The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
Rarely has a book dropped so dramatically in my esteem during the time I was actually reading it. Oscar Wao is one of those books, having fallen from a whiz-bang five stars for the first 50 to 100 pages past four stars during the middle of the book before finally coming to a thud on three stars by the conclusion. Why the steep decline? Well, there's no doubt that the novel, ostensibly about a "ghetto nerd" from the Dominican Republic via New Jersey, grabs your attention right out of the gate. Junot Diaz is a masterful writer, who slips effortlessly between political polemic and the Spanglish descriptions of his main character's tortured existence. His prose is lively and infinitely creative and I sensed that he has a great book in him, but this just ain't it. As he rails against the evils of the Trujillo dictatorship, Diaz is simultaneously telling the sad tale of this miserable young man. Unfortunately for the reader, the two stories don't form a coherent narrative, and by the end, it's impossible to figure out why he chose to base the book around Oscar, whose life may be brief, but is certainly not all that wondrous. I kept waiting for the big connection, the tale of redemption that might explain why Oscar was chosen, by the story, by this author, for his fate. It seems I was waiting in vain.


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