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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Readers say *On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous* is a deeply poetic, emotionally raw novel that explores identity, family, and queerness through nonlinea...
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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
I’m gonna say right away, I have a hard time talking about this book. More than anything, I had a hard time pinning it down and trying to figure out my own feelings towards it.
So much so, until I really sat down and confronted myself on what it’s even about – that even though it’s not that complicated, I couldn’t have even told you that much. It’s an overwhelming work that’s struck me dumb – and I’ve created for myself a problem in forcing myself to talk about it honestly.
A few years ago I’d decided to participate in NaNoWriMo, but at the same time, happened to be reading Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, which I found her use of language and idea so much more vastly brilliant, I found myself “tongue-tied,” discouraged, and pathetic. I lost my enthusiasm for my own story because I knew I could never compete. Yes, I knew then, and now, that that’s silly. Atwood is probably one of the greatest writers of the era, and it should have nothing to do with what I had to say – I know as well as anyone else that creativity isn’t a competition. But, as they say, it was too hard an act to follow – even if the stage was all in my head.
Ocean Vuong is like that: I’m humbled and inadequate before someone who’s use of his second language is so beautiful, I can’t even summon the words for it in my first language.
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is quite literally, a letter to the author’s mother. Or rather, his matriarchs. It is “autofiction,” which I’d never knew had a name until now (auto-biography wrapped up in fiction). The layout – and reason, I guess, why this book baffled me so much is because it is written like a bunch of memories that pour out from you. It’s not linear. If anything, it’s circular.
Little Dog, as he is called, describes his life as a poor Vietnamese immigrant growing up in nail salons where his illiterate Mother works, being raised by his grandmother who suffers from dementia and schizophrenia, and falling in love with the broken grandson of the tobacco farmer he spent his Summers working for.
This novel is told in Kishotenketsu, which is ultimately a means to say – there is no conflict, heroes, or villains. At least, not in the traditionally Western sense. Poverty, madness, homosexuality – desperation – are textures to the story. No one is really to blame, though the grudge is with Mother Rose, who will never read this book even though it is intended for her. As a matter of fact, a friend sent me an article written about the book and it’s author printed shortly before the book was published. In it, we find out that Ocean Vuong’s mother had recently been diagnosed with cancer. The timing, the closure – if that is the correct word for it – is almost a prank from God, though having worked her life in a nail salon inhaling toxic fumes, it was always inevitable.
This book is obviously brilliant, but I admit to my own shortcomings as a reader who is a Caucasian woman living in America. I know that it resonates the most with other readers who have had a similar background as it’s author. As such, it is a very important, diamond of a book. More so, as it exposes poverty in an intimate way that will jar many of it’s readers.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
If you enjoyed this review, you can find it and others like it here.
So much so, until I really sat down and confronted myself on what it’s even about – that even though it’s not that complicated, I couldn’t have even told you that much. It’s an overwhelming work that’s struck me dumb – and I’ve created for myself a problem in forcing myself to talk about it honestly.
A few years ago I’d decided to participate in NaNoWriMo, but at the same time, happened to be reading Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, which I found her use of language and idea so much more vastly brilliant, I found myself “tongue-tied,” discouraged, and pathetic. I lost my enthusiasm for my own story because I knew I could never compete. Yes, I knew then, and now, that that’s silly. Atwood is probably one of the greatest writers of the era, and it should have nothing to do with what I had to say – I know as well as anyone else that creativity isn’t a competition. But, as they say, it was too hard an act to follow – even if the stage was all in my head.
Ocean Vuong is like that: I’m humbled and inadequate before someone who’s use of his second language is so beautiful, I can’t even summon the words for it in my first language.
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is quite literally, a letter to the author’s mother. Or rather, his matriarchs. It is “autofiction,” which I’d never knew had a name until now (auto-biography wrapped up in fiction). The layout – and reason, I guess, why this book baffled me so much is because it is written like a bunch of memories that pour out from you. It’s not linear. If anything, it’s circular.
Little Dog, as he is called, describes his life as a poor Vietnamese immigrant growing up in nail salons where his illiterate Mother works, being raised by his grandmother who suffers from dementia and schizophrenia, and falling in love with the broken grandson of the tobacco farmer he spent his Summers working for.
This novel is told in Kishotenketsu, which is ultimately a means to say – there is no conflict, heroes, or villains. At least, not in the traditionally Western sense. Poverty, madness, homosexuality – desperation – are textures to the story. No one is really to blame, though the grudge is with Mother Rose, who will never read this book even though it is intended for her. As a matter of fact, a friend sent me an article written about the book and it’s author printed shortly before the book was published. In it, we find out that Ocean Vuong’s mother had recently been diagnosed with cancer. The timing, the closure – if that is the correct word for it – is almost a prank from God, though having worked her life in a nail salon inhaling toxic fumes, it was always inevitable.
This book is obviously brilliant, but I admit to my own shortcomings as a reader who is a Caucasian woman living in America. I know that it resonates the most with other readers who have had a similar background as it’s author. As such, it is a very important, diamond of a book. More so, as it exposes poverty in an intimate way that will jar many of it’s readers.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
If you enjoyed this review, you can find it and others like it here.
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