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A review by beckyjc
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
I wanted to try this book as I haven't read much about the Vietnam war and its impact on families in fiction, and I heard that this author has a heartbreaking real-life background that influenced this story.
There are a lot of heavy themes here: surviving war and occupation, domestic violence, immigration and racism, homophobia, drug addiction, death, animal cruelty....I think this is the book for which I've listed the most content warnings on this site! Any book that contains such harrowing subject matter is always going to be tough going at times, and this is no exception. The sheer weight of the post-traumatic stress on show here can be very oppressive. And I don't think I've come across a scene that disgusted me as much as the monkey brain scene since 'The Wasp Factory'.
But Vuong does have a lyrical and reflective writing style that manages to lift the bleak and harsh reality that is depicted above the gratuitous and offensive. Some of the passages are stunning and I paused a few times to re-read a powerful sentence that grabbed me. There is the wry, jaded wisdom that is often found in the voices of writers who understand grief and extreme suffering only by experience. But there is also beauty too. Sometimes this feels a little jarring and the prose can get overly stylised. I discovered afterwards that Vuong is also a poet and that makes a lot of sense. I felt like he lost me a bit at times, and I became a bit unmoored, but he didn't remain in this register for too long. His complicated feelings for his mother and his burgeoning desire for Trevor are described in ways that can stray towards high-mindedness but stop before becoming too exclusionist.
My overall impression was to veer between feeling present and witness to the narrator's experiences, and untethered, unsure of the direction - which is quite fitting given the narrator's own turmoil and his expressed intention that he is writing in English to his mother who cannot read or speak the language. This can lend a detached feeling to the writing, as if presented in full knowledge that it will never reach its target readership. This can be both freeing and stifling.
An impressive piece of writing, and a good representation of the dark underbelly of the American Dream. Now for something a bit cheerier!
There are a lot of heavy themes here: surviving war and occupation, domestic violence, immigration and racism, homophobia, drug addiction, death, animal cruelty....I think this is the book for which I've listed the most content warnings on this site! Any book that contains such harrowing subject matter is always going to be tough going at times, and this is no exception. The sheer weight of the post-traumatic stress on show here can be very oppressive. And I don't think I've come across a scene that disgusted me as much as the monkey brain scene since 'The Wasp Factory'.
But Vuong does have a lyrical and reflective writing style that manages to lift the bleak and harsh reality that is depicted above the gratuitous and offensive. Some of the passages are stunning and I paused a few times to re-read a powerful sentence that grabbed me. There is the wry, jaded wisdom that is often found in the voices of writers who understand grief and extreme suffering only by experience. But there is also beauty too. Sometimes this feels a little jarring and the prose can get overly stylised. I discovered afterwards that Vuong is also a poet and that makes a lot of sense. I felt like he lost me a bit at times, and I became a bit unmoored, but he didn't remain in this register for too long. His complicated feelings for his mother and his burgeoning desire for Trevor are described in ways that can stray towards high-mindedness but stop before becoming too exclusionist.
My overall impression was to veer between feeling present and witness to the narrator's experiences, and untethered, unsure of the direction - which is quite fitting given the narrator's own turmoil and his expressed intention that he is writing in English to his mother who cannot read or speak the language. This can lend a detached feeling to the writing, as if presented in full knowledge that it will never reach its target readership. This can be both freeing and stifling.
An impressive piece of writing, and a good representation of the dark underbelly of the American Dream. Now for something a bit cheerier!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual content, Grief, and Abortion
Moderate: Alcoholism, Cancer, Child abuse, Homophobia, Racism, Violence, Car accident, and War