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A review by tiltedpages
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
// On earth we're briefly gorgeous //
"Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you've been ruined."
"You once told me that the human eye is god's loneliest creation. How so much of the world passes through the pupil and still it holds nothing. The eye, alone in its socket, doesn't even know there's another one, just like it, an inch away, just as hungry, as empty."
"When does a war end? When can I say your name and have it mean only your name and not what you left behind?"
"They say nothing lasts forever but they're just scared it will last longer than they can love it."
"A person beside a person inside a life. That's called parataxis. That's called the future."
"If, relative to the history of our planet, an individual life is so short, a blink of an eye, as they say, then to be gorgeous, even from the day you're born to the day you die, is to be gorgeous only briefly."
"Do you remember the happiest day of your life? What about the saddest? Do you ever wonder if sadness and happiness can be combined, to make a deep purple feeling, not good, not bad, but remarkable simply because you didn't have to live on one side or the other?"
"Everything good is always somewhere else."
"Sometimes, when I'm careless, I think survival is easy : you just keep moving forward with what you have or what's left of what you were given, until something changes - or you realize, at last, that you can change without disappearing, that all you had to do was wait until the storm passes you over and you find that - yes your name is still attached to a living thing."
"three people on the floor, connected to each other by touch, made something like the word family."
If there is any book I would like to revisit, this one tops the list. It must've been beautiful with its lyrical rhythm and the absolute mundanity of a war-torn country and its memories cascading the depths of human minds. But as of now, I couldn't love it for the same reason. However, it left me with a hope, let me embrace the hope and come back.
"Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you've been ruined."
"You once told me that the human eye is god's loneliest creation. How so much of the world passes through the pupil and still it holds nothing. The eye, alone in its socket, doesn't even know there's another one, just like it, an inch away, just as hungry, as empty."
"When does a war end? When can I say your name and have it mean only your name and not what you left behind?"
"They say nothing lasts forever but they're just scared it will last longer than they can love it."
"A person beside a person inside a life. That's called parataxis. That's called the future."
"If, relative to the history of our planet, an individual life is so short, a blink of an eye, as they say, then to be gorgeous, even from the day you're born to the day you die, is to be gorgeous only briefly."
"Do you remember the happiest day of your life? What about the saddest? Do you ever wonder if sadness and happiness can be combined, to make a deep purple feeling, not good, not bad, but remarkable simply because you didn't have to live on one side or the other?"
"Everything good is always somewhere else."
"Sometimes, when I'm careless, I think survival is easy : you just keep moving forward with what you have or what's left of what you were given, until something changes - or you realize, at last, that you can change without disappearing, that all you had to do was wait until the storm passes you over and you find that - yes your name is still attached to a living thing."
"three people on the floor, connected to each other by touch, made something like the word family."
If there is any book I would like to revisit, this one tops the list. It must've been beautiful with its lyrical rhythm and the absolute mundanity of a war-torn country and its memories cascading the depths of human minds. But as of now, I couldn't love it for the same reason. However, it left me with a hope, let me embrace the hope and come back.