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A review by afroditi
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
3.0
This was a difficult book to go through. It is very emotional and traumatizing. I found myself stopping at times and switching to another book because it was too much for me. There is a vast variety of topics that are handled in this books and they are handled beautifully.
Why the three stars then you may ask after reading what I just wrote. The writing style did't always work for. There were absolutely beautiful moments like when the writer tries to explain the burden of the language. The women in his life are not fluent in english which puts a huge responsibility on little dog to translate for them. English is the only way to make them eligible and legible but the same language is growing the gap between them. There are other moments also, where I felt that the prose was too forced, the author trying to get profundity without saying much which made those parts not understandable. This type of language may work in poetry but it is not always working in novels. That is my main complaint about the book. My other complant is that because the books is written in vignettes the story feels at times incoherent. I understand that the purpose of the author was to write a fragmented story representing our memories, the way they come to us fragmented and in no chronological order. Still it the story left me wanting because it was incomplete.
I would definitely recommend this book. It is haunted and haunting, but I feel that despite its flaws it manages to transfere a huge amount of emotions, experiences and memories in such short space (the whole book is 189 pages). This is for me an admirable achievement.
Why the three stars then you may ask after reading what I just wrote. The writing style did't always work for. There were absolutely beautiful moments like when the writer tries to explain the burden of the language. The women in his life are not fluent in english which puts a huge responsibility on little dog to translate for them. English is the only way to make them eligible and legible but the same language is growing the gap between them. There are other moments also, where I felt that the prose was too forced, the author trying to get profundity without saying much which made those parts not understandable. This type of language may work in poetry but it is not always working in novels. That is my main complaint about the book. My other complant is that because the books is written in vignettes the story feels at times incoherent. I understand that the purpose of the author was to write a fragmented story representing our memories, the way they come to us fragmented and in no chronological order. Still it the story left me wanting because it was incomplete.
I would definitely recommend this book. It is haunted and haunting, but I feel that despite its flaws it manages to transfere a huge amount of emotions, experiences and memories in such short space (the whole book is 189 pages). This is for me an admirable achievement.