“Magic Realism” in Oscar Wao: A Merging of the Esoteric and
Exoteric
Chris Bakka
In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, DominicanAmerican author Junot Díaz offers a pointed critique of the
Eurocentric view of the Latino storytelling tradition of
“magic realism”—a term that, in itself, ultimately proves
to be problematic, as it attempts to use Western concepts
to convey what it perceives to be distinctively non-Western
ideas.
Because
seemingly
Díaz
diametric
postmodernism,
and
and
his
book
planes—one
another
of
of
straddle
Western
native
these
thought,
mind—Oscar
two
of
Wao
effectively satirizes itself, lampooning magic realism as
it
is
commonly
defined
by
critics
(and
by
extension,
practiced by writers). At the same time, Díaz embraces his
own kind of magic realism as he struggles to explain the
Dominican diaspora, ultimately settling on science fiction
and fantasy as a prism through which Dominican history can
be viewed.
Before addressing Díaz’s devices for doing so, however,
we must examine magic realism both as a term and as a
tradition. Only then can we appreciate the sweeping breadth
and fine complexity of Oscar Wao’s critique. Díaz takes
issue
with
the
collective
critical
tendency
to
blithely
separate the elements of fantasy and reality in magical
realist
fiction,
assigning
the
logic
and
“realism”
to
Western influence and reducing the Latin-American influence
to
mere
myth.
As
Clark
Zlotchew,
a
prominent
literary
critic and professor of Spanish language and literature,
notes
in
his
book,
Varieties
of
Magic
Realism,
this
critical tendency is destructive:
A great many critics believe, as we have seen,
that magic realism is the result of the blend of
European logical-scientific rationality and the
autochthonous New World’s primitive, mythical,
magical
and
superstitious
irrationality.
Furthermore, they believe that the Latin American
writers who are considered magic realists reflect
this duality in their writings. (16)
As
Zlotchew
observes,
understanding
writing
and
the
the
successfully
this
largely
European
applied
black-and-white
grey
area
“influences”
without
of
approach
Latin-American
therein
compromising
to
the
cannot
be
non-linear
nature of the text. To attempt to understand New World
literature
from
a
strictly
Old
World
perspective
is
an
exercise akin to translating a foreign text into English
and
treating
the
English
text
as
an
authority—not
recognizing that in the act of translation there is great
loss;
that
concepts
expressed
from
a
different
vantage
point cannot be fully understood without an understanding
2
of their origin. The conversion of the literal New World
writing into a Eurocentric trope provides the illusion of
understanding; the irony, however, lies in the fact that in
the quest for empirical truth, the truth becomes distorted
and
inaccessible.
Zlotchew
expands
his
position
on
the
authority attached to the Eurocentric view at the expense
of the ethnocentric:
Part of the evidence that the magic realists and
the critics who define magic realism from the
ethnocentric point of view write from without
rather than within the mentality supposedly
reflect in magic realism, is their assigning all
the logic, science and rationality to the
European influence, while reserving the myth,
superstition and irrationality for the indigenous
factors. This, ironically, is in itself a
Eurocentric viewpoint. (19-20)
It
is
this
literature
postmodern
in
two,
to
trend,
pit
to
the
carve
esoteric
magic
realist
against
the
exoteric, that destroys the story as an organism. Zlotchew
goes on to repudiate this practice, denouncing it as naïve
and disparaging:
The European tradition of logical thought and
scientific
inquiry,
after
all,
subsists
in
conjunction
with
Pagan
mythologies
and
the
Christian religion, belief patterns based, not on
logic or scientific observation, but on faith,
which is the belief in what cannot be seen or
weighed or measured. The Second Coming of Christ
is no more logical or scientific than the Aztecs’
belief in the return of the god Quetzalcóatl;
both are matters of faith. Certainly, indigenous
American superstition—e.g. nahualism among the
Guatemalan Indians—is no more irrational than the
3
European belief in ghosts, vampires, werewolves,
witches or leprechauns. (20)
Placed into perspective, we see the Eurocentric critical
tendency is steeped in hypocrisy. As Westerners, we tend to
count our own beliefs as reliable, and therefore “real,”
because they come from a place of comfort, of closeness. We
reduce indigenous beliefs, in the name of “logic,” to mere
fantasy. Who is to say, however, that Christianity is the
ultimate authority; that Christ is the alpha and omega he
is posited to be? How are we to accept that the largely
speculative realm of science—the vastness of the universe,
the
more-than-microscopic
sub-reality
of
the
atom
and
quark—is any more “real” than the gods and spirits of the
Aztecs, Mayans, and Incas? Why are the practices of one
culture
“superstitious”
and
“magical”
where
those
of
another are “real”? Why must we be asked to suspend our
disbelief in some cases, while in other cases we accept
equally outlandish experiences as bald truth?
What is significant about Eurocentric rationalism is
not its arrogance, however, as much as its insistence on
the
difference
between
imagination
and
novel, Díaz simultaneously dismantles
reason.
In
his
this dichotomy and
criticizes the Eurocentric tendency of dichotomization. He
does so by blurring the lines between magic and realism,
4
between fiction and truth, between story and history. Díaz
refuses
to
accept
magic
realism
as
critics
define
it;
indeed, he mocks their definition and the embrace of that
definition
by
achieve
The
in
marriage
contemporaries.
Brief
between
conflates
science
his
magical
fiction,
Wondrous
what
is
realist
and
the
What
Life
magical
of
and
fantasy,
Oscar
what
the
empirical
Díaz
seeks
Wao
to
is
a
is
real.
He
Western
magic
of
“truth”
of
Dominican
history into a novel that takes a firm stance against the
postmodern contention that stories dissolve and words mean
nothing. He does so by blending the Western, postmodern
experience—the allowance and presentation of footnotes, the
careful dissection of text—with a concentrated effort to
synthesize and put together again stories in ways that are
non-linear, inclusive, and holistic.
Díaz’s novel is only partially about Oscar. It seeks to
relate
the
story
of
the
Dominican
diaspora,
the
globalization of Latin America, and the effect on history
and storytelling of the clash of cultures, by examining
Oscar
and
questions
the
curse
surrounding
postmodernism’s
his
difficulty
family.
in
The
novel
establishing
necessary hierarchies, challenging the notion that nothing
begins
and
that
text
is
infinite;
that
the
world
and
everything in it is a construction. The book’s epigraph
5
bellows the question: “Of what import are brief, nameless
lives...to
Galactus??”—Galactus,
of
course,
being
a
creature of godlike status and power in Jack Kirby and Stan
Lee’s Fantastic Four comics. The entire novel serves as
Díaz’s
riposte.
individual
That
histories
stories
lack
are
value,
unimportant,
is
the
that
postmodern,
Galactic view of literature. In his novel, Díaz contends
that no lives are nameless; that words have lives. It is
this contention, perhaps, that leads him to open the novel
with a curse, a nod to magic realism ringing of satire. The
curse,
dubbed
by
the
narrator
as
Fukú
americanus,
is
described as “the great American doom,” (5) a tearing open
of
reality
Columbus,
brought
whom
the
to
the
New
narrator
World
refers
to
by
Christopher
only
as
“the
Admiral,” because “to say his name aloud or even to hear it
is to invite calamity on the heads of you and yours”(1).
Despite
the
reconfigured
clever
as
“fuck
establishes
the
notion
substantial
existences.
wordplay
you”),
(fukú
is
eventually
Díaz
from
the
that
words
have
very
Instead
of
continuing
outset
real,
in
the
magical realist tradition of treating the supernatural as
commonplace, however, the narrator calls attention to the
curse
as
a
reality,
inviting
and
wryly
dismissing
skepticism. “It’s perfectly fine if you don’t believe [in
6
the curse],” he tells us. “In fact it’s better than fine—
it’s
perfect.
Because
no
matter
what
you
believe,
fukú
believes in you” (5). Originally a foreign threat in the
form
of
inward
the
when
colonization
the
Dominican
of
the
new
diaspora
world,
fukú
begins.
The
turns
novel,
framed as a fukú story of Oscar’s family, centers around
the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo
Molina,
Arawn,
described
our
by
the
Darkseid,
our
narrator
Once
as
and
“our
Future
Sauron,
our
Dictator,
a
personaje so outlandish, so perverse, so dreadful that not
even a sci-fi writer could have made his ass up” (2). In
the first of the novel’s lengthy footnotes, the narrator
provides
a
primer
for
“those
of
you
who
missed
your
mandatory two seconds of Dominican history” (2):
[Trujillo was] famous for changing ALL THE NAMES
of ALL THE LANDMARKS in the Dominican republic to
honor himself (Pico Duarte became Pico Trujillo,
and Santo Domingo de Guzmán, the first and oldest
city in the New World, became Ciudad Trujillo)
[...] Outstanding accomplishments include: the
1937 genocide against the Haitian and HaitianDominican community; one of the longest, most
damaging U.S.-backed dictatorships in the Western
Hemisphere...the creation of the first modern
kleptocracy...the systematic bribing of American
senators; and, last but not least, the forging of
the Dominican peoples into a modern state. (3)
Combining the concept of the curse with science fiction and
fantasy
provides
a
unique
outlook
on
Dominican
history.
Díaz uses genre fiction, a kind of Western magic realism,
7
as a lens through which Dominican history can be viewed. It
is
this
magical
realist
practice,
merged
with
the
historical footnotes peppered throughout the novel, that
seeks to cause us to question our concept of reality and
fantasy.
As
the
narrator
describes
the
havoc
Trujillo
wreaks on the Dominican Republic and Oscar’s family, we
wonder
how
the
Dominican
Republic’s
history
manages
to
match the fantastic stories of Tolkien, Moore, and Kirby.
By treating “magic” and “realism” as equals, however, Díaz
illuminates our perceptions of both.
In addressing Oscar’s relationship to genre fiction,
Díaz also makes a statement about Western attitudes toward
fantasy. “Dude wore his nerdiness like a Jedi wore his
light saber or a Lensman his lens” (21), he writes, making
it clear that Oscar, immersed in the fantastic, is both
tragic
and
heroic.
While
Western
mind
equates
science
fiction and fantasy with immaturity, for Oscar, the outlet
becomes
a
necessary
one.
Instead
of
treating
Oscar’s
obsession with science fiction and comic books as a means
of escaping history, Díaz uses it to confront history. He
seems
to
suggest
that
only
through
imagination,
through
fantasy, through “magic,” can we truly understand reality
and harness the power of love in a world so bleak and
corrupt we can barely escape. While Oscar’s immersion in
8
his genre fiction is both delusional and tragic, it leads
him to an understanding of love greater than that of those
around him. Indeed, he dies for love, sacrificing himself
and confronting the curse rather than attempting to escape
it. His last words in his last letter—“The beauty! The
beauty!” (335)—directly parallel the final words of Kurtz
in
Joseph
horror!”
Conrad’s
Heart
of
Darkness:
“The
horror!
The
By the end of Oscar’s life, the epigraph has been
answered; a story not about Oscar but about the Dominican
Republic; about history, about story, about love, has been
told.
After describing the curse at length, Díaz mentions
“the one way to prevent disaster from coiling around you
and your family safe. Not surprisingly,” he writes, “it was
a
word.
A
simple
word
(followed
usually
by
a
vigorous
crossing of index fingers). Zafa” (7). Again, we see an
example of Díaz’s reverence for the power of the word as an
entity rather than a construction. The book’s investment in
the
living
refutes
utterance,
the
meaningless,
the
postmodern
palpable
position
non-hierarchical,
life
of
that
perpetually
the
stories
word,
are
collapsing
texts. The word in Oscar Wao is very real and alive—the
fukú of the curse and the zafa of Oscar’s demise carry with
them the ability to alter history. This blurring of magic
9
and realism—indeed, this questioning of what is magical and
what
is
real—is
what
makes
Díaz’s
novel
so
compelling.
“What’s certain,” we are told, “is that nothing’s certain.
We are trawling in silences here” (241). That the question
of what is real and fantastic is often unanswerable is a
testament to the significance of storytelling. Oscar Wao is
a sharp response to postmodern apathy toward the power of
the story—a cultural reclamation to those who posit that
magic realism is a means of escapism. The book’s method of
merging the esoteric and exoteric, offering a critique of
the
Eurocentric
tendency
to
cling
to
categorization,
is
unique. After all, Díaz reminds us, “it’s only a story,
with no kind of evidence, the kind of shit only a nerd
could
love”
(246).
The
importance
of
our
individual
histories, far from being doomed to dissolution by fukú,
can truly be saved by a word. Indeed, by the novel’s end,
Díaz
has
reclaimed—snatched
grasp—the brief lives of the
from
Galactus’s
all-powerful
nameless, the unsung.
Works Cited
Díaz, Junot.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
New
York: Riverhead Books, 2007.
Zlotchew, Clark. Varieties of Magic Realism. New Jersey:
Academic Press ENE, 2007.
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