As the 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction, Junot Diaz falls into an elite category of authors that includes Jhumpa Lahiri, Jeffrey Eugenides and Richard Russo. I have to admit, though, that The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao fell short of the mark; while I appreciated artistry of the novel, I didn't particularly enjoy it.
In the first 50 pages, Diaz introduces Oscar, the obese, nerdy and entirely unlikable protagonist. It's a dry beginning but the book does improve when it delves into the lives of Oscar's sister, mother, grandparents and friends. As well as a family saga, the novel chronicles the era of the oppressive reign of Trujillo in the Dominican Republic.
While the book successfully (and sometimes humourously) weaves together themes of identity, love, loss and fate, I found it gratuitously vulgar and uncaptivating. And as for its underlying question: how much suffering is love worth? I certainly wouldn't heed the advice of any of its characters!
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