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A review by jodiwilldare
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
4.0
Near as I can tell, I stopped reading Junot Diaz’s The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao sometime around Tuesday, May 8, 2007. I know this because when I cracked open the book a few weeks ago, a ticket stub for an Elvis Costello concert fell out.
I stopped reading because the buzz for Diaz’s much-anticipated first novel was exploding all over the place. See, it’d been ten years since the publication of his short story collection Drown which is nothing short of fan-fucking-tastic. The buzz for Oscar Wao was big, and buzz scares the shit out of me.
Generally you can’t win with a buzz book. Either you’re a contrarian naysayer who doesn’t like anything “popular” or you’re just another pathetic hipster following the heard. As a reader the buzz paralyzes me because while I’m trying to read the book I continue to have an internal debate with the buzzmakers. It’s a mess, so I just generally avoid the buzz book until all has died down (this explains why I have yet to get past page nine of Lorrie Moore’s A Gate at the Stairs).
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I stopped reading because the buzz for Diaz’s much-anticipated first novel was exploding all over the place. See, it’d been ten years since the publication of his short story collection Drown which is nothing short of fan-fucking-tastic. The buzz for Oscar Wao was big, and buzz scares the shit out of me.
Generally you can’t win with a buzz book. Either you’re a contrarian naysayer who doesn’t like anything “popular” or you’re just another pathetic hipster following the heard. As a reader the buzz paralyzes me because while I’m trying to read the book I continue to have an internal debate with the buzzmakers. It’s a mess, so I just generally avoid the buzz book until all has died down (this explains why I have yet to get past page nine of Lorrie Moore’s A Gate at the Stairs).
More >>