The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao: Difference between revisions

*The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao*
Written by:	Junot Díaz
Central Theme:	The repeating of tragedy via generational trauma
Synopsis:	The tragedy and decadence of three generations of a hispanic family (A good-natured doctor, his extremely beautiful younger daughter, and her children -a geeky boy and a more street-wise girl), as seen by the best friend of said family's younger male child.
First published:	September 6, 2007
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Latest revision as of 13:27, 9 November 2023

"Of what import are brief, nameless lives... to Galactus??"

—Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Fantastic Four, (Vol. I, No. 49, April 1966)

They say it came first from Africa, carried in the screams of the enslaved; that it was the death bane of the Tainos, uttered just as one world perished and another began; that it was a demon drawn into Creation through the nightmare door that was cracked open in the Antilles. Fuká americanus, or more colloquially, fuká-: generally a curse or a doom of some kind; specifically the Curse and the Doom of the New World.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Junot Díaz. The story is centered around the character Oscar de León, a consummate scifi and fantasy geek with horrendous luck with women who wants to be the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien. The story is told through his former roommate at Rutgers, Yunior, who comes off as a bit dickish when he is first introduced into the story, but grows into a better person by the time he is writing the novel. Yunior tells the story of Oscar's life (and death) by tracing Oscar's story through his sister Lola, his mother Hypatá Belicia Cabral (or Beli for short), and his grandfather Abelard Cabral's own tragic tales.

Between all of the geek references, untranslated Spanish, slang, and footnotes, you might get lost in the text and believe that Díaz assumes too much from the reader, or that he is aiming to disorient the reader. However, understanding all of his references doesn't add much to understanding the text.

Tropes used in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao include:

A Man Is Not a Virgin: Oscar before he is executed by Ybon's boyfriend's goons.
All Girls Want Bad Boys: Played straight, subverted and deconstructed all in the same book.
Cultural Rebel: Oscar fit the profile to a T; Lola too, to a lesser degree.
Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The word "Brief" being in the title isn't for show.
Big Bad: You could argue that Trujillo or the fukú curse fulfill this role.
Big Breasts, Big Deal: Beli becomes extremely well-endowed when she hits puberty. She's initially ashamed about her breasts, but soon begins flaunting them when she realizes that they make men fall all over her. Her daughter Lola, on the other hand, is as flat as a board but became just as well-endowed in a different area.
Big Damn Heroes: José Then and the rest of Belicia's old coworkers, who put themselves in danger of great harm by saving her life from some secret police thugs. José even pulls a pistol and jams it against one of their heads.
Bittersweet Ending: Oscar is no longer a virgin and found someone who he could get intimate with, but in doing so he got himself killed. Hypatía died from breast cancer. Lola and Yunior are not together, and Oscar's manuscript on his family's history is lost, possibly forever. But Oscar found love!
Black and Nerdy: Oscar falls into this category.
Curse: Fukú may or may not be real, but Oscar and his family certainly get into some deep deep shit.
Dirty Cop: Ybon's boyfriend is a thug with a badge.
Driven to Suicide: Oscar attempts this before moving in with Yunior, and again after he caught Jenni having sex with a punk guy. He fails both times.
Evil Overlord: Trujillo certainly fits the bill. He is directly compared to Darkseid and Sauron.
Footnote Fever: Quite unusual for a work of fiction. You'll either Love It or Hate It.
Funny Afro: Oscar eventually gets rid of it.
Geek Physiques: Oscar weighs over 300 pounds for most of his life.
Geek Reference Pool: Listing all of the references that Yunior includes to various aspects of Geek Culture would take a page unto itself. But that doesn't mean we are not going to try:
- Akira
- The Dark Knight Returns
- Dungeons and Dragons
- Fantastic Four
- New Gods
- Watchmen
- The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion
- Dune
- H.P. Lovecraft
- Love and Rockets
- Daniel Clowes
- The Sandman
- John Kricfalusi (misspelled "Krikfalusi")
Lonely Funeral: Oscar's funeral at the end of the novel is attended only by Yunior, Lola, Beli and La Inca.
Loners Are Freaks: Oscar.
Love Makes You Crazy: Oscar, so very much. We see in a flashback that he inherited this trait from his mother Beli, who nearly got killed because of it. Oscar is even less lucky.
Named Like My Name: Óscar de León, the main character, has the name of a famous salsa singer. This is, though, never mentioned in the book.
Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Trujillo.
Narrator All Along: Yunior.
Nerds Are Virgins: Up to Eleven.
Pyrrhic Victory: Oscar finds love... and then is killed brutally.
Sensei for Scoundrels: Yunior tries this with Oscar and fails utterly.
Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Oscar and Yunior definitely fall into these categories.
She's All Grown Up: Jacquelyn and Beli blossom almost overnight from skinny girls into stunningly beautiful and well-endowed teenagers, although it doesn't do them much good in the long run. Especially for Jacquelyn and her poor doomed family in the Age of Trujillo.
Shout-Out: The title is an allusion to the Ernest Hemingway story, The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber.
The Blank: The Man Without a Face appears during times of tragedy in the de León family.
Too Dumb to Live: Oscar's attempts to persuade Ybon to ditch her husband for him, despite him nearly being killed by his goons before escaping to America and the persuasions of those closest to him not to go through with the act. You can probably guess what happens next.
You Can't Go Home Again: Averted, Beli and her family go back to Santo Domingo every year for vacation.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-{{trope}}
+{{work}}
+{{Infobox book
-{{quote|"Of what import are brief, nameless lives... to '''[[Planet Eater|Galactus]]'''??"|[[Stan Lee]] and [[Jack Kirby]], ''[[Fantastic Four]]'', (Vol. I, No. 49, April 1966)}}
+ | title = The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
+ | image =
+ | caption =
+ | author = Junot Díaz
+ | central theme = The repeating of tragedy via generational trauma
+ | elevator pitch = The tragedy and decadence of three generations of a hispanic family (A good-natured doctor, his extremely beautiful younger daughter, and her children -a geeky boy and a more street-wise girl), as seen by the best friend of said family's younger male child.
+ | genre =
+ | publication date = September 6, 2007
+ | source page exists =
+ | wiki URL =
+ | wiki name =
+}}
+{{quote|"Of what import are brief, nameless lives... to '''[[Planet Eater|Galactus]]'''??"
+|[[Stan Lee]] and [[Jack Kirby]], ''[[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Fantastic Four]]'', (Vol. I, No. 49, April 1966)}}
-{{quote|  They say it came first from Africa, carried in the screams of the enslaved; that it was the death bane of the Tainos, uttered just as one world perished and another began; that it was a demon drawn into Creation through the nightmare door that was cracked open in the Antilles. ''Fuká americanus'', or more colloquially, fuká-- generally a curse or a doom of some kind; specifically the Curse and the Doom of the New World.}}
+{{quote|They say it came first from Africa, carried in the screams of the enslaved; that it was the death bane of the Tainos, uttered just as one world perished and another began; that it was a demon drawn into Creation through the nightmare door that was cracked open in the Antilles. ''Fuká americanus'', or more colloquially, fuká-: generally a curse or a doom of some kind; specifically the Curse and the Doom of the New World.}}
-The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a 2007 novel, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Junot Díaz. The story is centered around the character Oscar de León, a [[One of Us|consummate scifi and fantasy geek]] with horrendous luck with women who wants to be the Dominican [[JRR Tolkien (Creator)|JRR Tolkien]]. The story is told through his former roommate at Rutgers, Yunior, who comes off as a [[Jerkass|bit dickish]] when he is first introduced into the story, but [[Jerk With a Heart of Gold|grows into a better person]] by the time he is writing the novel. Yunior tells the story of Oscar's life (and [[Oh and X Dies|death]]) by tracing Oscar's story through his sister Lola, his mother Hypatá Belicia Cabral (or Beli for short), and his grandfather Abelard Cabral's own tragic tales.
+''[[The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao]]'' is a 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Junot Díaz. The story is centered around the character Oscar de León, a [[One of Us|consummate scifi and fantasy geek]] with horrendous luck with women who wants to be the Dominican [[J. R. R. Tolkien]]. The story is told through his former roommate at Rutgers, Yunior, who comes off as a [[Jerkass|bit dickish]] when he is first introduced into the story, but [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold|grows into a better person]] by the time he is writing the novel. Yunior tells the story of Oscar's life (and [[Oh, and X Dies|death]]) by tracing Oscar's story through his sister Lola, his mother Hypatá Belicia Cabral (or Beli for short), and his grandfather Abelard Cabral's own tragic tales.
 Between all of the geek references, untranslated Spanish, slang, and footnotes, you might get lost in the text and believe that Díaz [[Viewers Are Geniuses|assumes too much]] from the reader, or that he is aiming to disorient the reader. However, understanding all of his references [[Genius Bonus|doesn't add much to understanding the text]].
 ----
+{{tropelist}}
-=== This book contains examples of: ===
+* [[A Man Is Not a Virgin]]: {{spoiler|Oscar before he is executed by Ybon's boyfriend's goons.}}
+* [[All Girls Want Bad Boys]]: Played straight, subverted and deconstructed all in the same book.
-* [[A Man Is Not a Virgin]] - {{spoiler|Oscar before he is executed by Ybon's boyfriend's goons.}}
+* [[Cultural Rebel]]: Oscar fit the profile to a T; Lola too, to a lesser degree.
-* [[All Girls Want Bad Boys]] - Played straight, subverted and deconstructed all in the same book.
-* [[Cultural Rebel]] - Oscar fit the profile to a T; Lola too, to a lesser degree.
+* [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]]: The word "Brief" being in the title isn't for show.
-* [[Exactly What It Says On the Tin]] - The word "Brief" being in the title isn't for show.
+* [[Big Bad]]: You could argue that Trujillo or the fukú curse fulfill this role.
+* [[Big Breasts, Big Deal]]: Beli becomes ''extremely'' well-endowed when she [[She's All Grown Up|hits puberty]]. She's initially ashamed about her breasts, but soon begins flaunting them when she realizes that they make men fall all over her. Her daughter Lola, on the other hand, is [[Pettanko|as flat as a board]] but became just as well-endowed [[Baby Got Back|in a different area]].
-* [[Big Bad]]- You could argue that Trujillo or the fukú curse fulfill this role.
-* [[Big Breasts Big Deal]]: Beli becomes ''extremely'' well-endowed when she [[She Is All Grown Up|hits puberty]]. She's initially ashamed about her breasts, but soon begins flaunting them when she realizes that they make men fall all over her. Her daughter Lola, on the other hand, is [[Pettanko|as flat as a board]] but became just as well-endowed in a different area.
 * [[Big Damn Heroes]]: José Then and the rest of Belicia's old coworkers, who put themselves in danger of great harm by saving her life from some secret police thugs. José even pulls a pistol and jams it against one of their heads.
-* [[Bittersweet Ending]]- {{spoiler|Oscar is no longer a virgin and found someone who he could get intimate with, but in doing so he got himself killed. Hypatía died from breast cancer. Lola and Yunior are not together, and Oscar's manuscript on his family's history is lost, possibly forever. But Oscar found love!}}
+* [[Bittersweet Ending]]: {{spoiler|Oscar is no longer a virgin and found someone who he could get intimate with, but in doing so he got himself killed. Hypatía died from breast cancer. Lola and Yunior are not together, and Oscar's manuscript on his family's history is lost, possibly forever. But Oscar found love!}}
-* [[Black and Nerdy]] - Oscar falls into this category.
+* [[Black and Nerdy]]: Oscar falls into this category.
-* [[Curse]] - Fukú may or may not be real, but Oscar and his family certainly get into some deep deep shit.
+* [[Curse]]: Fukú may or may not be real, but Oscar and his family certainly get into some deep deep shit.
-* [[Dirty Cop]]- Ybon's boyfriend is a thug with a badge.
+* [[Dirty Cop]]: Ybon's boyfriend is a thug with a badge.
-* [[Driven to Suicide]] - Oscar attempts this before moving in with Yunior, and again after {{spoiler|he caught Jenni having sex with a punk guy}}. He fails both times.
+* [[Driven to Suicide]]: Oscar attempts this before moving in with Yunior, and again after {{spoiler|he caught Jenni having sex with a punk guy}}. He fails both times.
-* [[Evil Overlord]]- Trujillo certainly fits the bill. He is directly compared to Darkseid and Sauron.
+* [[Evil Overlord]]: Trujillo certainly fits the bill. He is directly compared to Darkseid and Sauron.
-* [[Footnote Fever]] - Quite unusual for a work of fiction. You'll either [[Love It or Hate It]].
+* [[Footnote Fever]]: Quite unusual for a work of fiction. You'll either [[Love It or Hate It]].
-* [[Funny Afro]] - Oscar eventually gets rid of it.
+* [[Funny Afro]]: Oscar eventually gets rid of it.
-* [[Geek Physiques]] - Oscar weighs over 300 pounds for most of his life.
+* [[Geek Physiques]]: Oscar weighs over 300 pounds for most of his life.
-* [[Geek Reference Pool]] - Listing all of the references that Yunior includes to various aspects of [[Geek Culture]] would take a page unto itself. But that doesn't mean we are not going to try:
+* [[Geek Reference Pool]]: Listing all of the references that Yunior includes to various aspects of [[Geek Culture]] would take a page unto itself. But that doesn't mean we are not going to try:
-** [[Akira (Manga)|Akira]]
+** [[Akira]]
 ** [[The Dark Knight Returns]]
 ** [[Dungeons and Dragons]]
-** [[Fantastic Four]]
+** [[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Fantastic Four]]
 ** [[New Gods]]
 ** [[Watchmen]]
 ** [[The Lord of the Rings]] and [[The Silmarillion]]
 ** [[Dune]]
-** [[HP Lovecraft]]
+** [[H.P. Lovecraft]]
 ** [[Love and Rockets]]
 ** Daniel Clowes
 ** [[The Sandman]]
 ** [[John Kricfalusi]] (misspelled "Krikfalusi")
-* [[Lonely Funeral]] - Oscar's funeral at the end of the novel is attended only by Yunior, Lola, Beli and La Inca.
+* [[Lonely Funeral]]: Oscar's funeral at the end of the novel is attended only by Yunior, Lola, Beli and La Inca.
-* [[Loners Are Freaks]] - Oscar.
+* [[Loners Are Freaks]]: Oscar.
 * [[Love Makes You Crazy]]: Oscar, so very much. We see in a flashback that he inherited this trait from his mother Beli, who nearly got killed because of it. {{spoiler|Oscar is even less lucky.}}
-* [[Named Like My Name]]: Óscar de León, the main character, has the name of a famous [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_D<!-- 27LeC3%B3n salsa singer]]. This is, though, never mentioned in the book. -->
+* [[Named Like My Name]]: Óscar de León, the main character, has the name of a famous [[wikipedia:Oscar Dchr(27)Le%C3%B3n|salsa singer]]. This is, though, never mentioned in the book.
-* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast]]- Trujillo.
+* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast]]: Trujillo.
-* [[Narrator All Along]] - Yunior.
+* [[Narrator All Along]]: Yunior.
-* [[Nerds Are Virgins]] - [[Up to Eleven]].
+* [[Nerds Are Virgins]]: [[Up to Eleven]].
-* [[Pyrrhic Victory]] - Oscar finds love...{{spoiler|and then is killed brutally}}.
+* [[Pyrrhic Victory]]: Oscar finds love... {{spoiler|and then is killed brutally}}.
-* [[Sensei for Scoundrels]] - Yunior tries this with Oscar and fails utterly.
+* [[Sensei for Scoundrels]]: Yunior tries this with Oscar and fails utterly.
-* [[Sensitive Guy and Manly Man]] - Oscar and Yunior definitely fall into these categories.
+* [[Sensitive Guy and Manly Man]]: Oscar and Yunior definitely fall into these categories.
-* [[She Is All Grown Up]]: Jacquelyn and Beli blossom almost overnight from skinny girls into stunningly beautiful and well-endowed teenagers, although it doesn't do them much good in the long run. ''Especially'' for Jacquelyn and her poor doomed family in the Age of [[Kavorka Man|Trujillo]].
+* [[She's All Grown Up]]: Jacquelyn and Beli blossom almost overnight from skinny girls into stunningly beautiful and well-endowed teenagers, although it doesn't do them much good in the long run. ''Especially'' for Jacquelyn and her poor doomed family in the Age of [[Kavorka Man|Trujillo]].
-* [[Shout Out]] - The title is an allusion to the [[Ernest Hemingway]] story, ''The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber''.
+* [[Shout-Out]]: The title is an allusion to the [[Ernest Hemingway]] story, ''The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber''.
-* [[The Blank]]- The Man Without a Face appears during times of tragedy in the de León family.
+* [[The Blank]]: The Man Without a Face appears during times of tragedy in the de León family.
-* [[Too Dumb to Live]] - Oscar's attempts to persuade Ybon to ditch her husband for him, despite him nearly being killed by his goons before escaping to America and the persuasions of those closest to him not to go through with the act. [[Unfortunate Implications|You can probably guess what happens next]].
+* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: Oscar's attempts to persuade Ybon to ditch her husband for him, despite him nearly being killed by his goons before escaping to America and the persuasions of those closest to him not to go through with the act. [[Unfortunate Implications|You can probably guess what happens next]].
-* [[You Can't Go Home Again]] - Averted, Beli and her family go back to Santo Domingo every year for vacation.
+* [[You Can't Go Home Again]]: Averted, Beli and her family go back to Santo Domingo every year for vacation.
 {{reflist}}
+{{Pulitzer Prize for Fiction}}
+[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
 [[Category:Lit Fic]]
-[[Category:The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao]]
+[[Category:The Great American Read]]
-[[Category:Trope]]
+[[Category:Literature of the 2000s]]
+{{DEFAULTSORT:Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, The}}

v t e Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
1918–1925	His Family by Ernest Poole (1918) The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington (1919) No award given (1920) The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (1921) Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington (1922) One of Ours by Willa Cather (1923) The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson (1924) So Big by Edna Ferber (1925)
1926–1950	Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (declined) (1926) Early Autumn by Louis Bromfield (1927) The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder (1928) Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin (1929) Laughing Boy by Oliver La Farge (1930) Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes (1931) The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck (1932) The Store by Thomas Sigismund Stribling (1933) Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Pafford Miller (1934) Now in November by Josephine Winslow Johnson (1935) Honey in the Horn by Harold L. Davis (1936) Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (1937) The Late George Apley by John Phillips Marquand (1938) The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1939) The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1940) No award given (1941) In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow (1942) Dragon's Teeth by Upton Sinclair (1943) Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin (1944) A Bell for Adano by John Hersey (1945) No award given (1946) All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren (1947) Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener (1948) Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens (1949) The Way West by A. B. Guthrie Jr. (1950)
1951–1975	The Town by Conrad Richter (1951) The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk (1952) The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (1953) No award given (1954) A Fable by William Faulkner (1955) Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor (1956) No award given (1957) A Death in the Family by James Agee (1958) The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor (1959) Advise and Consent by Allen Drury (1960) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1961) The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor (1962) The Reivers by William Faulkner (1963) No award given (1964) The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau (1965) The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter (1966) The Fixer by Bernard Malamud (1967) The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron (1968) House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday (1969) The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford by Jean Stafford (1970) No award given (1971) Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner (1972) The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty (1973) No award given (1974) The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara (1975)
1976–2000	Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow (1976) No award given (1977) Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson (1978) The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever (1979) The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer (1980) A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (1981) Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike (1982) The Color Purple by Alice Walker (1983) Ironweed by William Kennedy (1984) Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie (1985) Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (1986) A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor (1987) Beloved by Toni Morrison (1988) Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler (1989) The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos (1990) Rabbit at Rest by John Updike (1991) A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley (1992) A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler (1993) The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx (1994) The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields (1995) Independence Day by Richard Ford (1996) Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser (1997) American Pastoral by Philip Roth (1998) The Hours by Michael Cunningham (1999) Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (2000)
2001–2025	The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon (2001) Empire Falls by Richard Russo (2002) Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (2003) The Known World by Edward P. Jones (2004) Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (2005) March by Geraldine Brooks (2006) The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2007) The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (2008) Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (2009) Tinkers by Paul Harding (2010) A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (2011) No award given (2012) The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson (2013) The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (2014) All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (2015) The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2016) The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (2017) Less by Andrew Sean Greer (2018) The Overstory by Richard Powers (2019) The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (2020) The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich (2021) The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen (2022) Trust by Hernan Diaz / Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (2023)