Day One Hundred and Fifty-Three

9/2

The Book: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

ISBN: 978-1-59448-329-5

Suggested By: Ed Vela

Where: Home

When: 9A

Music: Shuffle

Company: Alone

Pages: 180-235 (55)

The Lead In: I wonder if there is a disconnect between myself and the text due to cultural and racial issues. It’s not that I don’t like the book, I’m just not sure its that great.

The 411 on the 55: Junior’s story continues. Oscar gets the hots for a hot gothic chick, who eventually breaks his heart by nailing some skinny punk guy. Oscar is downcast and unhappy. After Junior decides to move out of the room they share, Oscar commits suicide. Well, attempts to. He lands in a bush and saves his life. After recovering his health and moving back to school, Junior moves back in with him.

The next section focuses on the roots of Oscar and Lola’s family in the D.R. Abelard, the grandfather of Oscar, is a doctor living under Trujillo. He has a beautiful daughter, Jacquelyn (that would make her Oscar and Lola’s aunt?), and is determined to keep her out of Trujillo’s bed. Apparently at this time, Trujillo nailed every hot chick in the D.R. It works for a while, but eventually he is arrested.

Line of the Day: “But you know exactly what kind of world we live in. It ain’t no fucking Middle-earth.” pg 194

Fact on the Fiction: While nationalist Hispanic imagery has had a constraining effect on how Dominicans view the Taíno past, there are also unofficial alternate expressions that resist the dominant discourses. For example, many Dominicans claim that it is bad luck (fuku) to say the name Christopher Columbus aloud and that La Isabella, one of the first Spanish settlements on the north coast of the island, is haunted by Spanish ghosts. These may be considered signs of struggle against dominant history and rejections of official ways of speaking about the legitimated glory of the Spanish past. KACIKE