Fabian's Reviews > The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Because in my brain there is a sharp-edge precise hierarchy of the MODERN CLASSICS (read in the most recent years*), and because this book is newly minted therein:

1ST...........MIDDLESEX
2ND...........THE CORRECTIONS
3RD...........WORLD'S END
4TH (TIE).....ON BEAUTY/THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE...

I mean, surely this is a book to join the others. It's about pretty much the same thing as those others: it deals with the Family Odyssey. Theme of the decade..? Half century? I subscribe to the belief that nowadays the family chronicle, the history that lives within a single human, event, thing... well, all that is what readers wanna read & Pulitzer givers prize.

Oscar Wao is about several things, but the main family curse, that which honors the BRIEF part (SPOILER ALERT this ain't) in the title, is the centerpiece. Golly how I love family curses (duh: American Gothic is about as cool, to me, as the French New Wave). Anyway, it all amounts to this: Oscar is unique not because he is a social pariah in many many many ways. He is unique because his family history is unique, rich, relevant. This would be a mixed media piece were it in an art gallery. This very dexterous Dominican-american author talks about the DR like Arenas talks about Cuba in "Antes que anochezca."

The sass, the voice, the whimsical style... this is what won the novel its many awards. People are impressed by this exciting work and to them all I say please read those on my list (mmm...places 1-3) before you hail this a masterpiece. It is almost one, and I will even say that it is way more readable, and yes, much more relevant to Mexico (and me) than the other aforementioned novels. That I read it in two days, only because I had to sleep... well, that says more about it than I can try to describe.

* circa late 2009, ten years ago!--this is HUGELY outdated, readers!