This book confused me a bit — I’m not used to my fiction having footnotes. I was also a little confused because there’s a lot of Spanish slang going on here, and my Spanish is at the absolute most basic level. Google translate was less helpful than I had hoped, just because the narration was so slangy.
However, I can imagine other readers being even more lost than I was, because the narrator is such a huge nerd and kept dropping references to the classics: LOTR, Star Trek, Heinlein, Asimov, Herbert, old-school comics.
Here’s a picture of “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao”. This isn’t my picture. I refuse to fold books this way. (Photo credit: flickr)
That was actually one of the reasons I picked this book up in the first place; I’d heard (actually read) about the extreme nerdiness of the narrator, which — being a big nerd myself — appealed to me. It’s a good way into the story before you figure out who the narrator is or how he fits into the plot. There’s a lot of Dominican history for him to fill in, and luckily he does so with style.
I liked the protagonist, Oscar. He was an extremely sympathetic character (shy, fat, nerdy, a writer, a dreamer), and I found myself hoping that his life was more “wondrous” than “brief”… alas, I was disappointed.
I liked “The Brief Wondrous Life” and I was interested in it while I was reading it, but it still took me a while to get through. It just didn’t hook me like some books do, so I didn’t experience that ‘can’t put it down, have to finish it right now’ feeling. You know the one — it’s like an adrenaline rush, but for the sort of people who like armchairs and that new book smell. No? Just me? Okay.
Put the Book Down 