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.