Reviews - De keizer van Gladness

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2.18k reviews for:

De keizer van Gladness

Ocean Vuong

4.26 AVERAGE

emilyshull06's review against another edition

3.5

reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

birdbird98's review against another edition

5.0

dark emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

kurzgebunden's review against another edition

2.5

Oh no. I kinda hate it. At its best this book is absolutely brilliant (

the scene in the slaughterhouse, my god

). Where this book falls short imo is in it's characters and giving relevance to the episodes is is describing. Nothing that happens has real consequences, both for the characters and the plot, apart from the occasional callback. Vuong spends so much time in creating this complex mother-son dynamic, but ends up doing nothing with it. This may work in a shorter book, but at 550 pages (german edition) this is insufficient for me. The characters feel crafted, like shells specifically made to serve a certain purpose. As soon as I understood their "purpose", the dynamic between them became annoyingly predictable and inhuman, which then lead to me not really caring about them, although the book constantly reminding me that I definetly should. Again, some scenes are nothing short but brilliant, but as a whole this book felt frustratingly shallow, hollow, nihilistic and inconsistent.

nerdese's review against another edition

4.5

dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Ocean's work is such a gift. I had the privilege of attending a launch event for this book and something he said will stick with me for a long time. In describing the inspiration behind Home Market at the characters who inhabit it, he said: "Boston Market is a sonnet." So much of what is really brilliant about this book is the quiet poetry of this type of service, the people who come day in, day out, who create an incredibly unique bond both in the monotony and the relentlessness of the work. These are workers that are so often marginalized and overlooked, but are fixtures of many towns like East Gladness. They are inextricable from that fabric and motion of those towns, and each have their own private battles. I think those scenes, those bonds, are where this novel is the strongest and most unique, and I love that it gives them a voice.

Something else Vuong said in the same conversation that in media and in his own work, he is often wants to see "transformation without change." That feels like a very apt descriptor for this novel, where there is dramatic transformation — most notably within Hai — when it may appear that from the outside, he is still in the same place he was. You can really feel how much of his own experience Vuong has imbued into Hai's relationship with Grazina (which he has described in interviews about her real-life counterpart) and how those brief flashes of life can irrevocably transform us, even if our station in life hasn't changed.

This novel has all the startlingly poetic descriptions of the mundane that I've come to love about Vuong's work. It's slowly placed, and while I didn't tear through it with quite as much gusto as I expected given how excited I was to read it, this may be a novel best savored slowly.

Content Warnings

arivroomvroom's review against another edition

3.0

emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

trees_and_birds's review against another edition

3.0

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

So desolate. The book is a 400 page description of the mundanity of poverty and mental illness. I really wanted to love this book because the author’s first novel was brilliant. But I was disappointed and it took a lot of effort to finish this one.