I have no real point, where I’m going with this research paper. At the moment I’m just reading, putting down random pieces I’ve found and my reaction.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was published in September 2007. New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani characterized Díaz's writing in the novel as:
a sort of streetwise brand of Spanglish that even the most monolingual reader can easily inhale: lots of flash words and razzle-dazzle talk, lots of body language on the sentences, lots of David Foster Wallace-esque footnotes and asides. And he conjures with seemingly effortless aplomb the two worlds his characters inhabit: the Dominican Republic, the ghost-haunted motherland that shapes their nightmares and their dreams; and America (a.k.a. New Jersey), the land of freedom and hope and not-so-shiny possibilities that they’ve fled to as part of the great Dominican diaspora.[12]
I personally find it ridiculous to hear a critic review a book like this. In what way is calling someone’s work “flash words and razzle dazzle talk.”, considered a good review? To water down content in the means of appraisal is a slap in the face to reality. From what I’ve seen in the reviews their all bullshit, it’s like when somebody pats you on the back for doing something or just saying something real. No doubt Junot Diaz is a spectacular writer, but the vernacular he uses to articulate his characters are situations, words, phrases, feelings that I seen around my old neighborhood left and right. His characters talk with such razzling dazzling sparkle, because when you come from a low means, no means, mean street scenario you rely on the way you communicate yourself to others as a means of survival.
Writing for Time, critic Lev Grossman said that Díaz's novel was "so astoundingly great that in a fall crowded with heavyweights--Richard Russo, Philip Roth--Díaz is a good bet to run away with the field. You could call The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao... the saga of an immigrant family, but that wouldn't really be fair. It's an immigrant-family saga for people who don't read immigrant-family sagas."[14]
When I read this book a seond time instead of seeing the language as a Rosetta Stone I started looking at it as a Hood survival guide. There was no bilingual barrier because in my mind this gives more insight to parts of my family ( Not my biological family so to speak, but for some people that I’ve known since grade school.) This is just a map created to explain their legends.
Hi Shelby,
ReplyDeleteI think you're off to a start with the research. With these two critiques, your responses have hit upon language as a central theme. You could focus on how language changes, given the situation, characters, environment, era, etc. and compare it with what you know from your own hood. That's all valid. Remember you used Tupac in one of your response papers? You could also include songs as a secondary source. Your research could guide you into linguistics. There's a piece in this book that is very intentional about how language is perceived and constructed as a tool or domination. There are two sides to that coin that you could explore.
I hope this helps. And feel free to include what you know based on your own experience. I consider it an important source when we are writing about race/ class/ identity issues as a writer of color. I think it shouldn't the bedrock of a research paper but a couple potent personal anecdotes can serve really well to add something special to a paper. Don't forget to use the text for your primary sources. We have two weeks left, so put it in to overdrive now so you can finish off strong. You have important things to say.
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Good luck,
Luisa