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X-WR-CALNAME:February Book Club: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao\
	, by Junot Diaz in Washington DC at Postal code 20194\, United States 
	- Eventful
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DTSTAMP:20090119T094529Z
SUMMARY:February Book Club: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao\, by 
	Junot Diaz
DESCRIPTION:  Please feel free to bring a snack to share with everyone
	. Amazon.com Review Amazon Best of the Month\, September 2007: It's be
	en 11 years since Junot Díaz'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 jin
	x disappear. The titular Oscar is a 300-pound-plus "lovesick ghetto ne
	rd" with zero game (except for Dungeons & Dragons) who cranks out page
	s of fantasy fiction with the hopes of becoming a Dominican J.R.R. Tol
	kien. The book is also the story of a multi-generational family curse 
	that courses through the book\, leaving troubles and tragedy in its wa
	ke. This was the most dynamic\, entertaining\, and achingly heartfelt 
	novel I've read in a long time. My head is still buzzing with the memo
	ry of dozens of killer passages that I dog-eared throughout the book. 
	The rope-a-dope narrative is funny\, hip\, tragic\, soulful\, and burs
	ting with desire. Make some room for Oscar Wao on your bookshelf--you 
	won't be disappointed. --Brad Thomas Parsons From Publishers Weekly Si
	gnatureReviewed by Matthew SharpeAreader might at first be surprised b
	y how many chapters of a book entitled The Brief and Wondrous Life of 
	Oscar Wao are devoted not to its sci fi–and–fantasy-gobbling nerd-he
	ro but to his sister\, his mother and his grandfather. However\, Junot
	 Diaz's dark and exuberant first novel makes a compelling case for the
	 multiperspectival view of a life\, wherein an individual cannot be kn
	own or understood in isolation from the history of his family and his 
	nation.Oscar being a first-generation Dominican-American\, the nation 
	in question is really two nations. And Dominicans in this novel being 
	explicitly of mixed Taíno\, African and Spanish descent\, the very id
	eas of nationhood and nationality are thoughtfully\, subtly complicate
	d. The various nationalities and generations are subtended by the recu
	rring motif of fukú\, the Curse and Doom of the New World\, whose mid
	wife and... victim was a historical personage Diaz will only call the 
	Admiral\, in deference to the belief that uttering his name brings bad
	 luck (hint: he arrived in the New World in 1492 and his initials are 
	CC). By the prologue's end\, it's clear that this story of one poor gu
	y's cursed life will also be the story of how 500 years of historical 
	and familial bad luck shape the destiny of its fat\, sad\, smart\, lov
	able and short-lived protagonist. The book's pervasive sense of doom i
	s offset by a rich and playful prose that embodies its theme of multip
	le nations\, cultures and languages\, often shifting in a single sente
	nce from English to Spanish\, from Victorian formality to Negropolitan
	 vernacular\, from Homeric epithet to dirty bilingual insult. Even the
	 presumed reader shape-shifts in the estimation of its in-your-face na
	rrator\, who addresses us variously as folks\, you folks\, conspiracy-
	minded-fools\, Negro\, Nigger and plataneros. So while Diaz assumes in
	 his reader the same considerable degree of multicultural erudition he
	 himself possesses—offering no gloss on his many un-italicized Spanis
	h words and expressions (thus beautifully dramatizing how linguistic b
	orders\, like national ones\, are porous)\, or on his plethora of genr
	e and canonical literary allusions—he does helpfully footnote aspects
	 of Dominican history\, especially those concerning the bloody 30-year
	 reign of President Rafael Leónidas Trujillo. The later Oscar chapter
	s lack the linguistic brio of the others\, and there are exposition-cl
	ogged passages that read like summaries of a longer narrative\, but mo
	stly this fierce\, funny\, tragic book is just what a reader would hav
	e hoped for in a novel by Junot Diaz.Matthew Sharpe is the author of t
	he novels Jamestown and The Sleeping Father. He teaches at Wesleyan Un
	iversity.\n
LOCATION:Postal code 20194\, United States @ Reston, Virginia 20194 Un
	ited States
SEQUENCE:1232358329
UID:E0-001-015672318-6
URL:http://eventful.com/E0-001-015672318-6
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