How we cite our quotes: (Act.Chapter.Section.Paragraph), (Act.Special Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
So, after Lola flew back to the States (Take good care of yourself, Mister) and the terror and joy of his return had subsided, after he settled down in Abuela's [grandmother's] house, the house that Diaspora had built, and tried to figure out what he was going to do with the rest of his summer now that Lola was gone, after his fantasy of an Island girlfriend seemed like a distant joke – Who the f*** had he been kidding? He couldn't dance, he didn't have loot, he didn't dress, he wasn't confident, he wasn't handsome, he wasn't from Europe, he wasn't f***ing no Island girls – after he spent one week writing and (ironically enough) turned down his male cousins' offer to take him to a whorehouse like fifty times, Oscar fell in love with a semiretired puta [whore]. (2.6.5.2)
It sounds like Oscar's having a tough time with the ladies in the Dominican Republic, are we right? Oh, and then, when he finally falls in love Ybón, that woman's boyfriend ends up killing him. Díaz keeps returning to this pesky combination of love and fukú. What gives?
Quote #8
Oh, [Oscar and Ybón] got close all right, but we have to ask the hard questions again: Did they ever kiss in her Pathfinder? [...]. Did they ever f***?
Of course not. Miracles only go so far. He watched her for the signs, signs that would tell him she loved him. He began to suspect that it might not happen this summer, but already he had plans to come back for Thanksgiving, and then for Christmas. When he told her, she looked at him strangely and said only his name, Oscar, a little sadly. (2.6.11.1-2.6.11.2)
Yunior worries that Oscar hasn't kissed (or done anything else with) Ybón. But if you look closely at these paragraphs, it seems like Oscar is simply looking for a sign that Ybón loves him. Don't get us wrong: Oscar wants to have sex. He talks a lot about sex in the novel. But if we had to point out a major difference between Oscar and Yunior, it'd be this: Yunior is way more obsessed with sex. More than anything else, Oscar really wants to be in a reciprocal, loving relationship.
Quote #9
One night after the condom-foil incident Oscar woke up in his overly air-conditioned room and realized with unusual clarity that he was heading down that road again. The road where he became so nuts over a girl he stopped thinking. The road where very bad things happened. You should stop right now, he told himself. But he knew, with lapidary clarity, that he wasn't going to stop. He loved Ybón. (And love, for this kid, was a geas, something that could not be shaken or denied.) (2.6.12.4)
Oscar is watching himself make a bad choice, but he can't do anything to change course. Does this passage suggest that Oscar is so deeply in love that he's irrational, or does it suggest that he's cursed? Perhaps he's both…?