Fukú americanus, despite its uncanny resemblance to an English profanity, is a curse, one that has plagued Oscar de Leon's family for several generations. It is perhaps only a ridiculous superstition, but it seems to be a comfortable excuse for Oscar's terrible bad luck. Disastrously overweight, depressingly lonely, and socially awkward, Oscar does not live the ideal life.
Such is the concept for Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. If you haven't read it yet, you should give it try. You could learn more about this curious, explicitly-named fukú americanus.
The story is one of love, hatred, violence, compassion------ all of the emotions in one giant rainbow. It's about the most passionate kind of love, the deepest kind of hatred, the most terrible violence. The characters vibrantly come alive to tell you this life of Oscar, of his sharply stubborn mother Belí, his curse-bringer grandfather Abelard (everything can be blamed on Dominican dictator Trujillo), and his selfless, devoted sister Lola. This story is clearly more poignant than you thought. Plus, a little bit of Dominican history is thrown in there.
And then there is the fukú and its counterspell, zafa. Bad luck and good luck-- the same kind of superstitions that we have (perhaps more superstitious...). But it really forces you to think about how much of Oscar's life is a function of this fukú, how much is saved by zafa, and how much is random chance.
Pick it as your next independent reading book.
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