For the next two weeks, we will be exploring The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz. Oscar Wao, published just this past year, is Diaz's first novel; he published his award-winning book of short stories, Drown, almost ten years ago. Since its recent publication, Diaz's novel has gone on to win a bevy of prizes, including the vaunted Pulitzer. Oscar Wao introduces a number of questions we will focus on during this portion of the quarter. Most prominently, the novel asks us to think about the American novel outside of the continental United States. Diaz is Dominican-American and his novel moves smoothly between the Dominican Republic and the U.S., the past and the present. Diaz's novel represents a move toward a different concept of the nation and citizenship in the nation (something we will discuss in reference to Diaz, as well as to Edwidge Danticat, the next writer we'll read in class). It also asks us to think about the form of the novel--as we will do throughout class this quarter. Oscar Wao is littered with footnotes that threaten to take over the novel and texts that interweave with Diaz's main narrative. Like many postmodern works, Diaz's book asks us to think about the intersection of history and literature, the links between social and representational shifts. In Oscar Wao, Diaz provides us with a graphic and deeply politicized history of the Dominican Republic at the same time that he gives us a fable about a fat, nerdy Dominican boy in the U.S. who can't get a woman. How do these personal and collective narratives shape the novel? How do they point the way to a new future for the (transnational) American novel?
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Welcome and Junot Diaz
For the next two weeks, we will be exploring The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz. Oscar Wao, published just this past year, is Diaz's first novel; he published his award-winning book of short stories, Drown, almost ten years ago. Since its recent publication, Diaz's novel has gone on to win a bevy of prizes, including the vaunted Pulitzer. Oscar Wao introduces a number of questions we will focus on during this portion of the quarter. Most prominently, the novel asks us to think about the American novel outside of the continental United States. Diaz is Dominican-American and his novel moves smoothly between the Dominican Republic and the U.S., the past and the present. Diaz's novel represents a move toward a different concept of the nation and citizenship in the nation (something we will discuss in reference to Diaz, as well as to Edwidge Danticat, the next writer we'll read in class). It also asks us to think about the form of the novel--as we will do throughout class this quarter. Oscar Wao is littered with footnotes that threaten to take over the novel and texts that interweave with Diaz's main narrative. Like many postmodern works, Diaz's book asks us to think about the intersection of history and literature, the links between social and representational shifts. In Oscar Wao, Diaz provides us with a graphic and deeply politicized history of the Dominican Republic at the same time that he gives us a fable about a fat, nerdy Dominican boy in the U.S. who can't get a woman. How do these personal and collective narratives shape the novel? How do they point the way to a new future for the (transnational) American novel?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Looking at the opening quote, the one from the Fantastic Four, I had an interesting though about how it works to set up the plot of the novel. The epigraph uses the word 'brief' which is echoed in the title of the novel itself, but rather than being 'nameless' Oscar is specifically named in the title. Also, while his life may never have mattered to a Galactus, it mattered enough to his family, and even to Yunior, who merely dated his sister and served as his roommate, that his story is written and shared. He may have been killed in a field without much thought, but he was hardly nameless, though his life was brief.
ReplyDeleteAt the risk of demonstrating my own nerdiness, I know the FF storyline in question well - notable not only for the first appearance of Galactus but also for the intorudction of the Silver Surfer. Anyway, in response to Robyn's comment, in the story from which the quote comes, Galactus has appeared on Earth, heralded by the Silver Surfer who scouts out suitable planets for Galactus to devour, so he can eat the earth for lunch. His words, which form the epigraph to OW, constitute a statement of why the morality of destroying the Earth to satiate his own needs is of no matter to him. In this I read Galactus as a colonizing force analogous to that of imperialism/US hegemony in the Caribbean which gives power to people like Trujillo and the captain. From the perspective of imperialism/Galactus, the lives of the people destroyed named or not - are, indeed, of no consequence.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting, Robyn and Andy. I like your readings of the epigraph and I appreciate that we have someone who can decipher the references to Galactus in Oscar Wao!
ReplyDelete