A Review of The Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz is the first popular fiction book I have read in awhile. I decided to read it because every time I went into a bookstore I somehow found it in my hands. So, I finally decided to give it a shot. The book came well rated; I mean it won the Pulitzer so I expected it to be pretty good. I think what drew me the most the name Tolkien, whose work has played a big roll in my life, in other reviews.

The narrative is focused on Oscar Wao, his immediate family living in New Jersey during the 1980s and 90s, and his family’s past in the Dominican Republic. Oscar is obsessed with the Sci/Fi-Fantasy books, Anime, and role playing games, and some of these genres most famous works play significant roles throughout the novel (and the fact that I catch most of the references means that I to am a dork). Unfortunatly for Oscar, Dominican men are not suppose to be overweight nerds, they are so suppose to be suave players. The narrative around Oscar follows him through his attempts and failures at love yet stay true to his passions.

While the story of Oscar is the most interesting character for me, the narrative also follows the story of Oscar’s mother and her trials as a young woman in the Dominican Republic (probably the longest chapter in the book). This chapter along, with another based on Oscar’s family history in the DR, gives a great deal of history on the Dominican Republic under the dictator Rafael Trujillo (another interesting point because have no sense of DR history).

The hardest part for me in reading this boo is the interlaced Spanish throughout the work. With high school Spanish I deciphered a majority of it, but still needed to research some words and phrases and while not knowing Spanish may hurt your experience, it is still a great work. Also, if you are not a fan of vulgar language you should probably stay away as the curse words do add up. My only other compliant would be that I wish the narrative focused more on Oscar himself instead of his family, but I still found the work to be sehr gut!

With that said, I would recommend this book to most people I know. At first I was a little apprehensive in reading this book because I have never been too impressed with popular fiction, but I became hooked in the first morning I started. I found the author's style to be quick and witty and as I mentioned above his knowledge of all things nerd makes the book that much more interesting as allusions to Tolkien run rampant through out. I give this four and one half stars out of five.