Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao started a bit rocky for me. A bit too graphic and flippant. But somewhere along the way it turned a corner. It suddenly got interesting. Then it got pretty good. And, having finished it just today, I’d have to rank it pretty high. Unfortunately, it seems Pulitzers are all pretty good, so it would be kind of hard for me to rank it among the ones I’ve read in this stretch. I’d put it somewhere around Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch. A completely different book, but the same kind of feel. I was especially drawn to its use of the sordid history of the Dominican Republic and its brutal dictator, Rafael Trujillo, who was assassinated in 1961 (a fact mentioned in the book, the circumstances of which worked well as background for parts of the story).
Overall, the writing was…colorful. It toned down once the story got moving. Either that or it lost some of its shock value to me. But it moved well, the story was compelling, and the characters couldn’t help but be interesting (given the writing style). The book just kind of clicked with me. I liked it. But I wouldn’t recommend it to the sensitive.
Still, it’s time to move on to the next one — the Pulitzer Prize winner for 2021, Louise Erdrich’s The Night Watchman. It’s a story based on the work that Erdrich’s grandfather did to fight the US government’s efforts to dispossess Native Americans of their tribal land and heritage in the 1950s. It’s a subject that has always interested me, but I’ve followed it mostly from the events of the 19th century. Although the book is a work of fiction, it’s yet another one that’s set on the backdrop of real events (I’m seeing a pattern, actually).
Of course, I’m looking forward to it.
