The fuku will get you. In the end it always does.
This book is glorious. It is heart-rendering, hilarious and profound. It must be read by everyone.
Oscar Wao tells us the story of a fat, dorky son of Dominican immigrant growing up in Patterson NJ. Oscar is science fiction and fantasy obsessed kid with no ability to talk to girls and very few friends, who spends hours obsessing over girls and writing multi-volume unpublished novels about battles on distant planets. This is the story of his utter failure to fit in, especially against the super-cool, skirt chasing stereotype of the virile Dominican male. His failings at life are something he is very aware of and something he struggles against (and fails at as well).
But more than that, it tells us the story of the fuku, of the curse, the malaise, the string of tragedy that follows a family from the harsh rule of Trujillo to current day NJ.
The books alternates chapters between the story of Oscar, his smokin' sister Lola, his harsh, overbearing mother and her childhood in DR, his college roommate Yunior (who is the narrator), the tragic history of his grandparents, and some general Dominican history. There are footnotes describing major and minor villains in Dominican history, comic book and science fiction quotes galore, and many, many untranslated Spanish expressions throughout (while it would have been great if I knew what even one meant, you still don't feel that you lose any of the meaning since they are all used as very natural expressions by the characters).
Read this book. Then lend it to someone else so they can read it. Or the fuku will get you to
Book can be found here
http://www.amazon.com/Brief-Wondrous-Life-Oscar-Wao/dp/1594483299/ref=pd_ys_iyr23
13 down, 87 to go. April 5K book 3. Finished 4/21/2009
This post was written while watching the Mets on SNY (I hate the Cardinals).
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