The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

I suspect people who enjoyed [b:One Hundred Years of Solitude 320 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327881361s/320.jpg 3295655] might enjoy this more than I did. It had its moments, but on the whole the narrative was a little too disconnected for me. It's also sprinkled liberally with untranslated Spanish words and phrases; while I could pick most of it up from context, it quickly got annoying (especially when long historical footnotes ended with a phrase like “...but, as they say, [something in Spanish I can't read].”). Also, just kind of a depressing book in general... between the descriptions of life in a dictatorship and the people bumbling around hurting each other and failing to achieve anything meaningful. It's readable enough – Díaz has a tone reminiscent of both [a:Tom Robbins 197 Tom Robbins http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1198683922p2/197.jpg] and [a:Kurt Vonnegut 2778055 Kurt Vonnegut http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1233193902p2/2778055.jpg] – but I probably wouldn't have finished it if I hadn't been on a plane with nothing else to read.