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The excerpt from “The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Diaz  made me a little bored at first. Then when  surprisingly later it became  interesting  that I found myself wanting to read more about the “fuku.” I guess it was because of how Diaz was telling the history of “fuku.” That he wrote in a style that seemed less  formal but is  like  more natural and humorous. The sentence that took me by surprise and made me laugh was “who killed JFK? Let me, your humble Watcher, reveal one and for all the God’s Honest Truth: It wasn’t the mob or the ghost of Marilyn fucking Monroe.”(4) If it was me i wouldn’t write as much curse words in my writing. Be after reading Diaz’s work i would like to write like him and how he writes to catch the audiences eyes.  I believe in superstitions, even when my grandparents told me about the superstitions in Poland I would always listen closely to what they were saying. But the way Diaz described ‘fuku’ by asking who killed JFK and were the curse of the Kennedy’s came from and  talking about his family’s personal ‘fuku’ experience. This help me believe that other people believed in the same thing. I like how he didn’t really put much thought into using academic words but as if he was talking to a friend about it.

Junot Diaz wrote The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, in which he highlights the history of the Dominican Republic and briefly the United States to describe superstitious aspects still present in the culture today. In the writing, Diaz introduces several colloquial terms such as: “fuku”,”fua”, and “zafa”. Despite enjoying the pleasant conversational tone of the work, certain references such as places and Spanish terms were lost on me. It was difficult reading through some of the text due to the switching into Spanish terms. I did not fully understand some of the sentences without looking up terms, even with the use of contextual clues. This distracted me from the flow of the story unfolding and required several rereads. A prime example being, “…every single Dominican, from the richest jabao in Mao to the poorest guey in El Buey, from the oldest anciano sanmacorisano to the littlest carajito in San Francisco, knew: whoever killed Trujillo, their family would suffer a fuku so dreadful it would make the one that attached itself to the Admiral jojote in comparison.” (3) Diaz is conveying how it was common knowledge amongst virtually all Dominicans from different walks of life, the stigma attached to merely attempting to end the life of the despot. While I did have difficulty with the references, it lent a personable aspect to Diaz’s writing, which further emphasized the conversational tone present through the work. Moreover, Diaz makes Science Fiction/Fantasy and pop culture references that he seems to assume his readers are familiar with and he does not clarify despite the presence of footnotes. Diaz writes, “But be assured: like Darkseid’s Omega Effect, like Morgoth’s bane, no matter how many turns and digressions the shit might take, it always-and I mean always-gets its man.”(5) It may not always be the most obvious result or direct path taken but the bad ju-ju eventually catches up to the intended person. The fuku curse, like karma always comes around to bite someone in the butt.

While reading “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Woo” by Junior Diaz, I didn’t really find anything that was confusing or difficult to understand. In fact, I enjoyed reading because I am Dominican myself. I found this piece very humorous and relatable because I know how us Dominicans can be with superstitions. I couldn’t help but think about my grandmother and all the superstitions she has made us aware of when he stated, “I have a tia who believed she’d been denied happiness because she’d laughed at a rival’s funeral.”(5)  Yeah, that definitely sounds like something my grandmother would say. I also enjoyed his style of writing. I always enjoy pieces like this where you don’t feel overwhelmed by the language that is being used. It almost feels like you’re just having a normal conversation with someone. It also makes it easier to get the message that the author is trying to convey without having to question what it is that they’re trying to say. One thing that caught my attention as well is how loose he is with cursing in his writing. As a writer, I always stray away from cursing because you never know how a reader would react to it. I can honestly say that Diaz knows what he is doing, he really knows how to keep readers hooked and interested.

While reading “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Diaz I was confused with what the author believed. Does he believe in the “fuku” curse/doom or is he trying to prove some other point? For example, Diaz states “In my parents’ day the fuku was real as shit, something your everyday person could believe in” (2). Diaz shows that people in his life believed in fuku; it was a common occurrence. I do not know if he himself truly believes in fuku or not. If he doesn’t, then I believe that he uses fuku as some sort of metaphor. Diaz says “…that whoever killed Trujillo, their family would suffer a fuku so dreadful it would make the one that attached itself to the Admiral jojote in comparison” (3). Is the fuku a metaphor for the fate or reaction that would happen as a result of the murder of Trujillo? If not then I still found this piece of writing very entertaining. It’s not as professional as most pieces that I have read. The way Diaz speaks alone makes me create him as a character in my mind instead of just reading someone’s boring lecture. The topic was very interesting. At first I read the whole passage with the view that everything that Diaz said was literal. I found it hard to find something difficult to pick out from it so I started to nitpick at it.

In “The Brief, Wonderful Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Diaz, I did not really find anything confusing, or difficult to understand or comprehend. I like how Diaz fuses Dominican slang and formal English.I believe Diaz does this to appeal to a much wider audience, and that she accomplishes very well. The one thing that was somewhat “difficult” was the size of some of the footnotes. On the second page, there was one that was longer than the main text itself. Granted, it was a history lesson of the extent of Trujillo’s reign over the Dominican Republic. I also appreciate the “colorful” language Diaz uses in the beginning of the excerpt. “…uttered just as one world perished and another began; that it was a demon drawn into Creation through the nightmare door that was cracked open…”(1) Even though I am not 100% sure what Diaz is referring to in this sentence, I still get very vivid imagery, due to her word choice. This is executed perfectly in my opinion, it hooks the reader’s attention, whilst the author gets to the “meat”. I also like how the story Diaz is mentioning throughout the excerpt is bigger than itself. What Diaz is implying is that Trujillo, former dictator of the Dominican Republic, is the one who killed JFK. It somewhat caught me by surprise, in a good way, the way Diaz just blatantly says it. In all, I genuinely enjoy Diaz’ writing style. She found a way to take a history lesson, and spin it around to actually make it very interesting.

The excerpt from “The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Diaz made me surprisingly interested that I found myself wanting to read more about the superstition ‘fuku.’ I suppose it was because of how Diaz was telling the history of ‘fuku’ in a style that seemed less academic or formal- like but more natural and humorous. The sentence that took me by surprise and made me laugh was “who killed JFK? Let me, your humble Watcher, reveal one and for all the God’s Honest Truth: It wasn’t the mob or the ghost of Marilyn fucking Monroe.”(4) I admit that if I were to write a novel or paper I definitely would not utilize as much curse words as Diaz but I would love to write like him in a sense that captivates the audience into reading more. Another sentence I could not help but laugh and become sort of terrified was “It’s perfectly fine if you don’t believe in these “superstitions.” In fact, it’s better than fine- it’s perfect. Because no matter what you believe, fuku believes in you.”(4) I never believed in superstitions, even when my grandparents told me about the superstitions in Indonesia I would always brush it off but the way Diaz described ‘fuku’ by hyperbolically asking who killed JFK, where the curse of the Kennedys came from and also talking about his family’s personal ‘fuku’ experience made me wonder and question my own belief. I admire how he didn’t really put much thought into using academic words or complex sentence structures because that was what made me as a reader understand his point. I would like to use that in my own writing, being able to capture the reader’s attention but still sound knowledgable and credible without making my readers confused.

In the story, “The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Diaz he shows a superstition from Santo Domingo called “”fukú”. But the fukú ain’t just ancient history, a ghost story from the past with no power to scare.  I found Junot Diaz story to be very interesting he connects with the readers by sharing factual evidence like the assassination of John F. Kennedy then followed by the reason why we lost the war in Iraq. For example, Kennedy was the one who green-lighted the assassination of Trujillo in 1961, who ordered the CIA to deliver arms to the Island but intelligence experts failed to tell him that whoever killed Trujillo, their family would suffer a fukú so dreadful it would make the one that attached itself to the Admiral jojote in comparison. I don’t believe in old history superstitions but I think the Kennedy family was affected by the curse, Kick Kennedy died in a plane crash and Ted Kennedy survived a plane crash and he even wondered if his family fell victim to an “awful” curse. Another reason was the soldiers that was in Santo Domingo that was shipped off to Iraq was cursed by fukú it was gift of Diaz’s people to America, a small repayment for the unjust war. I never believed in any superstitions till the day I read “ The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao”, the events that happen couldn’t been a mistake after leaving Santo Domingo. I know different cultures and nationalities have many tales that involve curses that dates back to ancient history.

A NOTE ON THE QUIZ: YOU CANNOT LOOK AT PHONES DURING THE QUIZ! THIS MEANS, IF YOU WANT TO LOOK AT THE TEXTS, YOU MUST HAVE THEM PRINTED OUT– BOTH COATES AND DIAZ. I WILL NOT HAVE EXTRA COPIES.

Hey everyone– for Thursday, please read and annotate the excerpt from “The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” that I handed out in class. Extra copies will be available outside my office door (Namm 525.) READ THE FOOTNOTES!  (I sometimes skip footnotes too. Don’t do it here.)

Please also write a “difficulty paper” of about 200-250 words (NOT 100 words, you guys) in which you write about what in the story you found difficult, confusing, boring, etc… Remember how this went last time. You need to be as specific as possible. Refer to a particular passage and then try to think it through. WHY is this difficult? What do you think Diaz might be trying to do here?

You may also want to read Diaz through the eyes of a writer. What is he doing in his writing that you would like to do in your own writing? How, specifically, might you be able to hone those skills? Alternately, what is he doing that you DISLIKE? How might you be able to avoid those pitfalls?

Please post your response using category: Portrait of a Word.

There will be a quiz in class on Thursday on all of the reading for this unit so far (Diaz and Coates.) You will also be asked to quote properly, using the introduce/ summarize/ analyze formula that we practiced in class. Just a note: quizzes can not be made up. If you miss it, you miss it.

 

1.  Ta-Nehisi Coates, a black writer, who grew up with the normilization of such words as “nigga”, who learned the importance rights to name through his father’s many names.

2. Events such as Richie Incognito referring to his teammates as “half-niggers”, that then exploded to conversations about wether the word should be used, and by who.

3. The audiance in question is the black community, those who believe the way to remove the violent and evil background of such a word is either through full removal, or reconstruction and normilization.

4. The main take away from this is the importance of context to a word. Where Jewish people can joke around about someone being good with money being “a good jew”, the standard isnt held the same for black people to refer to themselves as “niggas”.

5. The article had a tone of concern, where a double standard of perfection is expected from the black community to not use said word unless expected to be treated as equals with it, regardless of context.

6. I do agree with his view of the word in most cases. However, from my personal experience, such words have special meanings based around community and time. As “nigger” was built around years of discrimination and hatred against colored people. While “nigga” has a somewhat diffrent implication, built on a culture of creation and community built against the old system.