In Oscar Wao, the
author uses a substantial about of footnotes. They are not common short footnotes,
either. They often are paragraphs and some run onto a second page. When reading
these footnotes, I think that the character’s personality really shows through.
On page 197, Yunior says “Homeboy could
not have had a more private realm had he thrown a force-field around the
island.” Yunior is using familiar language and ‘nerd-isms’ to try and
centralize the readers thoughts. I think that this gives off a familiarity with
the character, since he dumbs down his summaries and ideas to the layman’s definition
and really makes it easy to see which character is which when the narrator changes. It also offers an
easier friendship between the author and Yunior because they can clearly see
what Yunior was saying. Any thoughts of this style?
I absolutely love how casual our footnotes are within this text. I think that is clever that our author does this. I am not sure why, but this gives me sense of comfort. I feel like it gives the novel a "journal" type of feel. It is like Yunior is writing a journal rather than a novel. For publishing reasons it is formatted like a novel, but it seems that the style of the writing and footnotes that are written were once a journal throughout Yunior's life.
ReplyDeleteI thought this was an interesting idea. It seems to me Diaz thinks we have a handle on the story by this point the audience has a basic knowledge of the Dominican Republic.
ReplyDeleteI think Diaz is trying to remain true to the culture as it sounds as if the characters have a Carribean-like laid back way of speaking. The lax way that they speak to each other could be a testimony to the island lifestyle and Diaz working culture into the novel.
ReplyDeleteA discussion on the footnotes. .. I love it!! I never even noticed Caroline that the footnotes slowly were disappearing. I do like the idea of Diaz trusting us, as readers, more and more with the world he is writing about and, therefore, no longer giving us footnotes because by the end of the book we should not need them because we are now a part of the world.
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