It’s probably because its 1:00am, with my usual defenses down, that I am struck with such hope and sadness after finishing The Brief Wondrous life of Oscar Wao. I hesitate to say that the ending was profound, or rather endings (Tolkien would be proud). Though I hesitate to call anything profound nowadays. But the ending has struck such a chord within me, that I find my exhausted self not wanting to sleep. Once Oscar died I found myself wondering, despite the refreshingly honest tone of the book, if any of Oscar’s life could be considered wondrous. But the book kept one last trick up its sleeve by withholding Oscar’s letter until the end.

            It’s almost cheesy but Oscar’s new found appreciation for life “The Beauty!” re-contextualizes the martyrdom of his death for me. Looking at the pen-ultimate ending, in the quote Oscar picked from Watchmen, Dr. Manhattan says “Nothing ends, Adrian, nothing ever ends.” For all the nihilistic connotations this line has, with the fate of the curse and the futility of choices, there is also a relativistic view of existence. Without ends, lengths of time are irrelevant which is what Ybon reminds Oscar when he shares how he waited “so god damn long” to get laid. She says to call the wait life. Oscar found wonder in his life outside of fantasy, in the intimate moments he shared with Ybon. It seems to Oscar that all his suffering doesn’t matter in the end, he died for his own happiness, which is more than Yunior can claim, saying to himself at his most indulgent low, “You win Oscar, you win.”

If time is relativistic and Oscar’s life is defined by what little happiness he managed to find, then it truly was a brief and wondrous life.