By beginning the first part of the novel with Oscar’s love life as a seven-year old, Díaz sets romance, and Oscar’s related lack of luck in that area, as a major theme. We also see the beginning of Oscar’s obsession with everything science fiction, which continues through the novel too. On every page, Díaz incorporates Spanish phrases to emphasize the Dominican culture of the main characters. Because I’ve studied Spanish, I understand most of these added bits, but it would be very confusing and irritating to read the book without that understanding.
I’ve really enjoyed this book, but the beginning of Part 1 did not prepare me at all for the rest of the novel. For some reason, I didn’t read the back of the book, so I didn’t realize Oscar was an overweight Dominican teenager for most of it. That being so, I read the bit about him having two girlfriends and immediately jumped to conclusions, expecting the novel to be about Oscar as a “player”. Clearly, the opposite occurred and I should read the backs of books more often.
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