Well. This didn’t go quite like I planned it. I finished the novel last night. Couldn’t stop reading it. And the thought of having to stop to write a synopsis was simply untenable. It would have been a disservice to Junot Díaz and, in truth, to the readers.
I didn’t enjoy writing the “Your Designated Reader” posts at all. I think I approached them all wrong. They seemed a bit pointless and a terrible way to experience any novel, much less one that was such a joy to read. Seriously, if any of you actually were following these posts: read the book. It will be a much better use of your time.
Maybe a better way would have been to simply journal my impressions after each sitting and not worry so much about chronicling everything that goes on in the book. A more solipsistic approach, sure, but maybe that’s the point.
So let’s wrap this up quickly and I’ll share a few of my thoughts about “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.” I’ll try my best not to ruin the ending.
There are three narratives that take place in Santo Domingo: “The Three Love’s of Belicia Cabral” chronicles their mother’s life leading up to her escape to Nueva York; “Poor Abelard” recounts the fall of Dr. Abelard Cabral (Oscar’s grandfather) and the destruction of his family at the hands of Trujillo; and several sections describing Oscar’s cathartic trip to the island to confront his family’s fukú. Each section pulls away a layer of mystery, slowly revealing slivers of truth about the family tragedy.
Abelard Cabral’s inability to take action (any action) is the root cause of his family’s demise and subsequent legacy.
Santo Domingo is the crucible for all of the emotional and literary power in this novel.
I was right about the main narrator. He is a character in the story: Yunior, Oscar’s roommate at Rutgers. He does figure in the outcome of the story, but not really as a participant in the action. For the most part, he is merely a Watcher, an observer of Oscar’s story. Yunior can be seen as this novel’s Ishmael. If anything, Yunior regrets what he was unable to do, more than what he did do.
The etymology of the name Oscar Wao is hilarious. I could have totally seen this happening among my friends. The best nicknames always have strange origins.
The fact that Yunior narrates the Cabral family history in Santo Domingo is important to note. It serves as a testament that the oral tradition of the island lives on, even in the generation that has grown up in the “Diaspora.” In one scene, Yunior tells Oscar the fukú is “Old shit, our parents’ shit.” Oscar replies. “It’s ours too.” By telling the story through Yunior distinctive street-wise voice, Díaz reinforces the notion that the folklore of the past has survived through to the generation that has grown up away from the island.
The sugarcane fields, the mongoose, and faceless man were great devices to symbolize the family legacy and the idea of “eternal return.” These elements are used sparingly, but just enough to needle you if you’re the least bit skeptical of superstition.
Yunior states that either you believe this is a fukú story, a zafa story, or neither. It’s up to you to decide.
The footnotes provided me with a dazzling mini-education on Dominican history. I was completely ignorant to all of it. The footnotes also reinforce a greater issue Díaz is trying to explore: that the stain of colonialism, slavery, and imperialism still marks everyone to this day.
Which is all well and good, but the beauty of this story remains with Oscar. Without Oscar it would all just be pyrotechnics and pontification. Díaz brilliantly creates a character and situation where, as a reader, I became a helpless observer (like Yunior). And with each page, I was begging Oscar not to do what, in the end, was the only thing he could ever do. The “brief wondrous” life of Oscar Wao must have been those last crucial moments in the sugarcane.
