Oscar Wao, You Need to Go Fuku-self!

Reading this novel made me feel nothing for Oscar when he faced his strife that the Fuku brings. Honestly, I don’t believe that Oscar was cursed by the Fuku at all. I think that instead, Oscar was a victim of what modern intellectuals call, self-manifested destiny. Throughout his life, Oscar was warned of the family curse, and due to his Hispanic heritage, he believed it, lived by it, was ruled by it, and ultimately, it is what brought him to his death—well that and he own stupidity. I mean come on, when I read this novel, the only thing I felt for Oscar was the pity that he literally had to force out of you when you read his story.

I have always been a firm believer that you are in control of your own destiny. You make the choices, you chose the road that you go down, and you put yourself in situations that end up getting you killed by inhabitants of Santo Domingo because you’re sleeping with their friend’s girlfriend. What did you think was going to happen? I cannot believe that anyone, even someone as ugly and grotesque as Oscar would go for a “semi-retired” prostitute; it’s just disgusting to think about.

I believe that Oscar had all of this bad stuff happen to him because he let it happen. He let himself get fat because he was depressed, he was depressed because he couldn’t get a girlfriend and loved the vagina, and he couldn’t get a vagina because he never had the self esteem to do so. Seriously, who the fuck eats three containers of Crisco and SURVIVES???

While I believe in some superstitions, like not saying the word “quite” in a smooth-sailing hospital OR; believing that a curse is following your family for years, decades, and even generations is just plain stupid. We control our fates and it’s the decisions we make that get us either into the trouble we create, or in the blissful situations we all long for. Oscar was a victim of himself and only himself. If he never went to Santo Domingo that one last time, if he never got depressed and ate a shitload of Crisco; he would probably still be alive. If he was smart enough to believe that the Fuku was just a silly superstition, then maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t have been the cause of his death in the end.

4 comments

  1. Not trying to nitpick too much here, but he was drinking Cisco, not eating Crisco. A little bit of googling reveals that Cisco is bum wine, a la Thunderbird, Mad Dog, etc. http://www.bumwine.com/bumwine/cisco_flavors.jpg  (Also, who knew there was a website called bumwine.com?) Granted maybe you could get fucked up on three tins of Crisco but I don’t know if it would make you jump off a bridge.

  2. Wow. I’m a dumbass… I just reread that, and now it makes a lot more sense. And I seem extremely moronic for making the mistake. Maybe I was hungry when I read that portion of the story. Thanks for pointing out the error. 

  3. I’ll have to disagree with the general thrust of your argument. The whole point of the book, in fact, seems to be that people are often victims of circumstances beyond their control. In Oscar Wao the most obvious example is the Trujillo regime, which — curse or no curse — controlled people’s language, lives, and fates, often in arbitrary ways.

    Likewise, the salvation of victims of the regime and of oppression in general is often due to inexplicable occurrences that have nothing to do with Will or Determination (the Mongoose which saves Beli is a great example).

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