OBOC - Ecuador

Jorge Icaza's novel Huasipungo ("The Villagers") is often credited for exposing the plight of Native Americans in Ecuador under the Spanish Colonizers. While many Latin American writers are famous for magical realism, this novel has none of that - it is harsh and it is real. The novel was published first in 1934 and in the English translation the introduction sadly notes how unlike in the Grapes of Wrath (which it is often compared to), the plight of the Indians are not any different even three decades later, which cannot be said of the Okies of Steinbeck.

In the book, the landowning elites, the clergy and the white masters form an unholy trinity exploiting the land and resources of Ecuador and in this process treat the Indians as disposables. There are also the Cholos of mixed race who are in a slightly more favorable position than the Indians and who often did the dirty work for their masters.

Don Alfonso the landowner decides to lay a road with Indian labor so that the whiteman can bring in his equipment and machinery to exploit the virgin forests. To achieve this aim, he enlists the help of the local clergyman and the cholos to drive fear (of god, of law) into the heart of the Indian. Andres Chiliquinga is the tragic hero of this novel who loses just about everything, his limbs, his cunshi, his home, his village and above all his dignity before he leads an unsuccessful rebellion against the exploiters.

If you thought the Indian was at the bottom of this hierarchy (the white, the landowner, the cholo and the indian), you are only partly correct. The Indian woman is at the absolute bottom - facing rape and harassment from the masters and violence from her man - your heart reaches out to the Cunshis of this world - when one doesn't even have control over the milk produced from one's breasts there is no doubt as to one's position in society.

Despite the bleak nature of the book, it is a must read book as it is a story that humanity needs to understand. Coincidentally, around the time i was wrapping up this book, I also heard about the controversy surrounding REDD which is now the new green. While voices like Jane Goodall, Wangari Mathai are coming out in favor of REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation), what about the indigenous people everywhere? There was a time when they were evicted as the world needed to clear out their forests. Now are they facing eviction as the world decides to protect their forests lands? I don't know the answer and I haven't studied the issue in-depth - but when I heard the Ecuadorian President say he was in favor of REDD despite protests from the indigenous people, I couldn't help thinking about the novel I just finished.

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.