Skip to main content

Wowed by Wao?

A few weeks ago, that consummate YA author M G Harris enthused about The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. That was recommendation enough for me, and I ran, rather than walked, to the bookstore to pick up a copy.

Having finished the book, I am finding it hard to say how I feel about it.

There were a couple of things I didn't like. The text is sprinkled with more Spanish than is helpful if you don't speak any. Sometimes you can guess what it means by context, sometimes you can't. If you're a Spanish speaker, imagine that it was Russian - would you still feel it was acceptable? And it had the sort of downer of an ending that I would have loved aged 20, but these days I tend to avoid, as I prefer to go out with a smile.

But with that aside, it was a wonderful reading experience. The footnotes, filling in factual background (I assume it's factual) on the Dominican Republic and its revolution in a chatty fashion, the use of many geeky references, the humour and the pathos - yes it's all brilliant.

So I might not love it - but I'm glad I read it.
Labels:

Comments

  1. Sue Guiney18 May 2009 at 17:24

    I've heard very mixed things about this book. Some people love it, some hate it. And I'm always turned off by anything that receives that much hype. But I'm glad to hear your response, measured and sensible. Maybe I'll read it after all.

    ReplyDelete
  2. MG29 May 2009 at 21:40

    Brian, as ever you are too kind about my authorial abilities...
    Yup, I was going to warn you about the Spanish but I didn't want to prejudge. The truth is that understanding the Spanish adds a lot to the enjoyment. Even many Spanish speakers won't get it all...In fact, if it wasn't for all the Cuban music and reggaeton (Puerto Rican hip hop) that I listen to I'm not sure I'd get the slang either...it's very regional.
    The historical stuff concurs with what I've read in Vargas Llosa's 'Feast of the Goat', also about the DR under Trujillo.
    I'm also glad you read it Brian! I'm all for the broadening of horizons! Wouldn't bother with Bolano's Savage Detectives though...600 pages about the lives of Mexican visceral realist poets...is not really doing it for me.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's recent gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some ex
114 comments
Read more

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5.  However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor
24 comments
Read more

Which idiot came up with percentage-based gradient signs

Rant warning: the contents of this post could sound like something produced by UKIP. I wish to make it clear that I do not in any way support or endorse that political party. In fact it gives me the creeps. Once upon a time, the signs for a steep hill on British roads displayed the gradient in a simple, easy-to-understand form. If the hill went up, say, one yard for every three yards forward it said '1 in 3'. Then some bureaucrat came along and decided that it would be a good idea to state the slope as a percentage. So now the sign for (say) a 1 in 10 slope says 10% (I think). That 'I think' is because the percentage-based slope is so unnatural. There are two ways we conventionally measure slopes. Either on X/Y coordiates (as in 1 in 4) or using degrees - say at a 15° angle. We don't measure them in percentages. It's easy to visualize a 1 in 3 slope, or a 30 degree angle. Much less obvious what a 33.333 recurring percent slope is. And what's a 100% slope
22 comments
Read more