On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous: A Novel
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one’s own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.
With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.
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On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
242 pages
What’s it about?
Their is no mistaking that Ocean Vuong is a gifted poet. This is his first novel. The book is written in the form of a letter- from a son to his mother. It explores the complicated relationship between “little dog” and his Vietnamese mother and grandmother. It is about being heard in a world that does not want to acknowledge you. It is about the power of endurance.
What did it make me think about?
How War changes not just the generation that lives through it, but generations to come.
Should I read it?
This was an uneven book for me. The writing is poetic and beautiful but the story is told in different rhythms . That may be just what Ocean Vuong was going for but it made for a different reading experience. At times the sheer sadness of this story made it hard to read. Some might be bothered by the graphic gay love story. I myself found this relationship integral to the story... I would recommend this coming of age story to anyone who likes a poetic novel.
Quote-
There’s a word Trevor once told me about, one he learned from Buford, who served in the Navy in Hawaii during the Korean War: kipuka. The piece of land that’s spared after a lava flow runs down the slope of a hill- an island formed from what survives the smallest apocalypse. Before the lava descended, scorching the moss along the hill, that piece of land was insignificant, just another scrap in an endless mass of green. Only by enduring does it earn its name. Lying on the mat with you, I cannot help but want us to be our own kipuka, our own aftermath, visible. But I know better.”
If you liked this try-
*A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Exit West by Moshin Hamid
Girl At War by Sara Novic
The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko by Scott Stambach
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
242 pages
What’s it about?
Their is no mistaking that Ocean Vuong is a gifted poet. This is his first novel. The book is written in the form of a letter- from a son to his mother. It explores the complicated relationship between “little dog” and his Vietnamese mother and grandmother. It is about being heard in a world that does not want to acknowledge you. It is about the power of endurance.
What did it make me think about?
How War changes not just the generation that lives through it, but generations to come.
Should I read it?
This was an uneven book for me. The writing is poetic and beautiful but the story is told in different rhythms . That may be just what Ocean Vuong was going for but it made for a different reading experience. At times the sheer sadness of this story made it hard to read. Some might be bothered by the graphic gay love story. I myself found this relationship integral to the story... I would recommend this coming of age story to anyone who likes a poetic novel.
Quote-
There’s a word Trevor once told me about, one he learned from Buford, who served in the Navy in Hawaii during the Korean War: kipuka. The piece of land that’s spared after a lava flow runs down the slope of a hill- an island formed from what survives the smallest apocalypse. Before the lava descended, scorching the moss along the hill, that piece of land was insignificant, just another scrap in an endless mass of green. Only by enduring does it earn its name. Lying on the mat with you, I cannot help but want us to be our own kipuka, our own aftermath, visible. But I know better.”
If you liked this try-
*A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Exit West by Moshin Hamid
Girl At War by Sara Novic
The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko by Scott Stambach
Didn’t love. Heavy prose but found the audio irritating and couldn’t get into it. Started and stopped regularly.
I am incapable of capturing the power of this novel; of that I’m certain. Even to describe it broadly feels like a disservice. I would be inclined to say that it’s drawn in sketches, for instance, because it certainly doesn’t follow a set, linear path. But these passages don’t feel sketchy. They feel solid, inescapable even. In the same way, no character is fully drawn—we don’t even know some of the simplest details about them—and yet they feel deeply real.
Then, too, it’s a really challenging book. I don’t know if I’ve ever had such a hard time, emotionally, with an intimate book. Some of Toni Morrison’s work, I guess, but honestly even Beloved didn’t hit me this hard. And yet I never for a moment considered putting it down.
I’m also pretty sure I could read it a couple more times before I really wrapped my head around it, and at that point I might start to see some flaws. I don’t know if I’ll be up to that any time soon; for now, 10/10 almost doesn’t feel like enough.
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