Either We're Nobodies, or We're Nations

         I liked The Brief Wondrous Life of OscarWao the first time I read it, but I must admit that I formed a much deeper connection to it the second time around. Perhaps that’s because I know more about the Dominican Republic and Haiti, or because I understand more of the cultural references that pepper the book in the form of footnotes. Ultimately, though, I think my love of this book is tied to my appreciation for the way Junot Díaz is able to effectively tie a whole universe to the life of one overweight “GhettoNerd.” Díaz hints at this aspect of his book through its two epigraphs, one from the comic book The Fantastic Four, and one from Caribbean poet Derek Walcott’s poem “The Schooner Flight.” Although the sources of the quotes are very different, Díaz uses the questions they raise in much the same way. Walcott’s poem reflects on the speaker’s mixed heritage and ends with the statement “either I’m nobody, or I’m a nation.” In true comic book form, the other epigraph recounts the question of a supervillian who destroys entire worlds and defends his destruction by asking the rhetorical question “Of what import are brief, nameless lives … to Galactus??”  The answer in Galactus’s mind is obviously “they are brief, nameless lives and I am a destroyer of worlds, so of course they are of no importance” but the answer that The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao gives is “brief, nameless lives are everything.”  Coupled with Walcott’s suggestion that individuals contain entire nations, the novel works to demonstrate just how important individuals are.

       

        Díaz’s book tells the story of Oscar de Leon, an overweight, unlucky-in-love Dominican-American who is largely neglected by everyone but his sister Lola. Although Oscar is a social outcast, his connection to other people and places is illustrated throughout the book. The major way that Díaz explores the connection between Oscar and the rest of the world is through Fukú, a term for a sort of inescapable curse that moves through both families and nations. Oscar is a victim of Fukú, but his mother, grandparents, and the entire nation of the Dominican Republic are affected by it too, which demonstrates the way that one person can be connected to history in a broader sense than might appear. There are other ways in which Oscar is connected to movements larger then himself – in his love of reading that links him to writers, in his many unrequited loves that link him to other people in all walks of life, and so on. Ultimately the title of the book says it all – Oscar’s life, while his brief and unrecognized, is wondrous. He is part of something more, and it seems to me that Díaz is suggesting that all of us are.