Oscar Wao - Book review

It is entirely my oversight that I did not write about this book till now and that I gave it away before writing about it. How will I hop back to favorite pages and quote things? How will I talk about the many words I had to look up in the dictionary because of this book?

I skimmed a bunch of real reviews because you should know what you are in for before you pick the book up. My favorite review so far is this one from NY Times (link may expire whenever NY times pulls it).

But I have other things to say about The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. First, His name isn't Oscar Wao and I can't even remember his real last name. It is that important :) Secondly, the book was hard to get into during the first section where the author introduced Oscar to us, but once past that the book was a really engrossing read and I didn't want to stop reading. So much so that I had to struggle to split time between The Famished Road (still reading it) and Wao. So if you are in the first chapter, stick it out because better things will happen!

This book is presumably about Oscar Wao, a Dominican American young man who is geeky, devoid of significant social skills, morbidly obese and ridiculed for not having a girlfriend. He wants to be a sci-fi author and this book frequently reminds us of tidbits from LOTR (and other things that I didn't know about to be reminded). But the story meanders over to Lola, Oscar's sister, and Beli, their mother. It could also well be about the life of misfits. Or the struggle of immigrants to find their place, not among the native population, but even among other immigrants. It is a peek into the Dominican Republic. The book falters for me, and shines for some, with its many many footnotes that delve deep into some aspect of DR history that sheds light on the circumstances, or entertains by being tangential. To me, it took the pace off an already medium-paced book. Readers with more patience have said the like the many peeks and back stories. One big annoyance is the generous use of Spanish words and phrases, without any translation. Not everything can be figured out by context and a non Spanish speaker is left feeling a little cheated.

If you can get past the foot notes and the Spanish, the book is witty and smartly written. It entertains you and wins your sympathy even while you are itching to shake Oscar out of his alternate lethargic reality. It has a lot of non-linear character development, but it flows well and doesn't feel like gimmickry. A good book, perhaps a 3.5/5 on an all time scale. I don't want to be overly generous with my ratings :)

I am currently reading three books:

The Famished Road: Ongoing parallel read to book club

Run: Book club for this month. I should be done and ready to write a review in a week.

Animals in Translation: Non-fiction. Book about animal behavior that I would rather read slowly and absorb well, so don't look for a final review anytime soon.