#114. "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz

There is something a bit frustrating about Juno Diaz's novel. From the first chapter, there is a clear and distinct understanding of voice. Few novels at the time had been written with such humor and insight quite like "The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," where a bilingual narrative detailed the concept of bad luck (or "fuku") over generations and across the immigration experience. Alongside dictatorship is studies of comic book nerdery and the struggles for teen boys to have sex. This is a novel that should feel alive with purpose and, at times, reaches something that could be considered brilliant and even revolutionary. The issue is that Diaz has decided to use this technique to tell the story of a fairly uninteresting plot that never settles on anything brilliant. While that could be the point of its "brief and wondrous" title, it definitely holds it back from being this 21st century masterpiece, reflecting a perspective rarely seen in literary circles. It's unlike anything that's been seen, but it's also fairly uninspired outside of its style.
Diaz as a writer is someone who loves the use of language and narrative. He does so to the extent that he knows how to use diatribes and tangents that could work as their own story. Following in the steps of David Foster Wallace, he even uses notoriously long footnotes that detail their own subtext to the richer story. So much of this by itself is striking, allowing the reader to feel like they understand the narrator from a subconscious standpoint. He is an overactive imagination and loves history as well as comics, able to reflect something that is necessary in fiction. In theory, Oscar Wao as a character is someone who should be jumping off the page, becoming an immortal part of pop culture. He should be hard not to love, and yet this story isn't really about him.

It is and isn't the story of Oscar Wao, an overweight nerd who struggles to have a girlfriend. In general, this story is written from a very macho perspective that is a tad misogynist and never quite achieves anything of value throughout his run. Sure he is at times comic and even tragic in compelling ways, but it's clear that Diaz isn't totally interested in his struggles. He decides to tell dozens of other tales alongside Wao's, finding intergenerational conflicts butting with relationships between gangsters and their girlfriends. So much feels alive with ideas that would make their own decent story, but together they are at best a thematic overlay, something that sounds similar to fuku. The issue is that because they're all tangents, there's so much that doesn't directly forward the plot.

Those wanting a story that stays in motion will be sorely disappointed. This isn't Wao's journey for almost half of the runtime. Diaz doesn't even seem like he cares about him due to the lack of sympathy they build for him. Sure the bilingual slang and vulgarity makes for a fun and organic read, but the ultimate message of "life's a bitch and then you die" does little when there's no sympathy to be derived or even a sense of untapped potential. Wao isn't interesting compared to the other characters who come and go with such frequency. He is just there, and it's a bummer that Diaz wastes his talents on him. So little matters by the end because the reader is too invested in tangents that derail the pacing and maybe make them forget what the greater story even is. 

"The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" is a novel that opens with a quote from Gallactus and a whole lot of insincere jeers that feel alive with personality, and yet everything that follows feels like it's compensating. There's little here that feels essential to a greater point. At most, these are all unfinished short stories sloppily assembled to make a greater point. Some could argue it symbolizes the immigrant experience, and maybe it does. Still, this is a writer too eager to impress that he forgets to tell a story worth all the attention. It's tedious even during its most stylish, and that's a shame. For a text that has so much good going for it, it's a shame how little lands as a profound work of art.