

Ladataan... Oscar Waon lyhyt ja merkillinen elämä (2007)– tekijä: Junot Díaz
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Read it in Spanish courtesy of brilliant Cuban translator Achy Obejas. As much as I adore and admire Diaz in English, I got to say that I'm glad I haven't read it yet in English because Obejas made it funnier than hell. The slang is exactly right. Just feels at home in Spanish. Remember, Americans, especially on the eve of President Trump, that "Somos un pais de Trujillos." ( ![]() Damn. This one wrecked me (in a good way), possibly ruined me for all other similar novels. Also, take this link, you'll need it: http://www.annotated-oscar-wao.com/. Without that, I would not have understood a good 60% of the references within. I oddly enough identify with Oscar Wao on several layers, which may or may not be a good thing. Note to self: read Junot Diaz's DROWN before the end of the year. I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting, but I know I wasn't expecting what I got in this book. That's too bad, since what I got wasn't what I wanted. So Diaz is undeniably brilliant. His knowledge of such a wide span of culture, both historical and pop, is just amazing. Unfortunately, that was a turnoff in a way, because he HAD to show it off when it didn't really make sense. In Wao, we eventually meet the narrator. But that's not before we're hit over and over with the narration of someone who doesn't make sense. It just didn't line up for me. And I also felt that Diaz's obsession with sex just got to an uncomfortable place. The story ebbed and flowed, when it stayed with Oscar, it was good. But it jumped to other characters too much without really giving a strong connection to them. I kind of understand why this won the Pulitzer, but I'm also confused by that at the same time. This is a strange book. The principal protagonist is not intriguing or interesting in the slightest. Frankly, I was indifferent to him after the first part. What I did like was the history of the family under Trujillo. That felt raw, gritty and it was written extremely well. But Oscar? Really? I had little to no sympathy for his immature attitude. And I think it's interesting that whenever there is serious trouble, people flee to America, specifically New York, and when Oscar does go back to Saint Dominique, he gets in serious trouble. The realism of corruption and violence in the Caribbean is well-written, but what overall message does this convey? Totally magnificent. Díaz is off-the-charts good, rocketing through nearly every kind of -culture you can imagine at breakneck speed.
Díaz’s novel also has a wild, capacious spirit, making it feel much larger than it is. Within its relatively compact span, “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” contains an unruly multitude of styles and genres. The tale of Oscar’s coming-of-age is in some ways the book’s thinnest layer, a young-adult melodrama draped over a multigenerational immigrant family chronicle that dabbles in tropical magic realism, punk-rock feminism, hip-hop machismo, post-postmodern pyrotechnics and enough polymorphous multiculturalism to fill up an Introduction to Cultural Studies syllabus. It is Mr. Díaz’s achievement in this galvanic novel that he’s fashioned both a big picture window that opens out on the sorrows of Dominican history, and a small, intimate window that reveals one family’s life and loves. In doing so, he’s written a book that decisively establishes him as one of contemporary fiction’s most distinctive and irresistible new voices. Sisältyy tähän:
Things have never been easy for Oscar. A ghetto nerd living with his Dominican family in New Jersey, he's sweet but disastrously overweight. He dreams of becoming the next J.R.R. Tolkien and he keeps falling in love. But poor Oscar may never get what he wants, thanks to the ancient curse that has haunted his family for generations. No library descriptions found. |
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