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The Romance of Being Unreadable
In his debut novel, Ocean Vuong took pains to be illegible, then blamed the reader for reading. In his new book, he is finally ready to talk.
In fact, all prose carries within it a ghost of poetry that can be glimpsed only when language breaks down — as when the expat poet of Lerner’s novel Leaving the Atocha Station realizes that his poor Spanish listening skills allow him to “dwell among possible referents” without settling on a single fixed meaning. Its narrator speaks in a warm first-person plural; like the stage manager of Our Town, he ruefully directs the reader’s attention around the weary map: “Turn right at Conway’s Sugar Shack, gutted and shuttered, with windows blown out and the wooden sign that reads WE SWEETEN SOON AS THE CROCUS BLOOM, rubbed to braille by wind.” There is the hard thwack of reality here. It recalls the found poem Vuong once fashioned from his mother’s Amazon purchase history: “Saviland Holographic Gold Nail Powder, 6 colors / Nescafé Taster’s Choice Instant Coffee / Advil (ibuprofen), 4 pack / PIXNOR Pedicure Double-Sided Callus Remover.” It turns out that capitalism “naturally” produces a kind of poetic language sucked dry of referentiality.
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