The Wonderful Breakneck Paced Life of Oscar Wao

Friends,

I finally finished The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Let's dispense with the thesis. Yes, I enjoyed it quite a damn bit. It was voicey, funny, deceptively smart, interesting, an never a dull moment. I just finished it about 15 minutes ago, so this is more of a gut reaction than anything.

That's not to say there weren't times in the digressions away from Oscar where I thought, "When the hell are we getting back to Oscar? Why do I need to know all about Abelard when I want to know more about Oscar?" But that complaint is kind of like complaining about having your great bowl of ice cream replaced by a fresh brownie. Are you really that upset? I don't think so.

There are two things that really stood out with me book. First, the language. I loved the mix English, Nerdlish, and Spanish. Talk about language on inclusion and exclusion, how it balances all of that together where most people who read that book, at some point well go, "Wha?" and feel sort of ostracized from the narrative. Anytime he went on any big runs of Spanish, or even some the Nerdlish references I didn't get, left me a little puzzled and on the outside looking in on this story, much like Oscar and his life experiences. And you gotta admire the balls it takes to strand your readers intentionally, and expect them to run along with you. To take this alienation thing even more, how about later when the blanks get dropped into the story? Nobody's getting those. It's just perfect.

Also, the speed of this novel impressed me. For all the dilineations, all the voices, all the shifting around, and deep background, this book moves at such a whiz bang pace because it crams so much peril and strike into here that it never stops being fascinating. Part of that comes from a less than traditional scene setting and scene transitioning that Yunior, and all the narrators, do. I know there's always the trouble of getting the damn guy through the door or across town or any of the Man A to Place B business that's about as fun and necessary as an electricity bill, and Diaz just cuts right to the chase over and over again. There's so little of that rinky dink, pokedy poke within here that it just glides by and just delivers the electricity without all the hassle.

There's probably a lot more genius in there that I don't realize. It did take him ten years to do after all, so yeah, I my quick, gut reaction might not have covered all the awesome that I know is lurking in here. Like how Yunior's beating that starts off the "Sentimental Education" section that parallels the beating Oscar takes in the cornfield because of that puta he's in love with (I didn't realize that until I watched a little of the Google Video embedded below). There's all the recurring images, themes and references I get, and then there's so much I don't. Man, it's a good one. Two mustaches up or whatever the hell. Read it and like it, people.

(I'm listening to the below video while I'm typing this and Diaz just said that he's a bad example of an artist because he wrote 3 bad books, and these two good ones....man, to have that problem).

I got a couple questions about this book. Considering that Diaz is an obvious geek, where does all this stuff about Yunior in this book fit into the continuity of Yunior set up in Drown? And two...do you think that Oscar really got laid at the end?

(I really, really, really enjoy what Junot is saying about genre right now...and its interesting to hear him talk about not winning awards as this is before him winning the Pulitzer)

Here's the video I am talking about...Junot Diaz @ Google


viva oscar!