The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

[curiousa2z]

that's what was so sickening. you could feel their helplessness. more than once i was glad I didn't live on a small island where some tyrant could do what ever the hell he wanted. horrible. and remember at the beginning when he says [paraphrase] "if you missed that second in history class dont feel bad" - I didnt know ANY of that history - at first I thought he made Rafael Trujillo up as part of an allegory!

 

[Cassie]

I know! Well.. I'd heard of Trujillo before and El Jefe but I didn't know they were the same person. I've also heard a little of the history, like the part about Fidel and Che, but I didn't know the DR involvement. I also never knew that the US occupied the DR in the past.

What do you think about the references to the Mongoose? Now I feel like looking up legends about mongooses.

 

[curiousa2z]

^ not an animal we know much about up here, so I've never heard of any legends about them; they have been kept in homes to protect families from venomous snakes, but that's about all I know. An interesting counterpoint to the fuku....I thought Diaz made fuku up, but actually found a reference to it:
A Dominican, if he mentions Columbus by name, crosses himself to ward off an evil spirit. This is the "Fuku" or curse, whose African origins are explained by the anthropologist Carlos E. Deive.
haven't researched any more deeply than that, though.

what do you think the significance of the mongoose was?

 

[Cassie]

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi was a mongoose... I suppose that before mongooses were brought to the New World there were legends about them, that came over with the people who brought them from Africa, India, and Europe.

oh! I found this The Story of the Golden Mongoose It's a Hindi legend. Haven't read it yet, I WILL though. I'll also check out fuku.. ZAFA, lol.

 

[curiousa2z]

ok, read the Golden Mongoose myth...erm. don't see how it applies here..you?

 

[Cassie]

I dunno but I found a blog yesterday that I think is written by a Hindi.. he mentions that there are brief Hindi and desi references in the book. http://www.ultrabrown.com/posts/revenge-of-the-dominican-nerds Also there's a wiki page on the word desi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desi Before reading the book I didn't know there was an Indian population in the Caribbean.

In the myth the golden mongoose shows up when people are making a sacrifice, in the story it shows up when the characters are in big trouble. I'm not sure if what Beli and Oscar were doing would count as a sacrifice.. they both seemed pretty selfish at the time. Maybe there is more to the legend, or a different one involving the mongoose. I'll have to look around some more.

 

[curiousa2z]

either way - fabulous book.

Saaay, - there may be something to this Pulitzer Prize Winner thing!
Should we form an Uber Snobby Elitist Book Club and read nothing but P.P.Winners, going back in time until we are sick of the whole idea?

....Not gonna lie, never paid attention to that sort of thing and couldnt tell ya what books have won it.

 

[Cassie]

LOL.. I was thinking the same thing. Seems like the Pulitzer is more reliable than the Hugo or Nebula awards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulitzer_Prize_for_Fiction

* 2008: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
* 2007: The Road by Cormac McCarthy
* 2006: March by Geraldine Brooks
* 2005: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
* 2004: The Known World by Edward P. Jones
* 2003: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
* 2002: Empire Falls by Richard Russo
* 2001: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
* 2000: Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
* 1999: The Hours by Michael Cunningham
* 1998: American Pastoral by Philip Roth
* 1997: Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser
* 1996: Independence Day by Richard Ford
* 1995: The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
* 1994: The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
* 1993: A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler
* 1992: A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
* 1991: Rabbit At Rest by John Updike
* 1990: The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos
* 1989: Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
* 1988: Beloved by Toni Morrison
* 1987: A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor
* 1986: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
* 1985: Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie
* 1984: Ironweed by William Kennedy
* 1983: The Color Purple by Alice Walker
* 1982: Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike
* 1981: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
* 1980: The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer
* 1979: The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever
* 1978: Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson
* 1977: No award given
* 1976: Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
* 1975: The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
* 1974: No award given [1]
* 1973: The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty
* 1972: Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
* 1971: No award given
* 1970: The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford by Jean Stafford
* 1969: House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
* 1968: The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron
* 1967: The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
* 1966: The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter
* 1965: The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau
* 1964: No award given
* 1963: The Reivers by William Faulkner
* 1962: The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor
* 1961: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
* 1960: Advise and Consent by Allen Drury
* 1959: The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor
* 1958: A Death in the Family by James Agee
* 1957: No award given
* 1956: Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor
* 1955: A Fable by William Faulkner
* 1954: No award given
* 1953: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
* 1952: The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
* 1951: The Town by Conrad Richter
* 1950: The Way West by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.
* 1949: Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens
* 1948: Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener

 

[curiousa2z]

this is embarassing; not counting the two we just read, I've only read six on that entire list.