It was the elephant in the room whenever my friends and I interacted with Junot Díaz, or had a Junot sighting. For 10+ years we have been anticipating Junot’s “soon to be released forthcoming novel”: a follow-up to Drown, his collection of short stories largely credited for his stature as a premier young writer for said period of time. I can only wish I get as much mileage out of anything I write.1
While the novel begins auspiciously, offering footnotes on the last century of Dominican history that would have made Mr. Cliffsnotes himself salivate with envy, soon afterwards, the footnotes mysteriously disappear. I was left to wonder when this transition had occurred until I realized the narrator had somehow slipped into the plot and become an actual character in the story. Not only that, but he unrealistically knows all this shit about Oscar’s family--his sister, cousins, grandmothers, parents, you know the rest….
Oscar’s story is so minimal in the broader scheme of this novel that I forgot about Oscar and focused my attention on the female characters in the book; they are the most developed characters in the book and essentially its backbone. Unfortunately, the gender politics leave much to be desired. Throughout the novel, Oscar is to represent the moral antithesis of the Dominican mujeriego.2 However, the novel culminates with Oscar having lived a good life because he had managed in unrealistic time to get a makeover, go back to D.R., have sex with an older woman, and get himself killed by the woman’s man for having all types of cojones.3 The problem with the ending is that instead of continuing to subvert the politics of Dominican masculinity, it forces us to celebrate Oscar's transition from nerd to stud. A friend of the savage detectives believes that “Oscar should have been gay.” While I see her point, I don’t agree completely with the notion that every male who is sensitive, emotionally fragile, or a bookish nerd has to be gay.
I love the novel’s subtle fusion of how sci-fi of the first-world and the “magic-realism” (for lack of a better term) of the developing world, i.e. D.R., is not so different as the genre purist might lead us to believe.
Oscar made his public debut late in 2007, just in time for the holidays and for thoughtful fellow blogger, Molly, to gift me a copy. THANK YOU MOLLY!! Now that I am living in Boston, we should really up our efforts to become friends with Junot.
1.You won’t have to worry about waiting as long for the release of the second novel; I only have one good novel in me, and that is all I am promising to deliver to the world.
2.Mujeriego=playa
3.Cojones=mad guts!
4.These whore-with-a-heart-of-gold/sexual-initiator characters are SO TIRED!
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2 comments:
"I don’t agree completely with the notion that every male who is sensitive, emotionally fragile, or a bookish nerd has to be gay."
Well, of course sensitive emotional men and bookish nerds don't have to be gay! But I do think that in the book, the maschismo that Diaz almost (but only almost) successfully deconstructs is relentlessly heteronormative and homophobic: it's the violence and fantasy of heterosexual romance that drive history, public and private. Queering Oscar (or the narrator or both) might have been one way for Diaz to uncouple masculinity from heterosexual violence and power. (Like you, I'm obviously still waiting for Junot's feminist novel.)
a friend of the SD
I think we are both on the same page. I agree that if both the narrator and Oscar would have been gay, or just the narrator were gay, then the story would have effectively subverted heteronormality.
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