The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao ~ by Junot Díaz, 2007

I struggled to get through The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz, 2007. Not only did it annoy me incessantly, but I frequently only halfway knew what was going on. Sometimes less. I don't speak Spanish, and since the author swears all through the book, I'm afraid to quote because I have no idea what he may be saying. The author apparently doesn't want English-speaking readers, unless they are bilingual. I took German, Latin, Greek, and a little Hebrew, but no Spanish, so here's a sample of how little I understood:

"Listen, [something]: you have to grab a [something], [something something]. That will take care of everything. Start with a [something]. [Something] that [something something something]" (p. 24).

Try writing a review based on that. This may be my shortest review ever: I didn't like any of the characters, I wasn't captivated by the plot, and I am totally annoyed that I wasted my time. I read it only because I promised to discuss it with a friend. The only "wondrous" thing about it is my "wondering" why I didn't stop halfway ... or sooner. Rated: "nah," don't bother.

Two roads diverged

This morning's cartoon has made me wonder how different my world would have been if I hadn't said "I do" to the man I married. Here are some things that immediately come to mind:

I would have gone to Emory University as an undergraduate, using the scholarship I had won. I was already registered and my roommate was Sandy, who graduated with me from high school. I had intended to go on to medical school after college. Maybe I would now be a physician.

My three children would never have been born. Or at least not as early. (I married at eighteen.) They would probably be different people completely if they had a different father ... or mother! Interesting thought, that they might not have been mine at all. At any rate they wouldn't be who they are today, and neither would I. And that would change the worlds of my in-law children, as well. That also means my grandchildren and great-grandchild would never have been born. It would affect my ex-husband's present wife, too, for that matter, since he would likely never have met my friend.

The changes are escalating, piling up on each other. Additional questions arise: Would I ever have married? Maybe I would have been my generation's old maid Auntie Bonnie, like my mother's sister for whom I was named.

On the other hand, my world would also be very different if I hadn't gotten a divorce. In what ways, I'll never know. For every fork in the road, there was a road not taken.



The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Alarming news

And I have .... a wired-together breastbone, which set off the alarms when I went to the Courthouse on Friday. My pockets were empty, so the woman scanning people who enter asked me, "Do you have on a belt?" I said, "No, but I've had heart surgery." I reached up to pull down the neck of my tee-shirt to show her the scar, but she was already waving me through. I was told by a nurse friend that the wire could possibly set off scanners at airports, in which case I should just show them the scar from my surgery. My "wiring" did set off alarms, surprising me (sort of), but mentioning the surgery also worked and I was ushered through.

Ah, the joys of being a bionic sort of person. Or better, in my case .... Ah, the joys of being held together with baling wire. (And you thought that only applied to Model-T Fords!)

Question of the Week ~ about cannibalism

Suppose four shipwrecked sailors are stranded at sea in a lifeboat, without food or water. Would it be wrong for three of them to kill and eat the cabin boy, in order to save their own lives? Answer yes or no, and then tell us why, if you like.

A teaser from Ireland

This teaser comes from the first page of Ireland by Frank Delaney (2005).

"Wonderfully, it was the boy who saw him first. He glanced out of his bedroom window, then looked again and harder -- and dared to hope. No, it was not a trick of the light; a tall figure in a ragged black coat and a ruined old hat was walking down the darkening hillside; and he was heading toward the house."

The most challenged book

This article may explain why protesters challenged And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell. I didn't know -- and don't care -- that the authors are gay. Click here to read my granddaughter Cady's 2008 review.

Dragonfly

Can you be certain that at this very moment you are not a dragonfly dreaming that you are a person?