Tag Archives: Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

The story is simple yet complex, involving generations of a family that are doing their best to find love and happiness between lives spent in New Jersey and their homeland of Santo Domingo. But there is no separation, and the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

If I had been really good at close reading, I'd have been smart enough to mark those spots that somehow I just knew would form a pattern. Here, in the closing pages of the story, we're back with Oscar who … Continue reading → Continue reading →

While I might in many ways compare this novel to Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude, Diaz gives his characters a much stronger personality, although Oscar seems to be rather faceless for me when held up against his sister Lola or … Continue reading → Continue reading →

As we move through this chapter on Beli (Oscar’s mother) as a young girl in Santo Domingo, there is a preponderance of background and history woven in, about a country in upheaval under a cruel regime. This, I believe, along … Continue reading →

While it likely assists to establish the voice, the frequent use of Spanish words within the text are starting to annoy me. When I read, I like to get into the movement of the story and while I can remember … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Clearly nonlinear, we go back in time rather than forward with each chapter, marked with dates (years) covered. Junot Diaz jumps from time periods with focus on a different character in each chapter, from Oscar, to his sister Lola, and … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Junot Diaz has a nice sense of his characters. With Oscar, we feel his struggle between his growing natural interest in girls compounded by peer pressure and his need to hold onto the part of himself that he knows is … Continue reading → Continue reading →

While Oscar was the protagonist in the third-person pov of the first chapter, and we followed him from adolescence through his going away to college, Diaz switches us to first person pov of Oscar's sister Lola without warning in the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I've been busily writing on Hypercompendia so I haven't been as caught up as usual here on the literature postings but I have starting reading this novel by Junot Diaz and find it to be rather quick, easy reading despite … Continue reading → Continue reading →