Today, I finished Pulitzer Prize-winner The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. My thoughts, let me show you them.

Yep-- that about nailed it. I haven't read it all the way through, but after one of my friends who was reading it, kept asking me to translate stuff or ask about context (some of which I knew, because it was more general Latino, some of which I didn't because it was more Dominican), I realized I never would.

And a lot of your complaints about the narrative are right on-- it's amusing at first, but then it begins to read as too studied and contrived and definitely, too cool for school. And I HATE footnotes in a novel. A bibliography or an afterward or something, but dude, I don't want to get caught up in the world of a novel only to stop to read a freakin' FOOTNOTE so I have some idea what's going on.

If you want to read an interesting book about DR immigrants, you should get Julia Alvarez's How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents.

There is a great little letter in Neil Gaiman's blog this morning about how most girls the letter writer's age are all excited about the Twilight movie, she's excited about the Coraline movie. link

after one of my friends who was reading it, kept asking me to translate stuff

I read a great deal of the book when I was not by a computer. I was not going to stop and Google every two minutes.

And a lot of your complaints about the narrative are right on-- it's amusing at first, but then it begins to read as too studied and contrived and definitely, too cool for school.

Right? I'm not sure how you walk that line and don't push it too far. Because it would certainly be fun to write a novel like that—like I said, it's basically how I write my LJ posts!—but how do you do it without putting off the reader?

And I HATE footnotes in a novel.

Have you read Discworld? Hee. I actually found the length of the footnotes amusing, but the content was so over my head that it didn't really matter. I liked that he sort of got carried away with himself in the footnotes, like, "Ooh, ooh, oh man, there is this great story about this guy, you wouldn't believe."

If you want to read an interesting book about DR immigrants, you should get Julia Alvarez's How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents.

Why does that title sound familiar? Besides its similarity to the one about Stella and her groove?

Why does that title sound familiar? Besides its similarity to the one about Stella and her groove?

I think there might have been a recent film with a similar title, although it wasn't based on the book.

Right? I'm not sure how you walk that line and don't push it too far. Because it would certainly be fun to write a novel like that—like I said, it's basically how I write my LJ posts!—but how do you do it without putting off the reader?

You do it by drawing them into your world, not assuming they know your world, if that makes any sense? And of course, there's the all too important matter of balance-- you have to balance some of the chatty colloquial nature with actual structured narrative, that way you're not overwhelming the reader. Then again, if you're a literary darling, you can do whatever the hell you want and ain't no one gonna tell you boo.

I really loved Oliver Wao. I thought the footnotes worked perfectly for the type of novel it was although normally I'd be against them.

after one of my friends who was reading it, kept asking me to translate stuff

huh...I was pretty much able to figure stuff out from the context.

And I HATE footnotes in a novel.

I remember the first time I read a Susan Johnson (very explicit) romance, which was the first (and so far, only) romance I've read with footnotes! That was a bit startling, to say the least.

The only problem I had with Oliver Wao is that I think it kind of falls apart at the end. But I think that about a lot of novels.

The first novel I read with footnotes was Middlemarch. There were a ton of footnotes, but I was grateful for them, and I kind of have a fondness for footnotes as a result.