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A review by nerdese
The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
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.
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
Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, Dementia
Moderate: Xenophobia, Suicide attempt, Abandonment
Minor: Forced institutionalization, Death of parent