it, promptly put it on the stack of books by my bed - where it dropped as low as the bottom third (usually the sure sign it's never going to be opened) - and read other stuff for six months before finally picking Oscar up. Reluctantly. Did I mention this book deals with the political history of the Dominican Republic under the the brutal Trujillo regime - AND includes footnotes with historical context and explanations throughout the novel?
Are you feeling as unenthused about Oscar as I was yet? I can go on!
But what a pleasure The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was to read. The jumbled but poetic wordsmything (along with those interesting and slightly disconcerting but somehow fitting footnotes) mark Diaz, the author, as an interesting blend of stream of conscious thought and carefully constructed and intellectual analysis of the world through the eyes of his characters and his out-of-story interjections as self-aware author. (I guess pulling that off is part of the reason he is a professor at MIT. I'm pretty sure he's a very smart guy.) The novel is a subtle and nuanced winding road with an occasional roadblock that delivers a direct, to-the-point, academic, sledge hammer observation on life.
Our hero, Oscar, is born in poverty in the DR - though his grandfather was a wealthy and famous physician in that nation whose unforgivable crime against the state was to hide a beautiful daughter from the lecherous Trujillo - and moves to a rundown, hardscrabble community in New Jersey that is bordered by a dump on one side and a six lane highway on another. There is a fleeting period of Oscar's life when he is the most handsome boy in his neighborhood and school and his mom and great aunt are convinced he is destined to be an international pop star - perhaps as big as Porfirio Rubirosa. But that is a short lived fantasy on their part as Oscar becomes a fat little boy who is the object of ridicule and relentless teasing from classmates. It doesn't help that Oscar's mother is distant and harsh to the point of cruelty - she would probably be reported to health and human services today - with he and his sister. (There's a reason this savage beauty is the way she is that can only be explained by the ravages of the curse described in the next paragraph of this review.) But Oscar is a survivor and escapes into a world of sci-fi and fantasy - he is a bonafide literature and gaming nerd - that allows him to be and dream anything but what he is. Speaking of dreams, Oscar has only two compelling visions in life: first is to become the Domincan version of J.R.R. Tolkien; and second is to find true love, something he he feels he glimpsed in the golden age of his pre-adolescent youth when he seemed to be on his way to becoming the next Pofirio Rubirosa. Oscar writes novels by nightstand light and falls madly in love on a constant basis - always and inevitably to experience the anguish of heartbreak. Sometimes before the object of his affection even knew he was in love with her.
I should have started where the book starts and mentioned that Oscar is primarily about an evil spirit - the Dominican word is fuku - that has cursed Oscar's family from the moment Trujillo (master of or mastered by evil spirits?) heard rumors of the beautiful daughter of Oscar's grandfather. The evil spirit has destroyed or stolen anything good the family has had or might have experienced - from lands and wealth to beauty and health. (Oscar believes the original fuku landed at San Juan with Christopher Columbus: the Ground Zero of the curse.) So Oscar's family's story is that of a precipitous fall from grace to one of dysfunctional but heroic struggle against the weight of a brutal personal history. The ultimate question I got from the book is this: if you are cursed is there any point in fighting it? Isn't that what a curse is - something you can't fight? Or is there something one can do? How does a lost, downtrodden, forgotten, broken family - and a not-so-little boy who suffers from depression and inertia - stand up to all that an evil spirit - one that is still alive in human form through Trujillo's heirs - and all that it can send at them?
On a visit to see family in the DR it is the frightened, cowardly, non-threatening and non-physically-imposing, ostracized, outcast, loner Oscar that dons the armor of a knight from one of his fantasy novels and choose to face and slay the fuku beast on behalf of his family once and for all - and win the heart of his one and only true love while doing it.
Does his story end in the most improbably of victories - like Frodo Baggins in Oscar's author-hero's Lord of the Rings trilogy - or does his family's fuku prevail and claim yet another victim? If you're in the mood to read a book that deals with the political history of the Dominican Republic during the brutal Trujillo reign, you will discover the answer!
Sad. Humorous. Fanciful. Brutal. Optimistic. Fatalistic. Jumbled. Linear. The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao has it all.
 Pseudo Literature July 26, 2010
Tom Cutrofello (New York City)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
The first 2 or 3 chapters are quite good. Especially the footnotes that refer to Dominican history/culture. Otherwise, it was a chore to finish it - and I did. The author makes numerous references to old computer games, science fiction, Domincan slang. When I hear others rave about it, they're just pretentious.
Wow July 18, 2010
Anthony Rodriguez
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I was recommended this book by a friend who said to me, "Oh ya, this one's for you." To which I replied, "What the hell's that supposed to mean?!" I hate being pigeonholed in my literary tastes but damnit my friends know me.
Let me back up a little though. (I swear I have a point.) One of my favorite books is Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables," mainly because I consider it the antidote for another of my favorite books, Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" (and vice versa). The best one sentence summary I can give of "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" (Oscar Wao from this point forward) is that it too is an antidote for "Heart of Darkness."
First, I have to talk about my favorite aspect of the book. One of my favorite things about "Oscar Wao" is the freakin' amazing DEPTH of knowledge of horror, fantasy, sci-fi, comic literature, etc. that Diaz possesses. Now I ain't no punk when it comes to that stuff, but I could barely keep up with Diaz. This caused me to be drawn to the book for two reasons. First, I've spent a LOT of my spare time consuming the works of art/literature/cinema that Oscar did. (I knew this guy was the real deal when he made the Miracleman reference. You can't fake that.) So, naturally that was a hella of a lot of fun for me. Second, I could relate to Oscar's alienation even though my social problems growing up were nothing compared to his (although this was probably more through luck than my own design). My favorite line of the whole book is "You really want to know what being a X-man feels like? Just be a smart bookish boy of color in a contemporary US ghetto. Mamma mia! Like having bat wings or a pair of tentacles growing out of your chest." Now I'm not of the Swiss Rodriguez's so where I grew up you would literally get your ass kicked if the guys from the neighborhood saw you reading. Didn't matter what it was for (school, church, or, God forbid, pleasure), you got the crap beaten out of you. Everyone in my neighborhood knew reading was something only white boys did and if you were a true Mexicano you didn't touch a book. So when I read that part about Oscar just wanting to read, man I FELT for the guy. It was one of those great moments of literary gold where you not only feel you truly understand the character but you also feel the character truly understands you. To me, that alone is worth a Pultizer. There are so many more gems like that but I'm getting close (if not already there) to trying your patience, so I'll get back to my initial point. Antidote to "Heart of Darkness." Here's why.
First, I hate half-assed works of fantasy. You know the ones, where there's a planet of cat people having a cat war or something. These works are the equivalent of little powdered donuts, empty calories and pretty disgusting almost as soon as you bite into it. I think the great Irish fantasist Lord Dunsany had it right when he said, "Fantasy without memory is like bricks without straw." Memory, true life, is the SOUL of all fantasy, the soul of all literature and art.
Now I'm not saying "Oscar Wao" is entirely a work of fantasy. (God, can this book even be categorized? Amazon must have been tearing their hair out trying to figure that one out.) What I'm saying is that "Oscar Wao" weaves fantasy and reality seamlessly as it is, perhaps, in day to day life. Whether you believe in fuku's (must say zafa now) or Lovecraftian entities or comic book superheroes or Christ, that a morbidly obese Dominican can get laid days before he bites it, we all have a line we draw between the fantastic and the real, between the dark and light things that inhabit our lives. The antidote comes in at the intersection of the two, a type of phenomenon which the only word I can think to describe it is Magic. For me, "Les Miserables" showed me the "real worlds" answer, the world of logic and rationality's answer, to the darkness that perpetually surrounds us and like jackals in the night steals that which we love and treasure. "Les Miserables" showed me the goodness humanity is logically capable of. "Oscar Wao" showed me a different but powerful answer. It showed me the magic. It showed me, like Oscar said to Clives when Grodd and Grundy had them, "They're too late." It showed me that the dark things have gotten here too late. They're here too late because of the magic. Although philosopher after philosopher have made systems of ethics to explain humankinds goodness, they all leave out, by definition, that element that cannot be captured by any system. That element of chaos. The darkness is chaos, yes; but the magic is chaos too and it is as powerful, if not more, than the darkness. There is fuku, but there is also zafa. Beli found the magic. So did Lola. Oscar always had it but only knew this at the end. And perhaps that is the lesson. The chaos that is the magic is here with us and the darkness has come too late. It's always been too late. Because of the beauty, because of the magic. Zafa.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 488
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