The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
335 pages
Published 2007
Read from June 20 to June 22
Rating: ★★★★½ out of 5
I've stared at the empty text box here for a while, trying to unpack my impressions into something approaching a "review." Wao is, to put it mildly, an ambitious novel, tracing three generations of a Dominican family and the curse (figurative or literal) left on them and their country by the Trujillo dictatorship. I went into it expecting a comic but moving tale of an obese Dominican fantasy writer in Jersey, so the flashbacks within flashbacks -- brilliantly constructing the Sophoclean tragedy of the de Léon family against national horrors that can only be described in terms of Sauron and comic book villains -- took a while to sync with me. It is a novel of the Third World, of proxy imperialism, of the lingering residues of exploitation and tyranny. It is also, in the character of Oscar, a rehash of old junk about "friendzoning" and wearing women down through obsessive stalking. The various pieces of the story cohere beautifully, though, seeping together after you turn the final page and put the book down.
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