The first seven pages of “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” contain many footnotes of great significance to the story. The author uses these footnotes as almost a side story to help the readers follow along better. He provides a plethora of valuable historical and cultural information that a reader probably would not know. I found the footnotes to be very helpful because, like myself, the readers probably haven’t brushed up on their Santo Domingan history. The footnotes in this story are written in a very informal style, much like the actual book, which makes the readers more likely to actually read the footnotes, because in many books, footnotes are just boring lists of facts.
I think the footnotes in the book are a part of the “zafa” to the “fuku” because the author probably feels like this book itself is acting as a “zafa” or counter spell. To me, “fuku’ is the Dominican Republic’s form of Karma. For example, the author brings up the fact that John F. Kennedy had Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina killed he brought the worst kinda of “fuku” or Karma onto his family and himself. Therefore the footnotes and this book in general act as the author’s good deed to counteract any “fuku” that has been brought upon his family of him, which is something that Kennedy probably should have done.
