After I had read The Brief and
Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao, I thought it would be interesting to
look at the reception that
the book had and the criticism that Diaz received from it. The
reaction it caused says a great deal about reactions towards
Caribbean immigrants literary inputs into the American canon. In
2008, the book won the National Book Circle Award and
the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
These
are prestigious, competitive and highly valued awards.
From
this review in the New York Times,
A. O. Scott stresses
the importance of the DR in Diaz's portrait of Dominican-American
Oscar. The means by which Oscar is able to bring together his
heritage and his present place. This relationship between the two
countries within his own identity is a question that plays a role in
Oscar's representation of himself, “how
to take account of his ancestral homeland — its folklore, its
politics, the diaspora that brought so many of its inhabitants to
North Jersey and Upper Manhattan.”
The way that the DR is presented asks us to view the country as “a
breeding ground for outsize destinies and monstrous passions...a
small country that suffers from a surfeit of history.” A
common theme within books across the course that we have studied -
the
amount and
importance
of
past within ideas
of place, and its position within present consciousness.
The
book was criticized by some for this view. Some
see Oscar as only satisfied when he manages to have sex, fulfilling
an
idea
of
masculinity
that Diaz himself criticizes within the novel. Some also argue
against the many portrayals of violence as an almost standard,
everyday occurrence (mostly against women) – some even branding it
a book of horrors. But I disagree; whilst the novel deals with
tragedies and violence, it gives them
a
voice and does not blame victims. Oscar Wao, in my opinion, deserves
its high acclaim.
Cool! interesting to know the reactions!
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