OBOC - Dominican Republic

Other than the fact that sportsmen from the Dominican Republic are legendary in Baseball in America, I have to accept that there was nothing more I knew about both Baseball and the Dominican Republic! "The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao", the pulitzer prize winning novel from Junot Diaz set to fix at least one of those knowledge gaps.  And just when I was feeling embarrassed about not even knowing that the US occupied the DR between 1916-24, Diaz assures me not to worry as a 100 years from now, no one will remember the occupation of Iraq! Collective Amnesia is a byproduct of the passage of time after all.

The novel is a chronicle of the life of Oscar de Leon as narrated by his sister Lola and Yunior (Lola's ex boyfriend and Oscar's roommate in Rutgers). Oscar is the antithesis of everything a stereotypical Dominican male is expected to be - he is overweight, no athlete, nerdy, obsessed with the "genres" (or speculative fiction as it is called these days), and certainly has no success with women. Growing up in Paterson, New Jersey Oscar's life is condemned to loneliness which he fills by writing profusely stories centered around the end of the world.

Intertwined with this story, is the story of Oscar and Lola's mother Beli, whom we first meet as the overworked, domineering, cancer stricken, iron fisted, rebellion crushing, single immigrant mom struggling to keep her family together in America, and you almost have no sympathy for her. As the story moves from Jersey to Santo Domingo we get a completely different glimpse of the young Beli and her father Abelard and how their life was affected by the iron handed dictator Trujillo. Despite the title, this story is as much Beli's story as it is Oscar's. As we follow along Oscar as he moves from Jersey to the DR on the trail of the only woman who gives him the time of day and a bit more than that, we follow Beli's life in reverse. The DR is as much a character in this story as any of the others. We get a great glimpse into the socio political, cultural history of the DR replete with fukus (curses) and zafas (counter spells). 


While Oscar's story could be just another story of an immigrant nerd who is trying to fit in, where it stands out is in Junot Diaz's rawness.  He doesn't shy away from the tragic, violent ending. The writing style was so fresh and Yunior's voice narrating this story is testimony to Diaz's talent. Yunior is in every sense the complete opposite of Oscar - not as well read, profane, extremely successful with women, cool, and raw - yet at the same time seems to have a sensitivity and understanding of Oscar that it simply works!

Moving seamlessly from the present to the past, from Spanish to English, from profanity to the references and tributes to Tolkien, from the trivialities of everyday life to magical realism, from an adolescent's wet dreams to dying for love, Diaz triumphs! Ultimately, this is a coming of age story of both the cerebral ghetto nerd and the machismo casanova, the former fatally facing his fuku and the latter narrating the story as a zafa to his own fuku.