I have to say I liked it. Kind of a day-in-the-life story that spans a long time. I found it infectious and descriptive, the kind of story that has you thinking the way the characters think and speak. Ending wasn't very clear but is good anyway. Definitely worth reading for the how it pulls you into the feel of it.

Maybe because I'm a white girl from the Midwest who studied French instead of Spanish, but I had trouble getting into this book. In fact, I've set it aside to try tackling another time. Lots of Spanish slang that I didn't understand was distracting. It's won some prestigious awards, so I'm trusting it's worth trying again--but I wouldn't suggest it to my friends for a breezy summer read.

In contrast with last year's Pulitzer Prize winner for Fiction, Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" which is a novel of intense despair and lack of hope, Junot Díaz's "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao", this year's Pulitzer winner, is brimming with life and hope. It is a special novel, heartbreaking sweet and touching and filled with an overwhelming sense of human warmth. This is literature as a form of magic, a wonderful spell that entrances and makes us feel better about the human experience. It is a novel that filled my heart with hope.

The novel follows the life and times of a Dominican-American family: the beautiful and fierce mother, Belicia, the smart, intensely-driven daughter, Lola, and Oscar, an obese sci-fi/fantasy-loving nerd who is unlucky in love. A history of family misfortunes and tragedies leads the family to believe they are haunted by an ancient curse or fukú. As one may expect from the title, Oscar is the main focus of the story, but each of the three main characters, as well as other members of the family, have chapters detailing their own story. We watch as each character struggles to find their own answer to the fukú, all of them seemingly unsuccessful and doomed to misfortune.

The question eventually arises, though, in the novel: can love overcome tragedy? Does embracing love so intensely in the face of peril speak only of the tragedy or of something else transcendent? We only have to envision the Christian crucifix to comprehend the import of this question. But this is also what makes "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" so human and transcendent.

Díaz writes with a manic energy that imbues the story with a vast amount of life and heart. Passion flows from the pages like happy waves lapping against the reader. The characterizations, particularly of Oscar, are vivid and brilliant. Díaz lays his characters out fully open in front of us with all their flaws exposed, and eventually, this honesty charmed me, leading me to embrace these wonderful characters. I loved them for their honesty, love and passion.

Last Word:
It is a rare thing when a novel can truly capture a transcendent emotion like love, lay it out, and enrich everyone who reads about it. Junot Díaz's "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" is such a novel, and deserves to be celebrated and recognized as a great American literary treasure.

The books is in itself a masterpiece. It is written in plain language and illustrates (at least for us Dominicans) a story that we can relate to. A story that contains characters we've all known, or have partially, at least, met in our lifetime. Very rich and contains lots of literary insight, both into pop culture, history and politics. A MUST READ.

I thought this was a very engaging book, but it certainly had too many disconnecting moments due to the spanish 'interruptions'. I have nothing against another language - I myself am bilingual - but I think the author/editors/bundlers/publishers/whomever, could have been more thoughtful towards the reader; it wasn't merely minimal spanish that could possibly have been understood in context, but instead long sentences and entire conversations - not fair! Anyway, great prose, dialogue, appeal to emotion, educational value, etc., but though I can think of many words to describe Oscar DeLeon's brief life, none of them would be Wondrous, or any of it's synonyms for that matter.

The reviews were right on this one, I found this book totally engaging, I couldn't put it down and thought of Oscar for many days afterwards.

This work is a masterpiece- it's a comic tragic take on one person's quest in finding his way in the world. At a broader level, it resonates with the challenges faced by each and every succeeding generation. Great narrative, reflective prose, laugh out loud passages, awesome characters, a fusion of genres and the easy mingling of high and low culture make this a truly spectacular book. Junot Diaz, is in my view somewhat similar to Michael Chabon,both authors seem to be able to absorb all that's around them effortlessly and write in different styles remarkably well. Do buy this book!

I opened this book expecting a lively, potent read. Afterall, I had read a couple of short stories by this author some years back and was juiced on the livliness, the "voice" and peppery descriptions and dialogue that seemed so rich in comparison to this first novel effort (& this is why I must give this three stars. I actually think the writer knows better and can do better). So I was disappointed. But I kept reading along. And still, I wasn't all that revved up. Despite careful efforts at portraying Dominican Republic refugee life and its customs and reflecting back on life in that Carribbean isle, I just saw no real story here. Understand, I feel whenever you have a writer who makes his main character an aspiring writer, it's a bad sign, folks. Yet this novel was awarded a Pulitzer. I don't quite understand this. I do think TREE OF SMOKE (the only other contender this year) was a better read, although I believe the subject of Vietnam is probably "old hat" to the contemporary literary panel.

Anyway, I do not recommend this read if you are really looking for an involved, substantive narrative. I so recommend something like: LIFE OF PI or better yet, the richly alive and hilarious, SIM0N LAZARUS--read it and you'll see why Eckhart Tolle calls it: " A book to be treasured."

Our last book club pick was The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. I didn't like it as much as the rest of the people in the group, but I would still say it was a funny, quick, literate read. Oscar, a lonely, overweight, nerdy Dominican boy wants to be the next Tolkien. His sister Lola clashes with their mother Beli, who had a rough life of her own back in the DR before she came to New Jersey. The story flashes back and forth between Beli living in the Dominican Republic under the brutal dicatorship of Trujillo, and the present day lives of Oscar and Lola in New Jersey. Oscar desperately wants to be cool, and to have a girlfriend, but he can't lose weight, and he can't help his love of sci fi and RPGs.

Diaz's narrative is strong and persuasive; although the characters are over the top they're still believable somehow, and you want to root for them to succeed. I also really liked the footnotes in the story, which give some of the back story on atrocities commited by Trujillo and his "minions". There are also tons of sci-fi references though, the Tolkien ones were easy enough to follow, but some of them were a little too obscure for me. The part of the book that I found most frustrating was that there is a lot of Spanish (or perhaps more aptly Spanglish) in the book. Usually it's restricted to pejorative exclamations, so although you may not know exactly what's being said you can get a pretty good idea of the context. Sometimes, however, there are whole sentences in Spanish, which made me feel like I was occasionally missing the punchline. I'd give this book a 7 because if you can get past the distractions of the Spanish and Nerd languages, the characters are funny, and the book itself is charming in a helter skelter sort of way.

I had just purchased a Kindle and had heard the author of this book interviewed on the radio. I was so impressed by the interview that I decided to make this book my first purchase for my kindle.

The authors use of language, the mixing of English with Dominican really made this book come alive for me. It was also an eye-opener in learning about the history of the Dominican Republic and its dictators.

The funny thing for me is that if I had just chose to download a sample of this book to my kindle or if I were just given the first chapter to read I probably would not have purchased the book. It is not that the first chapter is bad, it is just that from the first chapter you would never imagine what was to follow would blow your mind! For me, the book starts on fire from the second chapter and continues to the end.

Diaz' book is a Pulitzer winner, so it must be good. There is a significant amount of spanish language dialog and description; enough to leave me wondering what I am missing.
Great dialog, dialect, and cultural insights. Still reading.

This is a review of the audio CD edition.

The CDs contained two books, "Drown" and "...Oscar Wao". I am sure I would not have understood "Drown" had I not listened to "Oscar" first. They are very similar and hard to keep apart when remembering scene by scene.

I have recommended this book to more people than any other book I have "read" recently. I chuckled all the way through the turmoil, terror and real, imagined or unfulfilled lust because I was imagining in my mind's eye what was NOT being said about all the activities the characters fell into.

Although the book was awarded a Pulitzer for fiction, it seemed autobiographical to me, or possibly historical fiction. It was not clear if the biography was of Oscar or of the Narrator, however.

There are a lot of good legends in it: The mongoose with the golden eyes, the man with no face, the first and most beautiful Queen of the Americas, to name a few.

Then there is "fuku". Fuku makes sense.

The look into the lives of families in Island barrios, in big city US barrios with children going to what sounds like the best schools, yet not thinking beyond the present pay check, is the universal description of one form of poverty -- the poverty one is born into.

I look at a Spanish-English dictionary and only see all the words I don't know, but I understand enough Spanish to follow some of the untranslated Spanish sentences in this book. I heard an interview with the author in which he stated he wrote in three languages in order to present at least one language no one understands, making everyone feel like an immigrant. He succeeded. (The third language is from science fiction and comic books.)

I know of two people who won't read the book because of the very vulgar, abusive and prejudiced language and attitudes throughout the narration. Others may be offended as well, and, by all means, don't listen to the CDs in a car full of kids going on a family vacation.

The reader of this book was well chosen.

This is a review of the audio CD edition.

The CDs contained two books, "Drown" and "...Oscar Wao". I am sure I would not have understood "Drown" had I not listened to "Oscar" first. They are very similar and hard to keep apart when remembering scene by scene.

I have recommended this book to more people than any other book I have "read" recently. I chuckled all the way through the turmoil, terror and real, imagined or unfulfilled lust because I was imagining in my mind's eye what was NOT being said about all the activities the characters fell into.

Although the book was awarded a Pulitzer for fiction, it seemed autobiographical to me, or possibly fictionalized history. It was not clear if the biography was of Oscar or of the Narrator, however.

There are a lot of good legends in it: The mongoose with the golden eyes, the man with no face, the first and most beautiful Queen of the Americas, to name a few.

Then there is "fuku". Fuku makes sense.

The look into the lives of families in Island barrios, in big city US barrios with children going to what sounds like the best schools, yet not thinking beyond the present pay check, is the universal description of one form of poverty -- the poverty one is born into.

I look at a Spanish-English dictionary and only see all the words I don't know, but I understand enough Spanish to follow some of the untranslated Spanish sentences in this book. I heard an interview with the author in which he stated he wrote in three languages in order to present at least one language no one understands, making everyone feel like an immigrant. He succeeded. (The third language is from science fiction and comic books.)

I know of two people who won't read the book because of the very vulgar, abusive and prejudiced language and attitudes throughout the narration. Others may be offended as well, and, by all means, don't listen to the CDs in a car full of kids going on a family vacation.

I had the pleasure of listening to Junot Diaz read from his first collection Drown a few years ago at Hunter College and even then, I found myself excited to see what he could do with a novel. His prose, especially in the sarcasm and humor he is able to include, is phenomenal. After reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, I can understand why it took Diaz so long to write it. I can only hope it does not take him another ten years or so to write something else.

This novel chronicles the life of a first-generation Dominacan-American named Oscar who loves his comic books and science fiction, as well as the many women in his life - namely, his sister, mother, and grandmother. Diaz frames the novel, which is more like a series of vignettes, as relating to a fuku, or a curse that has been placed on Oscar and his family that leads to much heartache and tragedy. Oscar, and those around him, struggle with what it means to be Dominican, so in that sense this book is a part of the transculturation/diaspora literature tradition carved out by writers such as Cristina Garcia and Julia Alvarez; yet at the same time, this book moves beyond that tradition by including so much humor, wit, and a modern-day sensibility that marks this as the start of a possibly new tradition, one that blends historical fact, mysticism, and fan-boy adoration all into one.

I really cannot say enough about this book and firmly believe that anyone who reads this will be a fan. The Pulitzer Prize Committee made the right decision.

Some Quotes:

"Her rage filled the house, flat stale smoke. It got into everything, into our hair and food, like the fallout they talked to use about in school that would one day drift down soft as snow."

"You always think with your parents that at least at the very end something will change, something will get better."

"Juan, the melancholic gambler, who waxed about Shanghai, as though it were a love poem sung by a beautiful woman you love but cannot have."

First off, you should read Gregory Baird's review of this book on this website. My review is meant to augment his and provide some ancillary information (and opinions).

Junot Diaz was born in the Dominican Republic in 1968. He moved to NJ when he was six-years old. He spent his teenage years in Old Bridge and Perth Amboy. He got his undergraduate degree from Rutgers and his graduate degree from Cornell. He is currently teaching creative writing at MIT. He won the Pulitzer Prize for this novel in April, 2008. He released a note that stated his shock and appreciation for the award, and then he went on to rhapsodize about how thrilled he was to win the award in the same year that Bob Dylan was given an honorary Pulitzer.

For the naysayers and the censors: Mr. Diaz uses curses, describes sexual situations (from both the male and female point of view), depicts violence, and he doesn't use standard punctuation. If these are things that traditionally bother you, then you should avoid this book.

Diaz makes a great many allusions to The Lord of the Rings, the Marvel & DC Universes, game mechanics from Dungeons & Dragons and the Rutgers New Brunswick campus. If you are familiar with one or more of these, you'll find the book even more rewarding (if you were born between 1965 and 1985 and have a few nerdy qualities, this book is definitely for you).

Oscar is an anti-hero that is both endearing and entertaining. While the book shifts narrators and settings (to tell us the history of his mother and grandfather) and is gripping throughout, Oscar is, by far, the star of novel in every single way.

Somewhere between coming of age drama and family assimilation narrative, Junot Diaz started down a path of his own. To follow him, a reader needs a passing knowledge of Spanish, hip hop, Proust, gaming, Melville, and about 20 different sci-fi novels and movies. The reward at the end of this trail is an America enriched by freedom and immigration--a hybrid culture so new, so rich, and so vast in antecedents that words only begin to suggest its boundaries. This is the world Oscar Wao (and Yunior, the narrator) inhabits. There are jocks and nerds, tios and thugs, dictators and prostitutes, and all play their part as Oscar struggles through a Western Hemisphere of fate and decision to find his own moment of truth. Through Oscar, Diaz reminds us that it is the young who by their unavoidable position carry the fight against the status quo and deeper evil into new territories and new futures. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao might be the first masterpiece of that expanded territory, perceived from exile and loss, but imagined within sight of another new world.

Thoughtful, poignant, rich with history of a country I really knew little about wrapped in the snappy vernacular of a distant but attached narrator, this book was very entertanining.

Here is my chance to elaborate on The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. It's easy to say, "What a wuss!" to Oscar, but I thought the opposite. He's smart and charming, but he lacks virility. I honestly believe that he would make a wonderful husband. Yunior, however, is the one that most women go for. I think Lola is a smart gal--you'll read what I mean by that. Unfortunately, humans see what's more on the outside than what's on the inside. Whoever tells me otherwise, is seriously joking. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are many men and women who fall in love with someone who doesn't fit the mold, but there has to be some quality, some feature that stands beyond the physical. However, if you're both personable and smart, you're all set! Oscar's approach to women is much less than satisfactory, he's a good man, stupid at times (most of the time), but a good guy nonetheless. That's as far as I would go.

Without giving too much about Mr. Diaz's work of art, I think he did a satisfactory job with mixing the English with the Spanish. If you're not Dominican or Puerto Rican or just don't understand the lingo, find yourself someone who does because you'll get lost with the words. If you know the words; the phrases will flow like a gentle stream. As in one of my favorite books, "Down These Mean Streets" by Piri Thomas (If you haven't read this book, read it!), the author included a glossary of terms to help my fellow non-Puerto Ricans to understand certain words or phrases. Don't get me wrong, as a Puerto Rican, I don't want to sound as if I knew every term as well, but I knew most. Anyway, without digressing, I think that Junot Diaz could've included a glossary, but I appreciated the footnotes.

Okay, now I wish to end with this: GET THE BOOK! It's a wonderful read, and it kept me ensconced till the end. I read it with my Kindle, and I must say that Amazon Kindle rocks! Wow, I have just given two reviews in one. Yikes!

When I read the line:

"Homeboy dominated Santo Domingo like it was his very own private Mordor."

I instantly realized that Junot Diaz is an amazing writer. Never in my life would I have imagined using Tolkien metaphors (Saruman, Nazgul, Mordo, Galadriel all make appearances) to describe the actions of Dominican Republic dictator.

There are countless passages in this book that I consider "laugh out loud even when you're at the gym surrounded by strangers on elliptical trainers" funny.

I would even go so far as to claim that there are more than a handful of passages that achieve the coveted "almost wet my pants I was laughing so hard" level of brilliance.

You will have to excuse me if I don't quite understand the latest standards being used to select a Pulitzer Prize winning novel-but it must parallel the lowering standards of the entertainment industry in general.

This rates with some of the worst books I have ever read. I am not sure what the point of this book was-it was not an enjoyable novel to read nor was it an effective essay of the life and times of past and present Dominican lifestyles. I assume his clever use of Spanish and never ending so called informative footnotes of past Dominican dictators is supposed to add some redeemable value to this book-quite frankly, I don't buy it.

Pulitzer Prize Winner???? I guess for political correctness but not for any other reason.

I suppose I can see why "Oscar Wao" won the Pulitzer Prize, as it is in some ways a groundbreaking novel. But what I don't understand are all the reviews about how "enjoyable" and "fun" it is, because I found it to be bleak, violent, vaguely offensive, and hopeless. As with many postcolonial novels, the formula Diaz uses is to weave the story of Oscar's brief life with that of his people, homeland, and diaspora. This formula has worked successfully in other novels, such as Toni Morrison's best (and she's also a Pulitzer Prize winner). But I was hoping for something different, a new twist on that idea. The only new twist Diaz gave was his writing style--poppy and quick (though certainly not "fun"). I did enjoy his writing. But the story was lacking--I felt I didn't know Oscar at all by the end, even though the title of the book would seem to suggest he's the protagonist. Rather, the main character was the curse, or fuku, on his family. I had hoped there would be a glimmer a light at the end, and that Oscar would somehow escape the fuku--but (and this is no spoiler, given the title of the book), there wasn't. Diaz's message seems to be that the black cloud of destiny is inescapable, and I just couldn't get into so bleak and disheartening a story.

I wanted very badly not to delve into this book simply because I have been so disappointed in these praised titles from the publishing and publicity machines--but when it won the Pulitzer, I had to give it a read.

What can I say? We have the correct political sub-group, alright,--an immigrant story, like so many others (Lahiri's latest?), but without the grist and struggle of life itself. We have this writer who is also a college professor (problem is, most of these people need to get out in the world and LIVE), and as usual, we have this one character of which the story is built. Problem is: Oscar is not all that interesting or engaging. Yes, as you have with so many of these works of fiction these days, the writing is strong. But that is not enough, at least, for me.

I am left to think that these esteemed prizes are all an inside job from the right group--and most of these authors are connected to that exclusive circle. Much of the time, Pulitzers don't seem to be based on true merit. Truth be told, it's about the author having the right connections. So many better reads out there that don't get this sort of attention. (Mark Helprin, in my humble opinion, is a good example of a truly great American writer, yet his latest was barely acknowledged).

Another is the very under-appreciated, SIM0N LAZARUS--a fine example of excellent character development and a strong story, yet it's well under the radar and shouldn't be.

From the first few pages I was turned off by the "f" word being continually used. If I had known more about this book I would not have spent the money.

I actually bought this book before it won the Pulitzer but just now got around to reading it. It's not horrible, but I did not compelling, either. It's just sort of "there". I would read during lunch, or before bedtime, and could have shelved it or taken it to the used bookstore at any point. The only reason I finished reading this book is because I started reading it in the first place.
Numerous people have commented about the use of Spanish, Spanglish, hip-hop, or street language in the book. Admittedly, I probably missed some nuances because I didn't take the time to translate every non-English phrase. But, again, it wasn't compelling enough to me to make the effort. Which begat which, apathy or disinterest?
I also didn't find the "multiperspectival view" as compelling as did Publisher's Weekly. To me, it fragmented the story's flow, although provided some interesting background info. As some have mentioned, one is left to wonder, is this a story about its titular character, or his sister, or his mother, or a sadistic Dominican dictator, or his grandmother, or......
The writing is edgy, witty, sometimes funny, and, Diaz can certainly take an interesting turn with a sentence or phrase, but for me the style could not overcome the substance. It's as if this book is avant jazz being played at the Nebraska State Fair (no offense intended to any Nebrakans out there). Maybe it's great & I simply lack the degree in literary criticism that would allow me to enjoy it, but give me Cormac McCarthy any day instead.
A more accurate title would be "The Brief Somewhat Interesting but Certainly not Wondrous Life of a Fat Nerd and his Entire Family Tree, Plus a History of the Dominican Republic." So, if you're into that, dig it.

Anyone can build a single character. This book is less a character and more an entire world built around a character. These characters are literary real people, not real-real people. Oscar is the quintessential sterotype of a "living in his mom's basement at 30" nerd. The narrator, Oscar's sister, and his mother all have pieces of their lives laid out for the reader because this is a book about the LIFE of Oscar Wao, not about Oscar Wao. And the life, of course, includes the people who are part of his existence.

Occassionally the narrator's voice feels a little forced -- it distracted me at points but not beyond measure. Overall though, I think it has a good chance of ending up as required high school reading in an AP American Lit class -- for the first 50 pages I couldn't stop thinking that this was a book I would have been told to read in school.

After the first 50 pages, I was engaged and stopped caring. I'm not exactly sure what criteria defines a school book. I think for this its something along the lines of:
"The immigrant/second generation experience"
"recurring themes that are easy to spot, foreshadowing that is easy to spot"
mmmm ... and something like that. I don't know if its a good thing or a bad thing for a book to read that way, but there you have it.

Based on the reviews, my book group was expecting a funny book. Other than a few Mona Lisa's, we did not find it terribly funny. I think if the author had selected 2 or 3 themes, instead of the never ending collection (coming of age, revolution, I forget the rest; I'm repressing), the book would have better held my interest. As it was, I forced myself to read the first 200 pages and could stand no more.

Perhaps if I were a depressed twentysomething who thinks that life is meaningless I might have liked this book.

I stuck with it to the end, though I wanted to quit reading it several times. I was hoping that there would be a really good payoff at the end that would bring some meaning to the whole thing, but there wasn't.

The Lord of the Rings references get boring after awhile also.
The constant use of Spanish phrases, without translation, also become annoying. The little Spanish that I do know let me know that they had relevance to the story and to the character development, but without knowing what the hell is being said you lose a lot.

I've read nihilistic lit, which is what the author wants this book to be and makes several references to. But the end of this book just pissed me off. I will move on quickly to something else to read and try to forget that I ever read this.

This book is excellent, refreshing and historical in a completely entrancing sort of way. I also enjoyed the language terms sprinkled throughout and not always translated.
I made myself wait 3 weeks to read this, I was so excited; couldn't put it down.
Keep em' comin'!

Not only do I have no idea how this pathetic story, pathetic protagonist(s), and pathetic story line, (if one exsists at all) ever got published let alone won any award, let alone won the Pulitzer. Were there all South Americans on the Pulitzer board? Oscar is not only pathetic but uninteresting in the highest degree, boring is too nice word to describe this individual. The author bores me with this character and his sister who is equally pathetic. This is just one long lamentation (woe is me, woe is my brother, woe is my mother) and has not one even miniscule positive aspect to enable one to recommend it as reading. As far as the writing which so many have labeled "sparkling and wondrous", come on, you must be kidding. So many Spanish phrases and words mixed in, half the book is unreadable and incomphrehensible. The footnotes are actually the best part of this book and I found myself turning pages while hoping and praying for a footnote just so I could escape the mundanacity of the writting. Heck, everybody in America had a bad childhood unless your last name was Bush or Cheney, my own childhood made Oscar's look like a romp through Disneyland. Not only is his childhood unimpressive and uninteresting, who cares anyway? So what, he was fat. Wowwwww lets write about about a fat guy and win a Pulitzer. Get real. I would have been better off reading one of Oscar's fantasies.

In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz uses an exciting writing style teeming with asides, anecdotes, and changes in narration that imbues the novel with an admirable speed, even as the plot struggles to maintain interest. Ultimately, the novel's strengths in deft construction and sympathetic portraiture outweigh its plot's weaknesses.
The writing style, in many ways, occupies the center of the reader's focus, since it ties the novel's primary narrator, and perhaps its author, to its title character, Oscar Wao. Wao is a science fiction nerd of stereotypical proportions, but with enough humanizing details to rescue him from complete anonymity as a character. The asides throughout the narration--not Wao's--reference important scenes and characters from Oscar's favorite fictional universes, giving the reader a sense that Oscar's internal world has significance, at least to those dedicated to preserving his story. The respect paid to such obsessions of his fills the novel with a sense of personal admiration and love, and also with sadness. The asides point out an emptiness suffered by its titular hero that must be filled with bizarre, otherworldly concepts, and assert the importance and power of such concepts even to non-nerds who have, nonetheless, shared his national history.
The plot, I get the feeling, is not really the point in a book so concerned with history and with the characterization of its heroes. But the reader cannot avoid the plot, either, and it exhibits some problematic qualities. The only unity to be found in the novel's plot comes from its characters' Dominicanness. Since the novel relies on a shared national history to explain its characters' sympathetic and emotional attachments to one another and to Oscar, it leaves their other connections underdeveloped. We never really know why the narrator likes Oscar so much, or even why he likes Oscar's sister, except that somehow, we see, they connect through a shared national suffering.
Ultimately, this absence of explicable connection between the characters somewhat deadens the plot's sense of progression and final resolution. Without knowing why the characters care about one another, we do not really know what happens in a novel that depends entirely on its characters' relationships to structure itself. The events of the novel come across as disjointed or even mangled into unrecognizable form: twisted here to provide a neat delay of the novel's end, supplemented there to give the reader something to grab onto. Oscar's fate, especially, has no logical basis in the novel.
Nonetheless, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao provides enough interest that these flaws, while they detract from the book's punch, do not hobble it. The novel comes across finally as a beautiful portrait, but with perhaps a bit too much artistic interference.

Diaz can hit every emotion in a single page. You feel his characters. This is a must read.

This tale never lets up. It starts at a full head of steam and somehow manages to impart some lesser-known (at least to me) history in the process. Yes, it might help to know Spanish. I know a few words and phrases but just plowed right through those few passages, and laughed when I could. This is breezy, somehow, and dark at the same time. The voice is one-of-a-kind and for that alone deserves high marks. Junot Diaz sets a high bar at the outset and never backs down--or off. Diaz slips in all sorts of fun references, riffing off his main character's fascinations and sprinkling in neat tidbits of current events too. Don't overlook the footnotes. I liked this book best when Oscar was on stage but his family history, and the wonderful way this whole book was constructed, make for a compelling, memorable read.

Junot Diaz's fictional rendition of Oscar de Leon actually instills a deep and vividly grotesque account of the Dominican Republic's ultimate Diablo - Trujillo Molena. And, from his atrocities come numerous De Leon family tragedies - grandfather, grandmother, two aunts, mother, and ultimately - but more distantly - Oscar.

Commencing this reading, I stood no differently than my American counterpart: I knew nothing about Dominican history. As Diaz tells us in his first footnote, "For those who missed your mandatory two seconds of Dominican history,: Trujillo . . . ruled the Dominican Republic between 1930 and 1961 with an implacable ruthless brutality." Not too much later, we discern he is a mini-Hitler with a latin libido. The chortling chubby, and grotesquely ambivalent to human emotion dictator apparently jumps on the island's best muchachas bones as they enter puberty. No exceptions to this rule. And, that creates much of the trouble of the "family."

Drowning in poverty and fukú-laden travails [the word fukú will be described below], the De Leon family watches the youngest, the simplest, the nicest of the clan also become a victim to fukú's character-scarring torture. Oscar, beholden to all that is good, smiles even though the curse is aimed directly at he and his spirit. And, as the fukú obliterates, his sister opines," . . Ten Million Trujillos is all we are."

Diaz tells this story like any expatriate from the Dominican may. Weaving his Spanish with English, and weaving each with classic use wand their naturally evolved slang, this book resonates of authentic Dominican flare. Trujillo is called many uncomplimentary things on the book's many pages - sometimes in English and sometimes in Spanish. Anectdotal sayings abound in this book - often in Spanish, often in Dominican pejorative patois, and often in English.

Some reviewers, I noticed, dislike the book's plentiful usage of Spanish. Feeling lost, they are understandably frustrated. Being a Miamian, I understand most of the street language. Note, my knowledge is minimal. This is not high class or deeply unique usage of foreign language. Fowles use of French in "The Magus", Joyce's use of Latin in "Portrait of a Young Man as an Artist" or so many of the Oxford-educated writers' reliance on French and Latin actually can be interpreted as more cumbersome, more difficult to discern. And, to be compared to those writers tells most anyone that this is one very talented writer of the 21st century who should not be ignored.

Sometimes, foreign words' homonymic relationship to our own can lead to deceiving and deceitful connotations. In this book, curse is translated as a fukú. Of course, if you mumbled the same in English, it would not mean a curse, but would be interpreted as a spoken curse. Cute portmanteau. Sometimes, jumping in and out of the languages creates a unique rhythm. This book has its own rhythm, one not experienced in either language alone. That is part of the magic. That is part of the charm.

This is, in many respects, a cacophony of latin sounds blending with English language over an entirely Caribbean topic. You can almost taste the food, hear the speakers, smell the ocean and barrios, dance to the congas, and be lured by the colorful attire suffused against the tan or even black flesh. This reader was overwhelmed by the strength of this novel and would never question why it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2008.

Oscar Wao, the main character in author Diaz' Pulitzer Prize winning novel, is a comic-book/sci-fi/role-playing gamer nerd of the nth degree. Add to that adolescent dysfunction the misery of being grossly overweight, "blacker" than the rest of his Dominican family and neighbors, and raised in Paterson, New Jersey during the 70s and 80s, and you've got one poor pathetic little muchacho. His search for reciprocated love runs up against more roadblocks and hostility than even the lesser-heroes of the Marvel Universe face on a monthly basis. He is an idealist, a dreamer, a boy in love with love who can't escape himself no matter how much those around him encourage a normative change for the better.

Although Oscar's story holds the main thrust of the narrative, both his sister Lola and mother Hypatia Belicia Cabral also have their stories told. Yunior, an outsider who gains a vantage point to the Dominican family by way of mysterious-to-the-end circumstances, narrates Oscar and Belicia's histories with a profane, pop-hip, heavily Spanish-laden style. Himself a geek god, Yunior is a foil of sorts to Oscar; he is as intimate with the worlds of The Watchmen and Doctor Who as his gordo subject, yet has gained his street cred by stepping up as a major playa with the ladies of the neighborhood. He stands as Oscar's personal ideal, hatched from a socially awkward mind full of ideal women to love, epic novels to write, and heroic lives to live. Yunior, in effect, gets Oscar, understands that if God hadn't given him the looks or the mad game with the women, he could easily have become the boy of this story.

The other narrator is Lola, who tells her story early on in first-person, filling in gaps of detail that Yunior doesn't have the resources to shed full light on. The beautiful and rebellious sister of Oscar bridges the distance between NJ and the DR, spending a vast amount of her time growing up in Santo Domingo and experiencing the heritage she would rather ignore. The style is an abrupt yet welcome change from the footnote-heavy, politically charged, comic-book jargon of Yunior's narrative pulse. With Lola, the language is grounded, more deeply felt and personal.

Overall, the novel crisscrosses these three distinct-but-connected narratives quite well, peppering in more than a bit of historical background on dictator Trujillo's decades-long reign of terror on the people of the Dominican Republic. The intimate details and colorful descriptions of the characters (Oscar's madre, as a violent-tempered youth in DR, "Threw her drink, her glass, and then her purse at him - if there had been a baby nearby she would have thrown that too.") mesh nicely with the political overview of the small island-state.

There are, however, missteps in the telling, which mostly revolve around its tendency to over-tell, to over-explain a given scene or historical event. Conversely, Diaz doesn't tell enough when heaping mounds of Spanish language into the narration without benefit of a translation or even a proper context to aid the reader in deciphering it on our own. Frankly, it removed me from the flow of the story, made me think that I was deliberately being left out of some vital information because I didn't know the language. Now, I can see how this could actually serve as an effective narrative tool (making the reading audience feel the confusion or isolation of the characters by placing us in a parallel position of exclusion), but Diaz doesn't seem conscious of using the non-translated language as a device, and instead appears to add it merely as another ingredient there to enhance the flavor of the novel. In fairness, Hemingway did the same thing (see THE SUN ALSO RISES and FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS for egregious uses of this offense), so there is clearly a precedent. And, since Diaz admits to naming the book after the title of Hemingway's famous work, THE SHORT HAPPY LIFE OF FRANCIS MACOMBER, then this storytelling transgression may simply be an affect of imitation.

The ending is very thrilling, managing to wrap things up not only with an exciting climax, but with an unexpected breadth of emotion. It ends sweetly, but not sentimentally, and does so in a way that complements all that has come before. It even manages to enhance everything to a palpable degree, with a poignancy and resonance that kept the novel as a whole in my mind long after I finished it.

I read this novel because I was under the impression that it was a well written story about a geeky and socially awkward comic book loving guy and, well, that premise really appealed to me. And yes, that is--in a very broad sense--what this book is about. But it's also a modern take on the American immigrant story. It's a history lesson on the Dominican Republic and the horrible regime of Rafael Trujillo (of which I was completely ignorant before reading this). It's a story of generation gaps, family curses and unrequited love. In short, there's so much to contemplate in this book, but it never gets overwhelming or boring. Diaz is a gifted author who deftly blends these various themes together while utilizing a distinct narrative style.

I have to say that as enjoyable as the Oscar character was, I really thought the way that he developed the character of Beli and her coming-of-age in Trujillo's DR, seemingly above it all when in actuality one of the regime's preeminent victims was an even greater achievement. She is the one who brings immediacy and relevance to the story. Oscar is here now, suffering now, but there is pain greater than his present and accounted for in the novel. Mostly though, it gets passed mother to daughter, while Oscar copes with nerdy, emasculating failings.

Fukú!

And this is where Diaz completes his masterpiece, in the shaping of the character Lola, the true survivor, the real legacy. That he manages to tell it from the point of view of the failed character who really never even deserves to be properly named is sheer genius. That he (Yunior) has a little patience for Oscar born of lust for Lola makes him only important enough to be a witness. That he gets a chapter or two by default but never gets to be part of the family is a subtle, biting social commentary on the disappearance of the male figure (a seemingly repetitive cycle) in the story and sadly too often in real life as well. We know nothing about Ruben except that he's Cuban, but he is the one willing to be husband and father to the next generation.

That Oscar is important enough to be remembered by the next generation and how he is remembered is all that matters. How Diaz managed to turn Oscar into the victor and Yunior into "The Watcher", the pariguayo, is balance restored in spite of the cost.

This story is all about how you reclaim your power and how the journey to do so is never fast and never easy.

Bravo, Junot. Bravo.

Zafa.

It is a fun, entertaining, fairly layered book with quirky characters, and interesting culture, and history. But I found really nothing outstanding that deserves so much recognition as it did.

Because this is a first-person narrative, the audio CD format is an especially good way to experience this book. Diaz weaves a surprising amount of Spanish into the prose, and hearing the rolling Rs makes the reader fall that much deeper into the story. While a Spanish background would be helpful, Diaz assumes that the reader will be able to grasp the meaning from the context, much like Burgess assumed that an attentive audience would eventually pick up the Russo-American pigdin in "A Clockwork Orange." Hearing the actor's voice jump from unapologetically crass horny frat brother speak to Tolkein references is a pleasure that only an audio narrative can truly bring. With liberal use of magical realism, the story becomes more of a legend than a novel, one of those rare stories that sits you down and says "You gotta hear this."

Great, easy reading. A fictional glimpse of struggling life perhaps different from the ordinary. Junot Diaz is edgy and tells it like it is. He pulls no punches and just lays it out.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao I work in prisons with men in NY
State, and reading this book has greatly deepened my understanding of their earlier life experiences.
Even more important, Mr. Diaz's language, time jumps, character delineations, syntax and auithor's point of view perked up my mind immensely. Reading about Oscar's life was a little like living inside someone's else's mind (the observer). I particularly appreciated his omitting to offer translations of the "Dominican" words and phrases, luring me to extend my own comprehension of the characters' experiences and communications.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in contemporary hispanic immigrant life, good writing, the Trujillo history, and just a good read.

janetke

I was worried about reading this book because of the hype --but let me tell you, it lived up to it. I think Diaz is a genius and the book stayed with me!

This is the second book that has been published lately to rave reviews that I could not get through. The other was The Somnambulist. I read 80 pages about Oscar and I gave up. I know there was all this cool Spanish phrases but the story just did not grab me. There are so many books written that if I read 50 pages and I am bored I quit. I gave Oscar an extra 30 pages but it was still boring.I did not care about the characters.

I got through 'the brief wondrous life of oscar wao' mostly while working out on an exer-cycle in my local gym, which provided a suitably flabby and sweaty circumjacence. It also made it easy to toss aside when I tired of it - which was frequent.
As a non-american English reader, I found the style of the story and its telling, especially the 'spanglish' and nerd-slang language,to be overly contrived and frustrating. Yes, no doubt the writing is hip and cleverly post-modern, and the story reminds us about the reality of cultural diversity and the changing face of american society (yawn), but the book's value for me lay in Diaz's occasional lessons on Dominican Republic history.
'The brief wondrous life of oscar wao' is probably regionally important, and certainly worth putting in front of someone wanting to move up from street graffiti, gangster rap, and comics to the more demanding 'chapter book' format. But a prize winner - I think not.

Nothing wondrous here; cursed characters are all you will find (but well written cursed characters none-the-less). I found the history of the DR particularly interesting but unfortunately, it is not clear what part is actual history and what is fiction. To be fair I suppose that can be said of all 'history' ...

it took me a long time to finally read this book. after many false starts in airport kiosks I finally broke down, bought and read this book. And what a read it was. I have not been so moved by a character as Oscar (and his family) in a long time. I can't recommend this book highly enough as the story, prose and characters will leave you both ecstatic and heartbroken

I bought the book because of the rave reviews, and while the story is interesting, I don't know if I'll be able to finish it. It's amazing and disturbing that a book with so much offensive language and street slang won a Pulitzer. While it may be necessary for some of the characters at times, enough is enough.

I bought the book because of the rave reviews, and while the story is interesting, well organized and for the most part well-written, I don't know if I'll be able to finish it. It's disturbing that a book with so much cursing won a Pulitzer. While it may be necessary for some of the characters at times, enough is enough.

This Pulitzer-Prize winning novel tells the story of the unlucky Dominican-American family of an obese science-fiction nerd. It's narrated first-person by Yunior a friend of the family contemplating these events years after they've happened.

In sequential order, Yunior gives us chapters on Oscar's geeky childhood, the mother-daughter conflict suffered by older sister Lola, mom Beli's story back in the Dominican Republic, Yunior's own college days with Oscar, the story of Abelard the grandfather back in the Dominican Republic, and the rest of Oscar's story.

Things I disliked:

(1) The hyper-machismo of the narrator gets really tedious, really fast. I realize that the author is either parodying the typical Dominican male or - eeek -giving an accurate representation, and I recognize that it's all right for him to do so. But some readers are going to feel like they're trapped on an endless city-bus ride listening to an obnoxious drunk as they wade through 335 pages of the f-word, the n-word, the b-word, and countless other derogatory terms for women and men who are attracted to other men. Here's a typical sentence from our narrator from page 195: "Some n-----s couldn't have gotten a-s on Judgment day; me I couldn't not get a-s even when I tried."

(2) The characters are often too willfully stupid to give you much emotional return on your investment in reading through their sections: they get numerous warnings of danger that could be easily avoided and still they blunder on their mindless course straight into it. Some character flaws are interesting, but too much of this makes the reader disengage. I'm mainly referring to Beli and Abelard here, but also to Oscar.

Things I didn't mind, but other people might find annoying:

(1) Lots of long footnotes in tiny font interrupt the narrative to dispense information about dictator Trujillo.

(2) Lots of slang Spanish, but not just single words that are easy to pick up in context. Rather, there are sentences and even lines of dialog that you'll miss if you don't speak the language.

(3) The pop culture references are non-stop to science fiction novels like Dune, war-gaming terms, Marvel comics, B-grade movies, etc.

Things I liked:

(1) The writing is very good and very energetic.

(2) Oscar is a fascinating character - but very sad. Readers may not find his story nearly as "hilarious" as they might expect.

(3) The history and culture of the Dominican Republic really comes across vividly.

Readers who might appreciate this book most are going to be much like the author: well-read, heterosexual guys who belong to ethnic minorities. Others include extremely open-minded readers from other demographics who seek a window into something very different from their own experience.

I picked this book up based on the superlative reviews, having never read Diaz's DROWN. And wow...is all I can say. The book starts off a little slow, but once you get into the meat of the story you're simply blown away by the heart, the language, the emotion. And when the book finally comes to the end, you feel like you've known Oscar and his family your whole life. Just hope you don't get their fuku...

i had never read anything more touching and corresponding to my roots and my culture. this man is not making up or exaggerating the truths and realities of the dominican history nor about the characteristics of its citizens.