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A review by gaypoetree
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
wa wa wa wa waaaaaa. I love poets! I LOVE POETS!!!!! I AM CRYING OVER HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Let me start by saying: when some people criticize the book as “too lyrical,” I understand and in some sense even agree. There are definitely lines in there that feel like they were inserted just because they sound poetic (though Vuong perhaps mocks this himself at one point, saying “that meant nothing but you have it now”), but that is very few lines in an almost frustratingly tightly-woven work. In some sense, those lines were a relief to me. I could brush something aside.
I don’t seek to rate books by perfection; that’s silly. Five stars, to me, is a work that made me consider the world in new ways, feel big feelings, and that I would– WILL– eagerly return to again and again. Check, check, check. Five-star book. The only book I own that is more dog-eared or underlined than this is the book that I used while writing my undergrad capstone.
To avoid this being too long, let me rest on what truly impressed me about the novel, and what edges it into prose poem territory in my mind: the very basic structure of the story reflects its overwhelmingly myriad and complex themes. I don’t just mean the way the switch between tenses relates to the conflict of switching between languages with different relationships to time, or how the invocation of parataxis as a poetic form also renders the characters as different images somehow modifying one another. I mean the little things, too. Theme: writing as a form of liberation that, yet, was given to the narrator by the oppressive culture. Expression: a repeated callback to beginning sentences with “and” or “because” (a thing he was taught never to do) in moments of resistance or of joy. Theme: navigating multiple languages of care, some of which are at odds with each other, often all at once. Expression: The abandonment of the epistolary form into something more obviously poetic when the narrator begins to speak of a personal trauma which is not familial, which his mother does not necessarily share.
I need to stop before I get too excited again. Yeah dude. Good book!
Let me start by saying: when some people criticize the book as “too lyrical,” I understand and in some sense even agree. There are definitely lines in there that feel like they were inserted just because they sound poetic (though Vuong perhaps mocks this himself at one point, saying “that meant nothing but you have it now”), but that is very few lines in an almost frustratingly tightly-woven work. In some sense, those lines were a relief to me. I could brush something aside.
I don’t seek to rate books by perfection; that’s silly. Five stars, to me, is a work that made me consider the world in new ways, feel big feelings, and that I would– WILL– eagerly return to again and again. Check, check, check. Five-star book. The only book I own that is more dog-eared or underlined than this is the book that I used while writing my undergrad capstone.
To avoid this being too long, let me rest on what truly impressed me about the novel, and what edges it into prose poem territory in my mind: the very basic structure of the story reflects its overwhelmingly myriad and complex themes. I don’t just mean the way the switch between tenses relates to the conflict of switching between languages with different relationships to time, or how the invocation of parataxis as a poetic form also renders the characters as different images somehow modifying one another. I mean the little things, too. Theme: writing as a form of liberation that, yet, was given to the narrator by the oppressive culture. Expression: a repeated callback to beginning sentences with “and” or “because” (a thing he was taught never to do) in moments of resistance or of joy. Theme: navigating multiple languages of care, some of which are at odds with each other, often all at once. Expression: The abandonment of the epistolary form into something more obviously poetic when the narrator begins to speak of a personal trauma which is not familial, which his mother does not necessarily share.
I need to stop before I get too excited again. Yeah dude. Good book!
Content Warnings
Graphic: War, Drug abuse, Addiction, Xenophobia, Terminal illness, and Violence
Moderate: Racism, Sexual content, Mental illness, and Homophobia
Minor: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Child abuse, and Domestic abuse