The Power of O

No, I’m not talking about that O, but when I think of my favorite things, the election of Barack Obama will forever be at the very top of the list. But here, I’m talking about Oscar Wao, who lives in a space set aside for strange, quirky, and unforgettable characters like Oskar Schell and Owen Meany.

Yet while Oscar Wao certainly qualifies as a quirky character, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a lot more than an Oscar character study. Many of the other characters, including Lola, Oscar’s sister; Yunior, his sometimes buddy and Lola’s sometimes boyfriend; and Oscar’s mother and aunt are equally interesting. Moreover the story is all told against the backdrop of the brutal Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. So there’s a lot going on and the book delivers quite a punch.

I had a lot of trouble, however, with the frequent use of untranslated Spanish, Spanglish, and Dominican dialect (if that’s what it was) words. It just drove me crazy to not understand what people were saying to each other. Some people in my book club didn’t find this annoying at all and felt that they could understand the general gist of what was being said. But I wanted to know what all those words meant. Since the book does have footnotes that provide historical background, why not a glossary, or footnoted translations? Even with this annoyance, it’s a great book.

The Gift of Rain

The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng illuminates an aspect of WWII that was unfamiliar to me and probably many other people, that is, the occupation of Malaya by the Japanese. The story is told in retrospect by an elderly Phillip Hutton, the half-Chinese son of a man who owns one of the largest businesses in Penang. Growing up, Phillip was an outsider, connecting with neither his British father and half brothers, nor the Chinese community in Penang. When he meets a charismatic Japanese aikido master, Endo-san, he becomes his student and unwitting collaborator with the Japanese invaders. This is a multilayered book, weaving together multiple cultures with the horrors of war, the beauty and violence of aikido, a deeply conflicted personal relationship between Phillip and Endo-san, and the strength of family ties. The fight scenes are extremely graphic and difficult to read, and there are a few other places where the narrative drags a bit, but overall I found this to be a fascinating read that I would highly recommend.