The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Book review by: Katie M.

Favorite Quote: “Success, after all, loves a witness, but failure can’t exist without one.”

I wish I could claim I discovered The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, waved it around my friends and colleagues, positively begged them to give it a shot, and took all the credit for making this book famous.

Unfortunately, I literally walked into the most pretentiously cultivated bookstore in New York’s LES where not ten feet from the door was a cute, little table with the title “new, hot reads.” To me, this is akin to “fun, quick reads,” so I naturally scurried past it to the back of the store, where I found this beauty. Not until I left did I realized it had been prominently displayed on the “new, hot reads” table the entire time, because, (drum roll), IT’S A PULITZER PRIZE WINNING BOOK. That could be my entire review: read this, because duh.

The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao took me a day to finish. I could not put it down.

The novel is mostly narrated by Yunior, who tells the tale of our protagonist: a misfit Dominican kid nicknamed Oscar Wao. Yunior is somehow privy to all of Oscar’s family history, most likely from his time spent as Oscar’s confidante as well as his time dating Oscar’s sister Lola. While Yunior’s narration is casual, as if he is having a real conversation with you in the living room of his Harlem apartment, he still expertly details an educational history of life under Dominican dictator Trujillo and navigates the intricate lives of four other characters whose lives revolve around both the DR and Paterson, New Jersey.

Oscar’s sister Lola also interjects into the narrative to tell her own coming-of-age story, which gives her character incredible agency and keeps her alive in the present, unlike her mother, whose story told by Yunior largely ties her to what seems like ancient history.

The title of The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao obviously reveals that Oscar is no longer living, but I had no idea how or when his death would occur until the end. Oscar is an overweight, creepily girl-obsessed geek — he is the antithesis to the smooth talking, smooth dancing, and smooth dressing Dominican male stereotype. In fact, until the end, I was confused as to what literary purpose Oscar’s life held: why did Junot Diaz choose him as the main anchor for this story about an immigrant, Dominican-American family? It wasn’t until the very end that I realized Oscar was truly the “right choice,” when Yunior finally reveals that Oscar did, in fact, die a true Dominican. I also realized that labeling this story as only about an immigrant, Dominican-American family was far too narrow a stamp — it also serves as an evaluation, through Yunior’s experiences with Oscar, of masculinity.

Although I loved this novel because of its history lessons, I felt I was a bit of an outsider looking in on the traditions of Dominican families and the class/race system of the DR. Spanish is not my first language, and besides a few of my more charismatic students (surprise, I’m an English teacher) I have never really heard anyone speak with Dominican slang. Through Yunior, however, Junot Diaz really did prepare for white girls like me to be reading his novel. There are extensive footnotes that read like witty asides from Yunior that explain everything from fuku to the real-life, Columbus-defying heroine Anacaona. Despite the footnotes, my lack of background inspired me to do research on my own, so like any good book, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao checks off the list my requirement for good literature to feed my insatiable hunger for knowledge.

And, if I have just made the novel sound like a history textbook, I apologize, because it isn’t. It’s a novel that encompasses political history, realistic fiction, historical fiction, romance, and even a bit of realismo magico.

booknectar tip: If you haven’t read any Tolkien (or similar classic fantasy/ sci-fi lit) or are unfamiliar with 90s geek culture, you won’t fully appreciate the true loser genius of Oscar, or the degree to which Yunior, the ostensible macho man, is actually versed in this world of geek knowledge. I’ve also included a link to a glossary for quick reference to anything not covered by the footnotes: The Annotated Oscar Wao.