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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Author: Junot Diaz
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
Category: Book

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Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars

149 reviews
Sales Rank: 69

Media: Hardcover
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.6 x 5.8 x 2.1

ISBN: 1594489580
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781594489587
ASIN: 1594489580

Publication Date: September 6, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days

Also Available In:

•	Paperback - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
•	Audio CD - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
•	Hardcover - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Thorndike Press Large Print Core Series)
•	Kindle Edition - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
•	Audio Download - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Unabridged)

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Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.com
Amazon Best of the Month, September 2007: It's been 11 years since Junot Diaz'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
This is the long-awaited first novel from one of the most original and memorable writers working today.

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 Fukoe-the curse that has haunted the 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.

Daz immerses us in the tumultuous life of Oscar and the history of the family at large, rendering with genuine warmth and dazzling energy, humor, and insight the Dominican-American experience, and, ultimately, the endless human capacity to persevere in the face of heartbreak and loss. A true literary triumph, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao confirms Junot Daz as one of the best and most exciting voices of our time.

Customer Reviews: Read 144 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Worthy of the Pulitzer July 9, 2008
Diane M. Kretz
This book is beautifully written and contains a story with such a human touch. In the first 75 pages I wondered how it could have won a pulitzer prize. The rest of the book proved to be one of the finest I have ever read. I did need a Spanish dictionary next to me while I read, to interpret all the "Spanglish", but the author had his pulse on the dual nature of the soul of a modern immigrant. I wondered how autobiographical the book is. It stimulated me to read more about the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic. (I had previously read "In the Time of Butterflies", another great book about the DR under Trujillo, and I would also recommend that book.)

5 out of 5 stars

Excellent and Engaging July 7, 2008
Andrew Corsa
This book deserves its Pulitzer. Junot Diaz really seems to GET his characters, and he describes them - their flaws and redeemable qualities - very well. The book brilliantly captures the lives of several family members, and Oscar's life resembles his mother's life, which resembles his sister's life, and everything in the book fits together. The book constantly met or exceeded my expectations; everything that happened in the story seemed right. The book went exactly where it should.

Several reviewers have suggested that, in order to enjoy this book, one needs to know Spanish. I know very little Spanish, but that never got in my way. Perhaps, if I knew Spanish, I would have looked at the book from a different vantage point, but I wholeheartedly appreciated the view I had.

It helped, I think, that I could appreciate and understand the book's geek references. The book makes numerous references to role-playing games, Tolkien, etc., and I suspect I would have been frustrated if I hadn't understood these references.

On a side note, I recently listened to a book talk that Junot Diaz gave at Google headquarters. I want to finish my review with two interesting, telling quotes:

1. "I'm interested in the gaps in stories, the places where there isn't a story . . . if there's a four or five month gap in someone's life, that's what really pulls me. If there's a period of history where there's no writing or no records about it, I'm like absolutely fascinated."

Thinking back, I realized that there are "gaps" all over this book! Gaps in people's lives - events that are skipped in a first telling and only returned to much later in the work, or events about which the characters don't talk. Gaps in what the characters say or don't say. Further, the book is about a period of Dominican history that is like a gap.

2. "What happens when you're a kid like me, who goes to Rutgers and basically runs around and chase chicks, and you visit a home where your parents were victims of a dictatorship? Do those histories ever meet, and do they actually ever influence each other? Does one speak to the other? . . . It is true that I always felt that even though I was living in a real contemporary Jersey . . . I always felt the shadow of that past history was on us."

The mother's history, as a victim in the reign of Trujillo, certainly affected her children! The different stories, though seemingly incongruous, certainly speak to each other!

2 out of 5 stars

the weird life of Oscar Wao July 6, 2008
S. Walter (Huntington, NY USA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

While I am sure this is an accurate portrayal of life under Trujillo it was hard to get past the obscenities that liberally sprinkled this book. The use of so much Spanish made part of the book incomprehensible to one who does not know the language.

3 out of 5 stars

Not brief enough. July 6, 2008
J. A. Forsyth (Montrose, CO)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

If you read Spanish this is an interesting book but I was frustrated by not knowing the language.

4 out of 5 stars

Language is a bit problematic July 5, 2008
J. Phillips (Colorado)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

Diaz hits it big with this novel, but. . .

Unlike Frank McCourt, Sherman Alexie, et. al., Diaz doesn't set out to show his people's shortcomings and failures. He just spins a great story, full of fuku and a Man With No Face.

This book has the typical makings of Pulitzer Awards: A minority immigrant writes about how difficult life is where he came from and even harder trying to avoid assimilation in America. And of course, America is often a villain in this story. Futhermore, the middle and lower class reader can't access the Spanish unless they happen to speak the language. So a certain exclusivity is created that limits the reading to a certain class. Like I said, perfect Pulitzer material here.

The language is incredibly self-indulgent. He drops the N-Bomb like it's the coolest thing ever spoken, and the supposed "high-energy Spanglish" is really something like this: Slang, English, then Spanish, then more slang. He falls into a Spanish phrase at the very moment a character reveals something crucial during a passage. This is a problem "reading in context" isn't going to solve. If you don't speak Espanol, you're going to miss a lot.

I loved and hated Drown for similar reasons, and Diaz has found a voice that rings true with so many readers. But he is another example of a writer criticizing America's treatment of minorities--offering no answers and no accountability for the downtrodden-- while living one of the nicest lives one can live in America.

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