How we cite our quotes: (Act.Chapter.Section.Paragraph), (Act.Special Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Made my little gestures, of course. A meal once a week. Picked up his writings, five books to date, and tried to read some. Wasn't my cup of tea – Drop the phaser, Arthurus Prime!—but even I could tell he had chops. Could write dialogue, crack snappy exposition, keep the narrative moving. Showed him some of my fiction too, all robberies and drug deals and F*** you, Nando, and BLAU! BLAU! BLAU! He gave me four pages of comments for an eight-page story. (1.4.1.28)
Yunior likes to tell us how he gets with hot girls. It's easy to forget that Yunior writes fiction just like Oscar. Granted, Yunior's stories probably sound nothing like Oscar's. As suggested above, Yunior veers toward gritty realism (and away from outer space fantasies). But why would Díaz have both the main male characters write fiction? What kinds of stories of masculinity, nationality, and so on are these two authors competing to tell?
Quote #5
Four days later they took him [Oscar] home. […]. I did manage to call him a couple times to check up on him. Even that was a lot because I kept expecting his mother or sister to tell me that he was gone. But no, he claimed he was "regenerated." No more suicide attempts for him. He was writing a lot, which was always a good sign. I'm going to be the Dominican Tolkien, he said. (1.4.1.166)
Not long after his suicide attempt, Oscar rededicates himself to writing. He declares that he's going to be the "Dominican Tolkien." Being a nerdy Dominican has probably gotten Oscar his fair share of bullying, but you have to admire his ambitions for his writing.
Quote #6
I know what Negroes are going to say. Look, he's writing Suburban Tropical now. A puta [prostitute] and she's not an underage snort-addicted mess? […]. Would it be more believable if I turned Ybón into this other puta I know, Jahyra, a friend and a neighbor in Villa Juana, who still lives in one of those old-style pink wooden houses with the zinc roof? […]
But then I'd be lying. I know I've thrown a lot of fantasy and sci-fi in the mix but this is supposed to be a true account of the Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. (2.6.7.1-2.6.7.2)
Does Díaz value the truth over fantasy? We're not sure. All this talk about the truth might be a little misleading. Perhaps Díaz values fantasy and fact equally. Recall his descriptions of Trujillo. He describes Trujillo as 1) a real, historical person and 2) the Evil Lord Sauron. It sounds to us like Díaz mixes the two up into one delicious smoothie, but we'll let you be the judge.