Literary Fiction by People of Color discussion

The discussion of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao will start here on January 1.

Great! That's a perfect deadline for me; I'm going to read it during my winter break.

Looking forward to it!

Happy New Year to all! Don't celebrate so much that you forget that our discussion of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz begins on January 1. Bill will kick off our discussion.

The internet is loaded with information about Diaz, but here's a little background for those who may not be familiar with him:

Although born in the Dominican Republic on December 31, 1968, Junot Diaz has spent most of his life in the United States. He grew up in New Jersey and earned a bachelor’s degree in literature and history from Rutgers in 1992 (the same college his character Oscar attended). Famed author Toni Morrison was one of Díaz’s writing mentors. He is the author of Drown and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao which won the John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the 2008 Pulitzer Prize. His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, African Voices, Best American Short Stories (1996, 1997, 1999, 2000), in Pushcart Prize XXII and in The O'Henry Prize Stories 2009. He is the fiction editor at the Boston Review and Nancy Allen professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In the review of Oscar Wao in the NYT on September 4, 2007, Michiko Kakutani states that this book is "so original it can only be described as Mario Vargas Llosa meets “Star Trek” meets David Foster Wallace meets Kanye West. It is funny, street-smart and keenly observed, and it unfolds from a comic portrait of a second-generation Dominican geek into a harrowing meditation on public and private history and the burdens of familial history."

The complete review can be found at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/04/boo...

This should be a terrific discussion!

I find it very difficult to categorize this book. It is so many different things. Its both comic and tragic. Dramatic and light. Fictional and historical. But it is New Years day so I'll start the discussion with just a few casual observations.
Diaz has said in interviews that the four main characters were modeled after the Fantastic Four comic book characters. I kinda scratch my head because before I can assign similarities I first have to eliminate one of these people as a major character. Grandfather, LaInca, Mother, Lola, Oscar. At times during the novel their stories were more important and interesting than Oscars. Can someone help me out and tell me which would not belong with the F4?
Oscar has also said that every readers view of the book would be influenced by whether they view Oscar as weak/niave or strong/aggressive. I personally saw him as more of the former and that his turn around to the latter did not come until the very end of the book, much too late and tragically for my taste.
But I digress, some of the reviews I've read take Diaz to task for his liberal use of the n-bomb and f-bombs dropped throughout the book. I just don't see how the dialouge could be considered true to life without them. I recently tried to keep up with the number of n-bombs and f-bombs tossed in the conversations at my nieghborhood barber shop and believe me there were too many to count. I mention this because a regular contributer to this discussion feels that book has the feel of Percival Everett's satirical "My Pafology". I could not disagree more. Having grown up in NJ, and with members of my immediate family and friends from the DR. I can assure you that the dialouge and situations are hardly hyped up to Amos and Andy or BET/Tyler Perry proportions found in most "Af-Am interest" books.
one last observation for the New Year before we get to all the meat in the novel. What was so "Wondrous" about the life of Oscar Woa? It was brief, yes, tragic, yes, sad and certainly frustrating, but wondrous?

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Bill, your question about the word "wondrous" sent me to the good old web dictionary where this definition struck me:

beyond what is ordinary or usual; highly unusual or exceptional or remarkable

In that since, I think "wondrous" is accurate for Oscar's life. He certainly was not constrained by the expected in his behavior, his passions, or even his physical appearance. Everything with Oscar is over the top. Oscar, in his unusualness, has a distinctive purity of spirit, in my opinion. He commits totally to his passions, whether it is a woman he loves or his writing.

I hadn't heard the Fantastic Four comment before, and I'm totally lost on that one. Some brilliant group member should get it, right, folks?
(The closest I could get was Lola's desire to disappear.)

I agree, Bill, about the language. It seemed natural to me, no matter how much I dislike hearing it. Riding public transportation can cause permanent damage to one's ears from the constant assault of profanity, most strikingly from young ladies with babes-in-arms. I didn't see it as satirical at all.

I viewed Diaz on an old Youtube video where he was giving a talk on a college campus. His discussion was liberally spread with the f-bomb.

I just finished this book, just in time for our discussion! It's definitely one of those books that I'll need a little time to truly digest, it'll need to marinate in my brain juices for a little while longer before I can be truly coherent with a reaction, but a few initial observations:

- Structurally, it's clear that Junot is trying to do something, and the Fantastic Four reference makes sense now, although i don't know enough about the F4 to know which characters correspond to each other, or what other elements of F4 narrative may be integrated into his text. I agree with William that many of the other stories/voices were much more compelling and 'foregrounded' than Oscar's, and that was confusing to me.

- The narrator, Yunior's voice was the most well-articulated and convincing to me, and it was cool to 'see' Yunior again after his appearances in Junot's first book, Drown. That character still seems the most believable to me, possible because he's the most similar to Diaz himself?

- Oscar was...interesting. He made me uncomfortable with his ultra-nerdiness and ability to self-deprecate so easily. I feel like I've met many Oscars in my life, and his story makes me feel somehow guilty for not having done more to 'help' them. In the end, Oscar's transformation is the most startling and meaningful, which I guess is why the book is named after him. But having a whole book just about Oscar would have been, I have to say, quite boring!

- Overall, the book made me feel like I wasn't smart enough to 'get it'. Diaz is clearly brilliant, well-read and fluent in many 'Englishes' (Jersey DR ghetto slang all the way through to PhD level linguistic acrobatics). His syntax was off the hook! But I wonder if he was, in a sense, trying too hard to give meaning to Oscar's life and the lives of the other characters through his structure, plot, narrative choices, and that in the end the meanings of things have gotten too muddled.

I would actually posit Lola as Mr. Fantastic, given the way he can stretch his body and serves in an assertive, leadership role; the mother, Belicia de Leon as the Human Torch, given her fiery personality and way she was abused as a child; the last two would be Yunior and Oscar, who both function in many ways like the alienated outsider-hero, The Thing, but who also act, at times, like the Invisible Woman with their abilities to disguise their true feelings.

I like the Fantastic Four references, if only because it adds a kind of mythical quality to Oscar's story. It offers us a hint of that fantasy world he longed to escape to...

So, William, am I the "regular contributor" who made the Percival Everett comparison? LOL. I had to go back to my original review of Diaz's book, and this is what I said:

I can't help but think about Everett's Erasure when I read Diaz's book. There were moments when I was troubled that my lack of understanding regarding cultural norms and attitudes in the Dominican Republic would lead me to be less critical about the story's constant images of misogyny, hypermasculinity, and violence, or overlook the author's larger message about how we should view Oscar's family and experience in American vs the DR. Is the Brief Wondrous life, praised by some for its "magic realism" and others for its "verisimilitude," really just another version of Everett's racial parody and media spectacle, "My Pafology"?

Looking back, I still think my question is legitimate. (Although I can't remember specific details - so I'm going to have to go pull the book out again!) If anything, I'm trying to be just as critical about my own lack of cultural understanding as I am about "the story's constant images of misogyny, hypermasculinity, and violence." I think there's a fine line between satire that subverts stereotypes and satire that re-affirms them. If Everett's novel taught me anything, it's that even "realism" is subjective and can be misrepresented. This is a concern that kept nagging at me as I read Diaz's novel.

I'm busted. Yes Qiana I was refering to your review. And you are so right about the subjectiveness of individual perceptions of the verisimilitude of dialogue, situation and place. I can only say that in reading "My Pafology" I never once thought of the characters as being more than a boffoonish cartoon. Never once thought that I knew real people or situations like them. I laughed heartily at them because certainly it was the kernels of truth and over the top, clearly satirical writing that made the characters recognizable.
Contrasted with Diaz, these are real people and conversations that I can introduce you to tomorrow. And one hardly needs to go to the DR to find fictional or real examples of misogyny, hypermasculinity, and violence. Wasn't there much bruhaha over the same things said in Alice Walkers Color Purple about Black men? And I certainly don't think that Diaz by writing about this part of Latin Caribbean culture is in any way glorifying it. All such characters paid dearly for their sins, even Trujillo.

Oh Yeah, Yunior was not one of the F4 but a character from the series who watches over them from a distant planet (according to Diaz). Ive forgotten his name and I used to consume F4 comics by the crate. I'd go with the Grandfather as Mister Richards, La Inca as Invisible Girl, Belicia as the Thing and Oscar as Johnny (wasn't he always lovelorn?)

William: (do you prefer William, Bill, or Will - I could never figure that out..!)

Your point about Diaz's characters being based on real people that you could introduce me to tomorrow is valid and I wouldn't even try to argue against the authority of your experience. I can only question the extent to which any reader can or should use personal experience as criteria for evaluating fictional texts. (I know this is starting to sound embarrasingly academic.) I would also agree that he stops short of "glorifying" some of the negative aspects of Latin Caribbean culture. I'm pretty convinced by your comparison with the Color Purple, which hits closer to home for me obviously! Walker's novel also pushes the envelope in many ways and many people viewed her representation of men as too narrow.

I'm going to refrain from making any more criticisms of Oscar Wao until I can pull out specific scenes and passages. I know my comments sound awfully vague. Like I said before, I'm a little "out of my league" with this book, so I appreciate this exchange. I really do.

Thanks also for clearing up the Fantastic Four references!

The limitations of the written word... when rereading the sentence it does seem personal but what I was trying to convey was that anyone could find Diaz's characters who was willing to look but you'd be hard pressed to find the My Pafology characters in "real life".

That said, it seems to me that for all the critics talk of the mysogeny, the strongest characters, the survivors, and ultimately the most sympathetic, are the women in this book. (I actually have much more to say about this but perhaps the conversation will pick up and other will join as they return from holiday vacations).

Rona, No Yunior is emphatically not Diaz in real life but his alter ego. Diaz in many interviews talks about his nerdiness and immersion in comic books and the local library in N.J. As opposed to his contemporaries constant hunt for th opposite sex his days were spent in the library stacks. I saw his interview on Steve Colbert and he really is a nerd!

I read it about a year ago. After reading this book I mentally selected it as my favorite book. Just as the women in our discussion of "a mercy"talked about who they identified with and how identification was a strong part of why I liked the book. Equal parts political, historic, hiphop comic book, cultural-- I thought the book was the best representation of my reality that I had ever read-- and I'm not even Dominican!

What i mean is that I find it to be a well-written splice of twenty-first century life that shows family and roots that make that life possible.

I thought the use of footnotes was hilarious and brilliant. A way to create a jarring effect of tone and also bring the reader up to speed on cultural and political facts about the D.R. The tone was just right because he knew how rediculous it is to include so much of the book in footnotes, but the humor and sarcasm made the footnotes essential and captivating reading.

I'll try to find my copy of it and re-read a few chapters to get a fresh view.

Don't wait, William! We don't want the discussion to die down, even though this is a difficult time of year to squeeze anything in.

Was everyone comfortable with the "Spanglish" spoken in the book? I only know a little Spanish from high school, but missing a few words didn't interfere with the flow of the story, in my opinion.

Thanks for bringing up the use of Spanish in the book, Wilhelmina, which I really enjoyed although I didn't understand a lot of the words in the book. I speak a very tiny bit of Spanish (being Filipino, since Tagalog has a lot of Spanish words mixed in from colonization), but most of the Spanish i speak and understand is heavily Mexican, as I live in California. I know there are certain Dominican slang words in the book, like 'quisqueyana', which from context and having heard friends use it I assume to mean 'immigrant' or some variant thereof. (In Tagalog we have the word 'balikbayan', which literally means 'return to the homeland', to refer to Filipinos who have left the country and come back home to visit or stay). I thought the language usage was a good reflection of the characters' lives and idiom(s), and I've always admired Diaz' use of language withOUT italics as a more accurate way of how his characters think and speak. As he's said in interviews (to paraphrase), he writes the way he thinks and he thinks in Spanish just like in English (not Spanish in italics!).

And I'd disagree slightly that Yunior is nothing like Diaz. Having met Junot several times and seen him around different people, although he is definitely a 'ghetto nerd' he's got a Yunior-ish side to him that is pretty clear (I won't get into details, ahem). And let's not forget that Yunior's got a nerd side too--he is a writer after all and watched all those movies with Oscar, and it's Yunior who is narrating and making all the "Lord of the Rings" and "Fantastic 4" references.

I also really enjoyed those sci-fi/fantasy references, as a geek-girl/nerd myself, and really appreciate how Junot peppered his narrative with these in a way that made total sense and was funny at the same time. Reportedly, the book that Junot started writing after he published 'Drown' was a sci-fi book, but his publisher wouldn't take it, so he started writing 'Oscar' instead, and it's clear that he didn't want to leave out the sci-fi that he loves so much.

All in all, i thought the book was brilliant, although a bit long, and that the characters of Yunior and Beli were my favorite in terms of being most clearly drawn. Sorry Oscar!

I certainly defer to your authority, Rona, then, for you having met the man. I'm intrigued though. Perhaps in another post you can go into those details that you won't get into now, "ahem".

I didn't find the spanish/spanglish difficult at all. I even got a little thrill of victory chill when my h.s. spanish and street-wise familiarities led me to recognize and correctly interperate words and passages in the book. I didn't catch it all but I commend Diaz for not putting is so much Spanish as to make it indecipherable to the English reader.
Younior was clearly conflicted. Unable to be the straightforward geek like Oscar, although he loved the comics and Japanese anime movies and other hallmarks of geekdom as you pointed out, but he was a captive of the latin lover stereotype. He could not hold on to Lola because of his constant need for conquests. But he was the funniest and least phsycologically tortured.
I kept waiting for something really wondrous and glorious to happen to or originate from Oscar and I have to say I was disappointed. Now Beli on the other hand...

As someone who knows only a little Spanish, I also didn't find the language hard to follow - though sometimes I had to rely on good ol' context clues to figure it out.

Oscar wasn't necessarily my favorite character, either. But if we consider that his life is being interpreted and imagined from Yunior's point of view, it is clear that he is fascinated with Oscar's determination and ability to stand up for himself in the end. And that final speech...

...and then they would sense him waiting for them on the other side and over there he wouldn't be no fatboy or dork or kid no girl had ever loved; over there he'd be a hero, an avenger. Because anything you can dream (he put his hand up) you can be.

Of course, this is not actually Oscar's own words, but Yunior's account of what he thinks/hoped happened. Still this is Oscar laying out his own ultimate fuku right? Before sacrificing himself for another person. I thought that was pretty wondrous.

YES! I couldn't agree with you more Qiana, you totally articulated what I've had such a hard time even thinking out clearly in my head! In so many ways, Oscar is a symbol for Yunior and others of the transformative power of self-acceptance and love. Wondrous indeed.

SPOILER ALERT Don't read if you haven't finished the book.

I'm not convinced. I'll give Oscar serious points for finally getting up some gumption and taking matters into his own hands, after playing the doormat for most of the book. But to draw the line and be transformed by love with a dried up old puta!!?? He was transformed right into the brown side of the sod. Better he used his new found courage to run away and live to fight another day.

But, alas, that would not have made for a very satisfying book ending.

You all have written so much and gone so deep into the characters already- whew I feel so far behind. So here is a random smattering of thoughts, because if I try to compose it all who knows when I'll get a response up.

* Fantastic Four: Never quite as deep into them as I was into X-Men (we do have quite the collections of nerds here, huh?), but my interpretation would have been Oscar as Ben (Thing)- he was the one of the group who went through the transformation and came out least acceptable on the surface. Mr. Fantastic, Sue, and Johnny could all get by without ever letting their freak flags fly, but Ben's was right out there for the world. Isn't that the difference between Oscar and the rest of his family? The experience (whether that be life in the DR under Trujillo, Fuku, or immigrating to NJ) has had a lasting effect on the characters, but Oscar is the one who is visibly and obviously different and must constantly deal with accepting who he is and that he is in fact, "fantastic" (or "wondrous").

Beli would be the human torch, because she did have a temper, and was the one very marked by how hard and fast she fell in love.

Grandfather was Mr. Fantastic- patriarchal, seriously studious, perhaps a bit too detached from the realities around him? and Lola the Invisible Girl, as mentioned before, she was constantly trying to run away.

Yunior was The Watcher

* The footnotes- I enjoyed them, and learned to enjoy them more as the book went on. But they did for me constantly remind me of the tension of historical fiction- how much of this fiction, how much of this is "real." And for people who've lived this and experienced it, what if he got something wrong? I became a bit distracted by trying to tease out history and fiction and had to stop myself a couple of times from doing some on the spot investigative research. Did anyone else experience this?

* Misogyny- I have to say that I may have taken one too many women's studies classes in my lifetime and can hardly stand to watch advertisements because of the nonstop examples of misogyny therein, but I never once put this label on this book. The women went through awful experiences, but Diaz was not glorifying or accepting it in any way. He was exposing the misogyny, if anything, and most definitely condemning it. On the milder end of the spectrum, Yunior knows and constantly does a mea culpa on his own behavior, he doesn't seem proud of it. But he still seemed pretty realistic for a lot of the guys I went to school with.

* I thought the use of Spanish throughout was fantastic. I love that this book is so popular and it liberally uses a language that is coming under attack in this country as causing the downfall of society. It felt authentic and true and rebellious to not worry about whether the audience would automatically get it and to include the language anyway, because that's as much a part of the story as the English words.

* Most disappointing in this book for me though, is that Oscar never coalesced as more than a framing device for telling the story of his family around him. He never seemed as fully there as the other characters, or as central to the story, which is nominally his own. I thank you all for your shared impressions of him.

* Question: Did it jar anyone else when Lola got a first person section? Was she the only one or were there others and I missed it? Do you think there was any significance to what voice was being used, in this way?

I'm sure I've forgotten something and will jump back in with more.

I like your Fantastic Four choices, Rashida!

I think that I liked Oscar as a character more than most of you. To me, Oscar was a pure romantic (something that I absolutely am NOT!) He led with his heart without counting the cost, even if the object of his affection may not have seemed deserving of such devotion. He wasn't pragmatic or self serving, and he never let the behavior or opinions of others change his focus. I'm almost embarrassed to say this but he reminded me of Shakespeare's sonnet #116:

......Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken...

The descriptions of Oscar in reviews of the book almost discouraged me from reading it. They focussed on the externals about Oscar, but the most important characteristic, to me, was the way he put his whole heart out there, no matter what.

Does anyone have a good feel for the historical accuracy of this book? It certainly seems true according to the little I know about the DR, but I've never studied the dictatorship there in detail.

The little island of Hispanola certainly has had an outsized history. From the time of Columbus its been in the news. I recall reading Madison Smartt Bell's "All Souls Rising". His fantastic historical novel/treatise on the Haitian revolution and Toussaint l'Ouverture leader of the worlds first independent Black nation. Of course the Spanish occuppied territory of the DR next door both helped and hindered his efforts. But that is where my knowledge of DR history ends. Its a shame that given the long, important and oft times tragic history of the two nations so close to U.S. shores that most of us know next to nothing about them.

Rashida I also think that your F4 analysis is on point. I'll have to reread some of the Lola passages, I, ahem, just got my copy back, to see if I think there was any significance.

Thou doth protest too much, Mina, your lovely Shakespear sonnet and view of Osacar Wao, one which Junot himself said would divide readers into 2 camps, put you firmly on the romantic side of the equation.

How do folks feel about the Belicia character. I thought it could have been her book. She invoked a number of emotions in me and I was captivated by her. At first I didn't like her at all. I thought she was unneccessarily antagonistic to both Oscar and Lola. Overbearing and needy. But then of course you get her back story and all her wounds are forgiven. She becomes a heroine of incredible strength. Not even cancer could kill her, needless to say, mere humans even though they tried..
Of course in between her transformation she made mistakes and did awful things but she was amazing and unforgettable.

I agree completely about Beli being the focal point of the story. I truly came away feeling like Oscar was just a convenient framing device for telling her story. To me, her story was like when I doodle a picture of a flower. Once big circle in the center, with 3/4 circles around the outside to form the petals. She was the center circle. Oscar, Lola, La Inca, Grandfather, Lola's child turned out to be the petals to her middle.

Have no idea if that makes any sense to anyone but me.

I think that Belicia reminded me a little too much of the young women today who become so attracted to the "Gangsta" life. I wanted to give her a good shake and tell her to wake up, that she was living in a fantasy world, that her affair would not lead to happily ever after but to an unpleasant end. She was a survivor, I'll give you that, but I really saw Oscar as the hero of his own story.

I'm still pondering the Fantastic Four analogy. What about La Inca as Mr. Fantastic? She certainly had powers far beyond the norm.

Our Oscar Wao discussion seemed to end so abruptly. I had hoped that we would talk a little more about Qiana's comments on hypermasculinity and mysogyny in Diaz' writing. I do know that some who have read this book as well as his short stories have complained that Diaz seems to concentrate on Dominican men behaving badly with women, with Yunior as Exhibit A for this behavior. Do we think that this is a shortcoming in Diaz' writing or is he just reflecting the culture around him?

okay, i read only between a third and half of this book, and just couldn't stand it. what i couldn't stand were, mainly, the mystification of the ethnic and, with qiana, the hypermasculinity. in fact, what i couldn't stand was really the hyperfemininity, i.e. curves and asses and boobs and beautiful hair and all that. i found it extremely tiresome.

but mina's question is interesting, on all sorts of levels. since i didn't actually read the book, only a part of it, i wonder (if my friend mike is reading this he knows i am always batting my head against this point) about aesthetic responsibility. let us say that diaz is representing accurately a certain sensibility. let's say that he represents is SO ACCURATELY that we cannot tell whether he endorses it or not. let's say that the sensibility he accurately represents is reprehensible. doesn't that make him-as-the-author-of-this-specific-narrative reprehensible? in my book, yes.

So a mans attraction since the dawn of time to curves, asses, boobs, and beautiful hair is reprehensible? And an authors accurate depiction of such makes him and his book reprehensible? Would it have been a better story if all the females were flat chested and pancaked assed? Not likely in the DR. When you have a book filled with so much more than that, when if you can only accurately reflect the times, ideas and verisimilitude of a story with it, then I find such an argument tiresome and reprehensible.
Its like the smut patrol who get into snits because their kids may see a boob on tv but let them watch people get eviscerated 24/7 in movies and tv.
No objections to the lengthy torture of grandfather or Oscars suicide attempt and execution? Beli's near murder and beat down?
Please.
Maybe others have thoughts, I've addressed this in a few other previous posts with Qianna, but to me its a red herring, a distraction from the many other astounding aspects of the book.

bill, i didn't get to the part about the torture or the suicide attempt and execution, but if they had been described with gusto then, sure, i would object to those too! but i have a pretty strong suspicion that junot didn't revel in the sensuality of those acts.

women have curves and asses etc. that men and not a few women find terribly attractive, but if, say, you are a woman, and you see yourself described in those terms and those terms alone (not saying oscar wao does that, cuz i don't remember enough, but evidently it did it more than i could tolerate cuz i had to stop), over and over and over, well, you get pretty damn tired of it. cuz you tell yourself, hey, women are more than asses and tits! HEY!

the ass-ization and tits-ization of women is what got genius tv commentators to make really smart and incisive (NOT!) comments about hillary's: age; physical appearance; outfits; make-up; tiredness; freshness; motherhood; wifehood; etc. which i can guarantee you got A LOT of women pretty pissed. cuz you have experienced being passed over for a job because of your body, or being pushed aside because of your body, or being heckled in the street because of your body, and you are a little tired. and you just wonder when people are gonna start thinking that discussing your body is, like, not done? uncool? demeaning? offensive? immensely pressuring? objectifying? depressing? inducing to illness/suicide/needless surgeries/abandonment/divorces?

and no, it's not like the smut patrol, cuz those are hypocrites who don't hesitate to bring terrible hardship to those very kids they are claiming to protect (see cuts in SCHIP, enacted by our child- loving republicans; see various orphan producing wars, cheered on by our child-loving republicans; see cuts on public school funding... etc. etc.).

but, and i repeat myself, i have not read the whole book, and so many people i totally respect love it, so i'm sure there's a lot of great things about it. i just got hung up on this one.

Just think you did yourself a disservice by not finishing it and us as peeps who respect your opinions by opinionating without considering the whole work first. If I threw away every book that insulted my concept of a correct depiction of (maleness? Af-Am ness?) and any other group I fit into I'd have a slim library indeed. Your arguments about the objectification of women are valid but as Rashida and I have pointed out this is clearly NOT what Diaz is doing in his tale. All the men in the story who do suffer dire consequences. But if you have problems with Beli having big tits..well I kinda liked it. Ce La Vie.

Wow, I didn't mean to open such a can of worms! I just felt that perhaps I had missed something, because Oscar seemed to be the antithesis of the Macho Man to me - a contrasting figure to Yunior, and worthy of Yunior's respect. The women in this story seemed more fully developed than the men, in my opinion, and stronger. Of course, the young men in the book were somewhat fixated on sex, but from what I understand from talking to men, my husband included, this just seems to be a testosterone side effect. It didn't seem over the top to me.

bill: fair enough.

my original post (the one that you found reprehensible) had only a brief explanation for why i stopped reading the book. i didn't mean to make big pronouncements about it, just say why i stopped reading. at the end of the day, there are too many excellent books out there to read the ones that rub me up the wrong way, unless i really have to, you know?

on the other hand, i made a general point about authorial responsibility, whether or not it applies to oscar wao. i think the point is still valid, and the question (moderately) interesting. but maybe we can discuss it some other time... in fact, i think unaccustomed earth might give us a chance!

Hmmm..."authorial responsibility", seems like and awfully slippery slope of a concept. Where does it begin? Where does it end? And most importantly Who gets to decide? I look forward to your submissions.

Specifically on the Oscar piece, maybe this is the reason that he didn't click to me that well. He was exactly the character who looked at a woman, became attracted to her, and then decided he was in love. Even if she was just someone who rode the same busline as him and he never shared a word with her. Except for the ones he became good friends with and got to know that way, he was interested in valuing women for anything more than their bodies.

Yunior slept around, yes, but I'm not going to get mad at that or call that misogyny. After all, assuming that the women he was sleeping with were not equally culpable in that would be a reaction to the gender norms of society, and more degrading to women, in my view. The problem with Yunior's hypersexuality was the impact it had on his relationships. But again, this was acknowledged by him as a flaw, and I see Diaz using it as a cautionary tale. Dudes, don't sleep around on your wifeys, they'll leave you. I can't say whether Diaz uses this theme too often, and if it comes up again and again in his writing, I can see getting tired of it. But this was the first thing I read of his, so can't speak on it.

I didn't though, see Oscar as the antithesis to the Macho Man. He was simply an unsuccessful macho man. He wanted so badly to be that, and would have been if he knew how. He wasn't interested in knowing those women on the bus better, he was interested in being able to take advantage of what he thought should have been his innate abilities as a Dominican man. It is true that once he and Ybon were together, he came to see that it is the intimacy and the love that is most valuable. But I really think that if he had acted that way from the beginning, he would have been more successful, more wondrous, and longer lived.

Oh, and where are the comments from all the folks who voted for this book in the poll???

As you all know, I share some of the same views as jo and I did finish the book. I don't want to rehash old arguments, but I am convinced that the question raised about "authorial responsibility" is a good one because it has deep implications for a group that reads and discusses fiction by people of color.

I think we do hold authors accountable for their representations - whether we should or not. Bill, is it oversimplifying the matter to say that you are judging the quality of Diaz's novel on the basis of its accuracy - its characterizations, use of language, etc? I think if Diaz misrepresented the way people live and speak in the DR, wouldn't you feel this was irresponsible? that he hadn't done his homework, so to speak?

It is my understanding that writers of color as well as women often have to wrestle with this tension between being creatively "free" and being representative of their race/gender. It may not be fair, but that's the expectation. Many black folks hated Native Son when it was published because it shed a glaring light on the rage, confusion, and depravity experienced by people like Bigger Thomas and practically legitimized the "black brute" stereotype. But today we praise Richard Wright for exposing the inter-workings of Bigger's psychology and for revealing the wide social network of injustice that led to his brutal acts. Wright took a risk in creating Bigger, but what is important to me is that he also developed a subtext that would allow us to better understand Bigger's character, his flaws, and the society that never really gave him a chance.

There were moments in reading Oscar Wao that I found this kind of critical subtext was lacking or at least too hidden for me to see. Yunior's observations in some places bothered me personally as a woman of color who has to battle against the kind of objectification that jo mentioned. And Yunior's voice is the strongest, first person account in the book. But by giving us the points of view of Oscar's sister and mother, I also found depth and dimension in Diaz's representation of women. So (and this is where I depart a bit from you, jo!) while I may take issue the views of some of Diaz's characters, I am reluctant to find fault with Diaz. It is clear that he is skilled enough to walk that fine line of "authorial responsiblity" and present a more balanced view when necessary. Despite my discomfort, I am still able to recognize the differing and opposing views present within the story itself.

Sorry this post is so long.

This is a fascinating discussion and I think a really important one in particular for this book. The whole theme of sex and virginity and promiscuity in the book is definitely a central one, as the main narrator, Yunior, (which I need to point out in my writing-workshop way, is NOT the same as the author) is very clear about from the beginning. One of the main 'quests' in the book is for Oscar to lose his virginity because 'no dominican man has died a virgin'. A little high-school-ish of a quest and kinda sexist? definitely. was yunior (and by extension diaz, as some would argue) sexist by extension? probably in many cases. is this an 'accurate' protrayal of dominican culture? i can't say so as i'm not dominican and haven't lived in that world, but as someone who grew up in another macho society/culture, i'd say it probably has accuracies that were exaggerated or focused on by the author.

lastly, my biggest question as a reader and a lover of literature and as a feminist and yes, as a writer is, Can a work of art be sexist (in part or as a whole) and still be good literature? My unequivocal answer has to be: YES.

I wouldn't want to hang out with Yunior. I've also met Diaz and didn't particularly enjoy our interactions (read into that as you will). That doesn't mean I can't acknowledge that the man is a literary genius, and admire that aspect of him. For me, it's kind of like finding out that Stevie Wonder was a big-time playa (surprise, right?)--he didn't write about sex in a graphic way in his songs, but he was probably just as freaky (if not more so) than the rappers and other musicians who do 'T&A' music nowadays. Does that make me hate Stevie? Uh, NO big time.

Back to my point about virginity/sex as a key theme/quest in this particular novel. For me, anything that is 'gratuitous' in a book is only so if it does not help the story move alone, doesn't tell us about the characters, doesn't help us flesh out a world that is real and alive. Knowing how skilled Junot is as a writer, and how conscious he is of his literary choices, I will venture to say that the way he writes about women/ sex is a stylistic and literary choice. I could be wrong. Only asking him would give us the answer. But if sex is drawn in the book as an act of transformative power--as I think it clearly is, and for me, in a way that actually made me sympathize with both the pathetic, casually promiscuous Yunior as well as the sexually frustrated, ghetto-nerd Oscar--then sexuality, bodies (in this case, women's, and yes it frustrated me that Diaz never focused much on MEN's bodies--besides oscar's--but that's clearly a blind spot for him and something most men don't feel comfortable doing), etc. need to be highlighted in the story.

My two cents. Now I gotta go to work.

Rona, Your last full paragraph in particular offers an eloquent and excellent summation of what I have been trying so hard to articulate! Excellent points.

Nicely put, both of you!

Two issues that we've danced around a bit, but not faced squarely, and I'll throw out there in an attempt to revive some discussion:

1. How do we feel about the magical realism present in the book? Surprising and delightful or jarring and out of place? Or something else?

2. What are the ethical duties of a writer who is doing historical fiction to the history itself and the people who lived it (as much as anyone of us can purport to be the knower of the truth) and to the audience who reads the book but may not have any grounding in the events depicted?

I've been negligent in jumping in to the conversation here!

First, I truly enjoyed this book. I didn't struggle with the objectification of women as some of you have, because I saw it as integral to the creation of the context and characterization, and saw Yunior, in particular, as acknowledging his own flaws and constraints (although I write that, and recognize that often this felt disingenuous and a way to simply assauge his own guilt over his conflicted treatment of Oscar. But that is just character development.).

Also, because I am so seriously grounded and admittedly blinkered by my New Critic training, I can't deviate far from the text before hearing Dr. Ross McGill, high school English teacher extraordinaire (and may he rest in peace) chastising me for authorial heresy or intentional fallacy or whatever those concepts were/are.

So, whether Yunior is Diaz, and whether Diaz is a misogynist is irrelevant to me, and irrelevant to my experience with the novel.

Of course, that means I am probably guilty of succumbing to the "mystification of the ethnic" as jo puts it, and allowing myself to be swept along with the narrative and therefore, the author's agenda which may or may not do a disservice to the reality of the events and those who really lived them (to your question #2, Rashida).

One other thing: I read this on a kindle-style e-reader on a plane, and as a result, the text was simply all I had to go on. Couldn't access the footnotes -- still haven't, although I will go back and see what they add to the experience, if anything. I know nothing about the culture, history or politics of the DR so I am the ultimate 'naive reader' here that some of you seem to be worried will be led astray by Diaz. Hmmmm.

Seems to me the structure provided by the fuku and zafa, and the DR's culture and politics, was more than adequate in creating a narrative thrust and moving the story along. Those things are so intertwined to me that, to your question #1, Rashida, the magical realism is simply a part of that and I'll come down on the "surprising and delightful" side of the fence.

I would like to know much more about the mongoose as a symbol. I did a brief bit of research--we don't have mongooses (mongeese?) in Canada. I understand they are known for their snake-killing (snake-charming) abilities. I wonder how that factors into the story and symbolism here, if at all.

All that said, my experience of the novel is perhaps missing many layers that would add richness and complexity; or perhaps confusion and points of annoyance. But my extremely narrow reading experience did let me focus on the characters, their stories, their relationships with each other and their culture, socialization and politics, and the plot.

Some of the questions you have raised -- whether Oscar's quest to achieve the DR standard of studliness (or, more tactically or at the very least, lose his virginity) was inherently shallow or even sexist as a theme; whether all the focus on the women and their relationship to some physical ideal of beauty was intended to satirize and condemn those standards and culture that holds them -- I find these all secondary to what was really going on for me here: which was the extraordinary portrayal of all these vulnerable, hurt, abused and suffering characters, how they got that way and how they saw each other and themselves, mashed up together in a culture that, evidently, can be crushing in terms of the strictness of the standards one needs to meet to find love and do good work and experience life and basically just survive.

I liked very much Rashida's description of the novel as a flower, with a central circle and 4 or 5 outer circles. To me, though, Oscar was the central circle. And I'll grab that metaphor and extend it -- what Diaz did was draw all the outer petals and in doing that, the inner circle was revealed. Oscar never spoke for himself; his story, and his character, were developed through the others' interactions with him, primarily through Yunior's telling of the story and, once or twice, reading and reporting of Oscar's diary (a little bit clumsy, but forgiveable).

I don't teach and have never participated in a writers' workshop, as so many of you do and have, but I can see that Diaz has accomplished what many accomplished storytellers often fail to do: showing, not telling.

Oscar was, for me, a beautifully rendered, deeply felt, complex portrait of the angst and tragic beauty of the misfit, the social outcast, the self-delusional, self-ascribed genius who--bereft of 'normal' social interaction and life experiences--acts on his own frustrated desires, dreams and wishes as though they are reality, makes tragic life choices that lead to a cycle of despair and ongoing dorkery. He obsessively dwells in a fantasy world--through his comics, anime and sci-fi, as created by others, and then creates fantasy worlds for himself through his ruminations, writing and unrequited desires.

These both protect him and further isolate him and in fact, lead to his own demise through what he believes is a final grand romantic gesture, and that can be read as Oscar finally taking his own fate into his own hands, but which is a completely foolish and unnecessary act born of yet another unfulfilled and delusional romantic fantasy. And the psychoanalyst in me says, also a suicide.

All of that takes place within the context of historical events and a cultural milieu that may or may not be accurate but--most importantly--works beautifully to tell the story Diaz wants to tell.

And isn't that, I ask in my naive and disingenuous way, all that really matters?

oh my gosh, sorry that's so LONG!!

But not too long at all, E. M.! Excellent points. I agree with you that Oscar himself is the center of the flower. I don't really see his final act as suicide - it seems to me to be what any romantic fantasy character would do under the circumstances, and therefore what Oscar had to do.

I was surprised that I was not annoyed by the magic realism since that is my usual reaction. Here it seemed to fit, coming into the story from the DR point of view. I didn't think that it was overdone as it often is, in my opinion.

I posted here earlier (in another topic) about my issues with historical fiction in Douglass' Women. There, since the book dealt with someone (Fredrick Douglass) with whom we are very familiar, I found the complete fictionalization of his personal life to be disturbing and annoying. In Oscar Wao, the broader historical view of the dictatorship in the DR provided background and did not focus tightly on well known historical figures, so no problem.

This has become, for me, one of those books that I enjoy and respect more and more the longer I think about it.

I've been thinking about the magic realism in Oscar Wao, and why it worked for me--especially because I've recently read Edgar Sawtelle, where, for me, the magic realism was exceedingly clumsy, non-sensical and annoying. (I know you didn't like the book for other reasons, Mina :-) )

In Oscar, I think what helps the mongoose/lion as saviour element be fully integrated and feel "right" is the structural bookending and theme of the fukú. It provided a bridge between reality and surreality, or the supernatural.

I'm very interested in that theme. The fukú and the zafa -- the latter of which I take to be the idea of a charm, spell or totem (or even just gesture or wish) to ward off the fukú -- and what it means. It seems to be meant both literally and metaphorically, and has such richness when applied to these characters' lives. It suggests the conflict between old world and new; between the inevitability of fate and the possibility of self-determination; between action and passive acceptance of one's lot in life.

Well, maybe I'm over-reading--and over-reaching. It's been known to happen.

Anyone else have any thoughts -- I'm still interested in the mongoose/lion creature and would love to know if there's something specific behind that choice.