Oscar wow! — 2 years ago
While I agree with the point about the overzealous use of footnotes, I also found these to be incredibly informative about recent Dominican history of which I was completely ignorant. You could always ignore them if you felt it interrupted with the flow of the story and you would not miss any crucial plot details. as a compulsive finisher, I could not stop myself from reading the footnotes, and I confess it was a barrier to getting into the story, but other than that, the story flowed over me with a lovable gushing speed that was completely effortless.
At first this book appeared to me as a window into another world — a world which until recently I knew very little about, but reflected very closely the life of somebody I was very close to. I felt that by understanding Oscar and his family, it helps me to understand where my friend was coming from.
And then, another layer was added, the character perspective changed and we understood things from the point of view of the sister, mother, grandmother, etc. This extra dimension of how different people view the same events, and how seeing things from a different person’s perspective can completely change your own view of these events was played out.
And through this yet another layer was added, we understood how events in a person’s life was passed down through generations, and the Demons of the past are inherited, without any awareness of what their family had gone through.
And one more layer, the book teaches us how disadvantage eats away at a family. That it takes constant vigilance to escape this seeming fate, and a lack of communication and support from family members can make this harder.
I really wanted Oscar to succeed so much, and somehow I doubted that he would. Let this be a warning to us that we should support the Oscar Waos in our lives because they can do great things if they can escape the Demons of their family’s past, nationalities past, the world’s projected into their life.