read on, write on...

As an American-Mexican, I struggle with learning a new Spanish word or phrase everyday. Thus, reading Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was intellectually fun to read as well as challenging. But, there was still street slang, comic book lingo, and even academically profound English words I could not initially comprehend without reference. Nonetheless, I was able to read on. It’s a good thing Díaz uses footnotes as a biographical tool to introduce the world to persons and events of the Dominican Republic’s dictatorial history. I really enjoyed reading this novel because of it’s complex use of language: spanglish sentences, untranslatable phrases, science fiction references, colloquial vernaculars, superstitions and curses, sarcasm, historical footnotes, and even the impressive English vocabulary. Not only do I learn about true events in our world, as well as brush up on my Spanish, but also, how to use the structure of language in the content of the story.

In an interview with Junot Díaz, he says that he wrote the book so the reader could feel like an immigrant “unable to understand huge chunks of the language…which provokes action to want to know.” As Oscar and his sister Lola, as well as their mother Belicia (and the narrator, as we later find out), immigrated to New York from the Dominican Republic, so shall the reader. I want to know what these Spanish nouns mean, I want to learn the slang, and I also want to read the science fiction novels Díaz keeps referencing. Also in this interview he states that it takes “enormous imagination and tremendous patience and strength to pick up a new language.” I guess I had to write this down because it struck me as similar to how I feel when reading his book. It takes incredible conditioning to learn something new, especially of a different culture. And this is where Oscar is- in between America (in his comic books) and the Dominican Republic (in it’s fukú curse on his family).

Since this novel strongly evokes a constant state of “otherness,” or double consciousness, an alienation from both cultures, the reader can’t also help but to feel cursed for not understanding every word and phrase Díaz throws out, making us an immigrant to his book. I understand what it’s like to be here- standing on the border of Mexico and America- not knowing which way to bend at times. So having this awareness for it, I can feel comfortable relating this Oscar. I have also gotten lost in reading Science Fiction. As a writer, my first passion is reading. It think this is one of the most important messages in Junot Diaz’s novel, “I write because I love to read.” Oscar reads and writes to escape into a Nerdland outside of the curses and cultures of the real world. It is ironic, however, that he chooses to write mostly apocalyptic stories which can be a reference to the state of the Dominican Republic after the fall of Trujillo’s dictatorship.

There is a lot to connect as a writer and a reader, but also as someone conscious of two different cultures within me. I love how Díaz uses many different types of languages to evoke this concept of unintelligibility and thus, build a strong dependable relationship with the reader. I hope to be able to understand these techniques better as I read on and write on.