Whooo-hooo!

I just finished the other day a completely magnificent book, that also happens to be my 52nd book for the year 2007…happily (and barely) meeting my 2007 goal to read a book a week. Okay, so I cheated a bit here, and here, and maybe even here, but you’ve got to admit it’s pretty awesome. I feel good about this accomplishment, that said, I’m not going to do it again for 2008 and here is why…

1. I found that having such a stringent book reading goal kept me away from some more challenging (or just more lengthy) books that I’ve long been wanting to read (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, The Children’s Hospital, Watership Down, The Tropic of Cancer to name a few). Multiple times this year I picked up books (often those books) and was forced to put them down for fear that they would prevent me from making my goal. A good alternative would perhaps be to set a page number goal, rather than a book number goal…that might be something I try in the future, but not this year.

2. I sometimes found myself frustrated or rushing through a book that was dragging or was simply a slower book to read because I was getting (or as of April had become) so far behind. This was not a fun feeling. It took an activity that I enjoy immensely (yes, reading) and turned it, kind of, into a task. It was sometimes unpleasant and the reality is there are enough unpleasant things in my life currently without needlessly adding to the stack.

3. I need to be more focused this year on writing and submitting and yes, the dreaded elliptical trainer (blah!) than happily and selfishly and yes, somewhat detrimentally reading. I’m sure I’ll still read a hell of a lot, but a shift of focus is definitely necessary.

So onto a review of book #52. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Junot Diaz. Fiction. 4.5 Stars.

This was, I think the second best book I had the pleasure of reading this year, second only to McCarthy’s The Road, which was not only wonderful, but I also had the pleasure of blasting through in about three and a half hours in the middle of the night…which is always an awesome experience. Wao is a much more layered, complex, and quite frankly longer work, so it took me a few days to get through, but I enjoyed every second of it.

I was given Diaz’s short fiction collection Drown a few years ago by a wonderful friend and loved it right away. It was a welcome change from much of the short fiction out there…beautifully crafted stories that were just fascinating. Wao is no different as it is rich and amazing in its history and yet it is told with a casual believable voice that was EXACTLY what I wanted…and that was pitch perfect for the book. Even the footnotes were fascinating – while historical and there to be “footnotes” they were all written in the same voice as the book…and with a definitive perspective. I definitely came away sharing all the author’s views of the Dominican Republic.

Diaz has some truly beautiful believable characters, even if they come from a world I cannot even begin to imagine, and it’s the kind of epic book that I fear I will never have in me to write because of my boring boring life and super super boring experiences. Oh Woe Is Me. I never know with Diaz how much is fiction and how much is autobiography that has been recrafted into fiction, and that I suppose is one of the marks of a great writer…that I believe him SO much that I cannot stop fathoming at the truth he has put down on the page, and have to keep reminding myself that much of it must be fiction…must be…it is too fascinating and rich and beautiful and horrible to be really true. Right?

I can only think of two reasons not to give it 5 stars, 1) I did not give The Road 5 stars and this is an admittedly close second on that book and 2) it is told from the perspectives of a couple different characters and is told almost in short story format in the form of chapters – which I love – but occasionally found confusing or maybe distracting. Anytime you switch character focus you run the risk of losing your reader as he/she can become bored with a new character that is not as interesting as one they were so invested in – this was not a major problem as Diaz’s book was pretty well balanced, but a few times I felt like I was getting a frustrating history lesson when all I wanted to do was get back to the point…to the characters I was pining for. It is a minor complaint, but a complain nonetheless I suppose.

Anyway, a brilliant book. If you’re looking for something to blow you away, this is it. 4.5 stars.