Carlos Hernandez: Book Review: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz

Junot Diaz's first novel, arriving almost a decade after the release of Drown (his nigh-universally acclaimed collection of short stories) is called The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. And it is about as purposefully impenetrable a book as I can imagine finding its way into print.

It's almost as if no audience exists for Diaz's mind, as if no one is prepared to understand the complexity of his personality. It's almost as if he has to, through the force of his writing, create the audience that is capable of appreciating him.

"But how hard a read can it be?" you ask. "I read Drown, you say. "Sure, there were a lot of DR references I didn't get, but all in all, I followed the stories. Sad stuff, but powerful. Doesn't Oscar Wao read like Drown?"

Please allow me to answer a question with a question: How many times is Darkseid's Omega Effect referenced in Drown?

Click here to read about Darkseid's Omega Effect. (Scroll down to the Powers and Abilities section).

To get the most out of Oscar Wao, you should have at least a minor in Comic Book Heroes 1970-1990. Oh, and another in The Lord of the Rings; you should know your Tolkien well enough to spot a metaphoric ringwraith when you see one. Oh, and at least one course on anime that spent at least two weeks studying the cultural importance of Akira. And God help you if you didn't major in Role Playing Games. You cannot understand this work if you don't know what a Saving Throw is! You can't! Seriously, just go back to college, play lots and lots of role-playing games — start with D&D, but to get some of the references you're going to have dive into at least a half-dozen other ones, all which are out of print. Try E-bay.

"But wait!" you protest. "I thought he was a Latino writer! A Caribbean diaspora writer!"

Oh, don't you worry: he is. He's as DR as they come — plenty of his DR dialect sent my Cuban Spanish scrabbling to Google for a gloss. He brings the mean streets of Jersey to life (and don't laugh; the parts of Jersey he describes are tough enough to rip that I Heart New York shirt off your back and that smug smile off you face), especially the Dominican community. Uses the N-word more times than my Latino-but-white-passing complexion could tolerate.

And let's not forget all the literary allusions. Sure, you have your Shakespeare Easter Eggs, and your fashionable Proust madeleine-reference, and a plot-vital mention of Oscar Wilde (Oscar Wilde -> Oscar Wao), but then there are all those science fiction writers who get thrown into the mix as well, the ones most literary types equate, when they're feeling generous, with a wasted youth.

See where I'm headed here? To "get" this book, you would need a book that doesn't exist yet: The Unabridged Dominican/Literary/1970s-Present Nerd Concordance. Without it, you may just feel adrift.

You may. But you may not. See, let's say you are a Latino — not necessarily Dominican (so you might have to look up some of the Trujillo references), but Cuban, so you know something about the Caribbean, and something about a people's oppression under the rule of a larger-than-life dictator. Let's say you are a child of the 70s, and you were a bookish kid who loved reading: the classics, sure, but comic books and science fiction and fantasy just as much. And let's say you were addicted to Dungeons and Dragons ever since you laid eyes on it, played it and other role playing games with your friends through your teens and much of your 20s. And let's say that you decided to devote your life to literature, and that you've earned a Ph.D. in English and know what the Proust Phenomenon is from first-hand reading.

In other words, if you are me, you can read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao at a reasonable rate. And you can love it. But I have to ask: how many Latino literary meganerds are out there? For whom, I found myself asking over and over as I read, is this book intended?

I wonder if Diaz's voice will be enough to help convince readers to keep reading. He has a great voice: savage, honest, self-deprecating, and full of the deadly-hip cant of modern street-speak. Maybe people will just be willing to blow over reference after reference that they just don't get?

Here's what should happen: his publishers contact me. We go to lunch at some swank New York midtown restaurant. After some very good Latin Fusion, they offer me a four-figure advance (I'm not greedy) to write a concordance to accompany Oscar Wao. Because, they realize that this book is trebly impenetrable to the general public, that this book needs an easy-reference
guide to help readers march along with the plot. If not, I'm afraid Oscar Wao will be revered by academics and cultural critics who are willing to do the work to understand it, but categorically ignored by the public at large.

When not working on the aforementioned Concordance, Carlos Hernandez is writing fiction, which recently appeared in Cosmopsis Quarterly 2.

William Michaelian: I Hear America Singing

I still remember what I said when my friend and literary co-conspirator, John Berbrich, told me several years ago that there's a shopping mall on Long Island named after Walt Whitman: "There should have been a huge public outcry over that. What kind of people are we, that we would name a place of generic commercialism after a national treasure?"

We'd been talking about Whitman's colossal stature and my idea of declaring a national Whitman holiday. John, the Long Island-born publisher of the small press quarterly Barbaric Yawp, said — and I'm quoting directly from our conversation as it appears on my website — "Whitman is the monstrous whispering ocean moving eternally beneath the full moon, waves lapping the sand."

"Beautiful," I replied. "And so true. For me, Whitman’s confidence is like Beethoven’s. They were geniuses, creatively bursting at the seams. Their defiant laughter shakes the universe. These days especially, with the news dominated by petty minds cultivating lies, I think we should declare an international Whitman holiday and observe it for at least a year. During that time, we can take stock of ourselves, and perhaps emerge with a higher aim and purpose."

Of course, we go on like this all the time. But I still think about that holiday idea, as well as another John came up with: "I propose that all technological inventions be declared illegal for at least ten years, thereby giving us perhaps a chance to catch up a little bit. This time period may be extended if necessary."

William Michaelian has already prepared for the long nights, the rain and the snow: buy his book Winter Poems here.

Kendra Stanton Lee: John Elder Robison in Person

I have all sorts of expectations prior to hearing authors read in person. Of course I do. These people published something that someone other than their mothers bought. Somewhere, somehow, they charmed their publishers enough to promote their books. And now their names are listed in newspapers, searched for in library catalogues, and dropped by literati and booksellers alike. It’s enough to be a little bit self-impressed, no?

This was not the case for John Elder Robison, who recently read from his memoir Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's at Brookline Booksmith in Brookline, MA. The latter part of the title refers to Robison’s experience in growing up with a high-functioning form of autism. The former part of the title refers to “Aspergian’s” aversion to making eye contact.

Although the room was packed — I presume with your basic mix of book snobs, teachers and parents of Aspergians (or sisters, in my case), and retirees killing time — Robison seemed surprised, almost tickled that he had gathered such a group around the proverbial campfire.

Robison talked about his life as noted memoirist August Burrough’s older brother, about their dysfunctional upbringing, and about the social struggles he experienced as an Aspergian. He also dwelled on the fact that he had “done all this cool stuff” and even written a book, which he thought was “pretty cool, too!”

This reading was a very refreshing contrast to others I have attended. There was no author looking out at a sea of admirers, appearing smug, as though he expected as much. In this way, Robison defied my expectations.

What have been your experiences regarding meeting writers and artists in public settings? Who surprised you most?

Kendra Stanton Lee's poem "Saturday Chores" appears in Cosmopsis Quarterly 2.

William Michaelian: "Rain nails kiss the dance of the shiny road,"

a restless man named Kerouac once scribbled in his notebook. And now, more than fifty years later, I see a thousand tiny hammers hovering above the pavement and striking in rapid, silvery succession. Hammers without hands, lit from an unknown source — the sun tried and failed long ago, put out its last cigarette, they should have seen me in former years — the entire scene etched on the inside of an addict’s eyelid by Gustave Doré.

Recommended reading: Book of Sketches, by Jack Kerouac; Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, illustrated by Gustave Doré.

William Michaelian's work appears in Cosmopsis Quarterly 1; his two books of poetry are available from Cosmopsis Books.

Michael Lee Johnson: The Lost American

We are extremely proud to mention that Cosmopsis Quarterly 1 author Michael Lee Johnson has released a new book, The Lost American: From Exile To Freedom. You can obtain copies from iUniverse.

About the book
The Lost American is about one man’s journey into exile over the Vietnam War many years ago, his struggle, his survival, his road to recovery and strength manifesting itself through his prose and poems.

Daniel P. Barbare: Honey and Salt

As a poet, I like to visit Carl Sandburg's house. It's not too far from my home in Flat Rock, North Carolina. It sits high atop a hillside and overlooks the Blue Ridge Mountains. In the valley below is a peaceful pond my sister and I saw once in the wintertime when it was frozen over. And I remember visiting to get a book signed by the poet's granddaughter. I don't have a specific favorite among Sandburg's books, but I've always had Honey and Salt and Chicago Suite.

Daniel P. Barbare's poem "The Garden" appears in Cosmopsis Quarterly 2.

Sheri R. Watson: The Dance Between Creativity and Self-destruction

I have a friend, well, not exactly a “friend,” but somewhere between my-friend’s-friend-I-am-acquainted-with to someone who might call me if he needs a sounding board “friend,” who really is one of the best writers I know. However, he writes projects so personally and philosophically referential that he misses one of the main points of writing, which is to connect with the “human condition.” In truth, he is trying to die, and that is reflected in his dissociation with even lofty goals of appealing to someone, anyone, at all, somewhere on the planet.

He reminds me of the backgrounds I have read or heard of, of so many writers. Plath, Sexton, Hemingway...who struggled with the strain of the art form and production in some tremendous way. Yet there is a difference. He could have the world by its feet and the tiger by the tail when it comes to coping in normal ways with his incredible mind and beautiful command and power of the written word. The options today are quite different than what were available at the time of even Plath and Sexton. Yet, he refuses to envision some sort of peace within and without himself, preferring to ruin what he so proudly cultivates in real and imminent destruction.

It’s not that he just drinks; he drinks to die. He works fiercely and ferociously on writing projects that are in the throes of massive imbibing of beer and tequila when conceived and carried out. He is in one of the saddest human conditions there is, the kind where he knows better and knows his options, and refuses to change. It’s not like people who are born into no hope, such as in Africa for example, and have no control over outside circumstances. It is a world and projection where what he prizes most is executed every night by the dark, dark Executioner of—himself. What gives him incredibly warped salvation is his curse, because in some odd way he really does care about leaving a legacy to the world, yet he cannot grasp the human connection of it to touch someone else, even himself, and thus it creates a horrible monster of expression that will isolate him even further, though he is so proud of it.

My mother pushed me for years to go into writing, some kind of written art, as a profession. I knew the realities of venturing into such a career, and made up my mind not to lose the pure pleasure of writing in the pursuit of “fame” and money. I read years later biographical information on Sexton and Plath, and knew, from my own fragile mental health, that the strain of such, even if I were talented enough to make it, an obsessively lived life, would kill me much as it did them.

My “friend,” M, chooses a path I dare not take, wouldn’t want to take even if it suited me. I may not be a famous, wealthy or prolific writer, but I am grounded, healthy and happy, and love to write when I want, about what I want and how I want, with clarity and focus and most of all true, uncolored, untainted joy. I can only wonder what “M” might have accomplished, whom he would have connected with and how if only he did not live in an altered world.

You can find Sheri R. Watson's work "Canvasback Ducks" in Cosmopsis Quarterly 2.

William Michaelian: Thoreau's "Sounds"

It has long been my feeling that the universe operates on a musical principle — that it is, in fact, a song. Consider the following excerpt from the fourth chapter of Walden:

Sometimes, on Sundays, I heard the bells, the Lincoln, Acton, Bedford, or Concord bell, when the wind was favorable, a faint, sweet, and, as it were, natural melody, worth importing into the wilderness. At a sufficient distance over the woods this sound acquires a certain vibratory hum, as if the pine needles in the horizon were the strings of a harp which it swept. All sound heard at the greatest possible distance produces one and the same effect, a vibration of the universal lyre, just as the intervening atmosphere makes a distant ridge of earth interesting to our eyes by the azure tint it imparts to it. There came to me in this case a melody which the air had strained, and which had conversed with every leaf and needle of the wood, that portion of the sound which the elements had taken up and modulated and echoed from vale to vale. The echo is, to some extent, an original sound, and therein is the magic and charm of it. It is not merely a repetition of what was worth repeating in the bell, but partly the voice of the wood — the same trivial words and notes sung by a wood-nymph.

You can find William Michaelian's two books of poetry at cosmopsis.com/michaelian.

Cosmopsis Quarterly 2 is now available!

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