Amanda Kuhn The Novel: 21st Century Literature April 2015 Discovery Draft

"Closed his eyes (or maybe he didn’t) and when he opened them there was something straight out of Ursula Le Guin standing by his side. Later, when he would describe it, he would call it the Golden Mongoose, but even he knew that wasn’t what it was. It was very placid, very beautiful. Gold-limned eyes that reached through you, not so much in judgment or reproach but for something far scarier. They stared at each other -it serene as a Buddhist, he in total disbelief- and then the whistle blew again and his eyes snapped open (or closed) and it was gone.” Dude had been waiting his whole life for something just like this to happen to him, had always wanted to live in a world of magic and mystery, but instead of taking note of the vision and changing his ways the fuck just shook his swollen head.” (Diaz, 189)

This passage confronts the autochthonous mystical power of the Dominican Republic that

is within Oskar in contrast to the physical world available to his sight. A tension is created

between what Oskar sees and what he remembers, and therefore, the language available for its

description. How can you remember that which you did not see? and how do you describe that

which you remember but did not see? The legacy of the DR within Oskar functions in a similar

way as it is very much a piece of Oskar yet simultaneously unfamiliar to him. How does a writer

like Oskar describe that which he can feel within him but has never physically

experienced? A binary is created between the “good” Golden Mongoose, representing the

mystical sci-fi power of the DR within him. I hope to address how themes of the fantastic and

magical realism affect the narrative universe of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

Immediately an uncertainty is established regarding the efficacy (or existence) of Oskar’s

sight in this moment. Yunior's voice is self-doubting as he says seems to not know whether

Oskar’s eyes were even open in this moment. The memory is likened to a dream, though

ultimately rendering Oskar’s eyesight an insignificant element this full experience.

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Yunior compares the creature the Oskar “sees” as “something straight out of Ursula Le Guin,” a

fantasy and science fiction author. Ursula Le Guin employed the interaction of otherworldly

societies in order to demonstrate cross-cultural experience. The objective of fantasy in her work

is to illustrate the experience of culture-shock. The creature that Oskar encounters is grafted

within this narrative, as if from another world; his interaction with it serves to demonstrate

Oskar’s experience of culture shock. It enacts (or symbolizes?) the feeling of otherness in Oskar

that perhaps he has experienced his whole life, and again fits into the uncanny experience of

himself as being strange. Oskar immediately fits it within his own paradigmatic literary

vocabulary: likening it to Ursula Le Guin, naming it the “Golden Mongoose,” and especially

through his subsequent description in words. However, his literary characterization of the Golden

Mongoose seems to exist precisely through its inability to be characterized through language. His

experience of the Mongoose is sublime. I relate it to the Wordsworth quote we discussed in class,

that the sublime can only be put into words after its experience, as Yunior specifies that Oskar

only “later" names it “The Golden Mongoose.” The Mongoose has mythological histories in

Hinduism, and is known for its “skill in killing venomous snakes” (OED). The snake is the most

obvious symbol of the Devil, evil, and The Fall. This passage summons multiple traditions in

creating a binary through good and evil, temptation and sublime transcendence. Oskar’s

description of the mongoose is exactly that of a sublime experience, as it is described through

transcendent post-modifiers rather than visual imagery. The words he uses to describe the

creature are “Golden Mongoose,” “placid,” “beautiful,” with “gold-limned eyes,” and “serene

like a Buddhist,” none of which are telling of its physical appearance. The word beautiful is “a

post-modifier...used to imply the obsessive pursuit of an idealized form or vision” (OED),

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demonstrating Oskar’s inability to express accurately in words that which he felt too much. By

describing it as “placid” and “serene like a Buddhist,” Oskar likens it to an idealized divine

enigma that he recognizes but doesn’t truly know. As Oskar gawks at it “in total disbelief”, the

stereotypical reaction to the sublime, the Golden Mongoose displays its transcendence and power

through its peaceful disposition. The same interaction is described countless times in the Bible

when an angel shows itself to someone ("Do not be afraid”). It has an immateriality, able to

“reach through” Oskar while simultaneously maintaining a constant gaze. Here, the fantastical

alien qualities of the Golden Mongoose are described with the language of the divine as well.

The characterization of it as having “gold-limned eyes” is not normal colloquial speak and is a

direct reference to the language of sci-fi and fantasy. The Mongoose’s eyes, which are

undoubtedly a strong force in this passage, and in the novel as well (Yunior calls himself “The

Watcher”), are illuminated in the darkness. The light around its eyes mirrors the assumed image

of the train’s headlights approaching as Oskar eventually jumps to his supposed death. Oskar

describes the Mongoose as “serene,” immediately creating in it a natural source of power as

serene means “of the heavenly bodies: Shining with a clear and tranquil light…of other natural

phenomena” (OED). Biblical language is employed when the Mongoose is described as not

staring “in judgement or reproach,” like the wrathful God of Judgement Day. The part I am

unsure of is what is alluded to when the Mongoose is described as reaching for something “far

scarier.” Perhaps another passage will help me figure out this mystery!!!!! ;-) The train blows its

whistle once more and Oskar is snapped out of his vision as if out of a hypnosis. It may be a

stretch, but I keep positioning the Golden Mongoose in opposition to the evil symbol of the

snake, the temptation. These symbolic forces hold true as the train (whose form is like that of a

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snake) awakens Oskar from his divine revelation and leads him into temptation. It is the

snake train that he plans to eventually kill him, only to be delivered from evil by the Golden

Mongoose’s intercession.

It is interesting to because the reader is unsure whether the words in this passage are those of

Oskar’s telling of his memory or of Yunior's retelling of Oskar’s retelling. Therefore, the

reader is unsure whether Oskar or Yunior characterized the experience using this language. I

hope to use this as a segue into research about the politics of memory and storytelling.

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