It will be hard to beat the hype about a first novel after “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” (2007) by Junot Diaz (Dominican Republic, 1968). Of course, “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” deserves the praise and the Pulitzer for muchas razones.
El mean Spanglish in a mainstream novel is one of dem. How I wish Gloria Anzaldúa was here to read it! (“Her Borderlands/ La Frontera: The New Mestiza” is one unforgettable posionamiento, but it was published in the 80′s before the Latino crossover trend).
“The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” highly amusing, ironic, sarcastic, performative narrator, Yunior, sounds like a character out of a Judd Apatow movie, on Latino culture. After all, Oscar is something like The Twenty-Something Year Old Dominican Virgin or a slightly older Seth from Superbad. The Latino Diaspora provides a lot of dramatic and funny situations, both on our adaptation to US culture as our difficulty adapting back to the culture in our home countries (life in the hyphen).
In many ways, the narration in “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” is fresh with its mix of high and popular culture, and life-in-the-hyphen, postcolonial kind of humor. Not to mentions the street smart Spanglish, real funny and carnivalesque. The caustic annotations also work as a subversive strategy: history serves as a footnote to the fictional characters’ lives. This narrative move is not only hilarious, painfully true but also very smart.
However, in contrast with the comic narrative tone, the plot is tragic. The immigrant family saga is at times too dramatic and weepy, como una típica telenovela latinoamericana. Even though I thought Lola was a far more interesting character, the plot sticks with Oscar. His ending is tragic, instead of comic, and was a big disappointment. In terms of the protagonist modeling a possible future for Latino crossover, it seemed closer to “Ramona” or “The Last of the Mohican” (in this case “The Last of the Dominican”).
Even though Oscar’s life as a metaphor is closer to “Drown” than to “Rise Up, Stand Up”, “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” is a memorable novel about a Latino family trying to cope with the contradictory process of acceptance and rejection to the US (perhaps their home country’s and family’s histories prevent them from shaking their Fukú off).
