On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous: A Novel

This beautiful, lyrical novel is structured as a letter from a son to his mother. Little Dog is the son of a Vietnamese mother who traveled with her mother and sister from Vietnam after the war, settling in Connecticut. The son describes his life to his mother as he grows up, farming in a tobacco field, moving to go to college. This novel has received a lot of praise and I can confirm that it is worth every word. The sentences of this book are simply beautiful, strung together in a song that spans 240 pages. We learn of the life of Little Dog. Immigration and assimilation play huge roles in this story. These are immigrants who fade into the background of American life but play crucial roles in the web of society. The effects of the war in Vietnam echo through generations, from service men who father children then leave, to others who caused so much damage and pain. Another theme is sexuality. The narrator explores a relationship with another boy in this book. Their love is tenuous, complicated, and beautiful. There are truths spoken in this book that I’ve never read in another piece of fiction. Addiction plays a crucial role in the life of the narrator and those around him. We see a community ravaged by pills. I thought this book was incredibly moving and evocative. The whole time I read this book I thought of James Baldwin and how Vuong’s words were as poetic and descriptive as Baldwin’s. Reverberations of his work was confirmed when the author thanked Baldwin first in the acknowledgements. This book might not be for everyone. Some chapters are written as pure poetry. The novel is not linear nor plot driven, focusing on themes and emotion rather than a timeline of events, more like an intricate tapestry or abstract painting. Themes and elements and descriptions are woven together so the emotions are amplified and it really works well. I loved this book and hope many others have a chance to fall in love with it as well. ★★★★★ • Hardcover • Fiction - Literary • Purchased online. ◾︎

This was a great and quick read. In total it took me 5 hours to complete this book. This story is a story of an immigrant living and retelling the stories of the immigrants before him such as his mom and grandma. Beautifully written. Loved the portrayal of color. In the beginning of the book, the narrator describes colors to inanimate objects/feelings. As he grows older, other people begin to see him as his own skin color, hence they began to project their understanding of color on to him. Suddenly, color no longer describes an object/feeling but it becomes a weapon that divides people. Color becomes a tool that allows him to be put into a box before ever having the opportunity to give others a chance to know him. Color becomes his identity, as well as the identity of everyone around him. It’s also interesting how trauma affects not only those who lived through traumatic experiences, but also their children who will end up growing up with that trauma. The book has many themes including: • Race • Growing up as an American • Growing up with different cultural identities • Self Identity/Self Discovery • Generational Trauma • Inherited Trauma •Post war affects • Growing up bi racial • Complex parental relationships • Immigrants •Immigrants (due to war) •LGBT Things I disliked: Children having sex: Although the narrator is telling his story, and he is going back in time. I felt highly uncomfortable with the explicit scenes of minors having sex. There was no need to describe certain parts of the body as he did. Simply because of the fact that they were minors when this physical relationship happened. He could have easily mentioned how he felt instead of drawing explicit pictures for his audience. Neutral comment: Parts the story seemed messy, however I personally liked it and I understood it because that’s how my brain works. Making footnotes of footnotes. At the same time, it made sense for the story to be “messy” as he’s writing a letter to his mother. It’s not going to be neat. When you write a letter to your loved ones, many times you’re reminiscing about the old times, and so one memory will turn into another into another into another, and so it gives off the authentic vibes of a letter to someone close to you. You want them to remember the scene that you were at. As many have mentioned, this book isn’t for everyone. Overall, I rate this book 8.0279/10 It’s a great book, easy to read, and it brought me out of my reading hiatus!

Once in a while I read a book that I know will stay with me for years to come. The prose, as mentioned by other reviewers is beautiful. This is a book which is not easy to read at times, while at other times it is so beautiful I found myself swimming in the words, and images, and feelings. Some have criticized the novel for lacking a plot. I found the fragmented narrative style to be true to trauma narrative. Thus the factured narrative structure of the novel serves the overall impact of the novel As a chaplain who has worked a lot with trauma survivors, I felt Vuong's narratives were true to the experience of extended and multi-generational trauma. The narratives of people who have experienced trauma are often fragmented, not chronological, repetitive, visceral, and revealed layer by layer I feel reduced to adjectives as other reviewers who attempt to review this important novel The writing is raw, sensual, gut-wrenching, sexy, beautiful, over-whelming, frustrating, violent, affirming, hopeful, devastating, visceral, and filled with life and love. The main character of the story struggles to adequately share with his "Ma" his experience of growing up gay, Vietnamese-American, and abused in a society that relagates people in those categories invisible. Vuong does not shy away for the paradoxes, and contradictions. His mother is a nurturer and a monster. Trevor is a lover, a substance abuser, and abusive to the main character. Vuong's narrative is unflinching in it's treatment of the horrific abuse while avoiding devolving into a pity party. Trev is not only a victim of the opioid epidemic. He is also a teenager struggling with his sexuality and how to express his love. I highly recommend On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous.

This novel is deeply personal, written by an extremely sensitive man. I heard Vuong being interviewed by the NYT and I was so taken with his emotion that I wanted to read the book. Alas, this novel is not for me. Although its themes of war, immigration, coming of age, and death are very compelling and well written, there was graphic gay sex and many obscene words that, to my mind, do not make this book recommendable or to be lauded. Also, the storyline is not linear and with no division of different times and places, I was confused which made the book difficult to understand. Plus, the similes just don’t make sense although I realize that this narrative is more like poetry. Actually, the last 25 pages are the best. For the reasons listed above, I had to give this book only 3 stars.

Reading the reviews of this book here, I found a fascinating snapshot of who we are: richly feeling and yet constrained, open and still closed in mind and heart, welcoming and resolutely petty, loving but spiteful. The book itself was, for me, incandescent, soaring to great heights, and crushing, dragging me as reader to terrible depths. In the balance, the book is a paean to beauty in all its forms--and beauty takes shapes that pierce the spirit with both pain and joy. Regarding literary sensibility, for me there are strains of Proust in the seemingly involuntary function of memory. Another reviewer related this to Whitman and I can absolutely understand why. The references to Barthes, Duchamp, etcetera are part of my regular lexicon of references (given my own work) so Vuong's literary allusions felt natural to me, though I could imagine others growing discontent with the exposure to the unfamiliar--when they don't wish to be sidetracked by new ideas. For me that was always a joy in reading a well-read writer (e.g., Eco or Borges). Vuong loves language with a passion; that is obvious. His ardor sings. The tune is a sometimes a dithyramb, often an elegy, occasionally a hymn, and at times a heartbreaking lament. If I were to offer a criticism of faults, there were a few moments of uneveness of quality in parts II and III. But these seemed exceedingly minor to me in the context of the total work. The book is not for everyone. I write that in manner similar to saying that Joyce isn't for everyone. Readers who claim the book is bad because they couldn't understand it, because Vuong doesn't follow a straight line or leave a clear thread in the labyrinth for them to follow are claiming a rather pedestrian criterion for a universal judgment. By that measure, "Finnegans Wake" is a crime against humanity! Here's a thought: "I don't like this sort of writing" is a very different statement from "this is bad writing." The former is wholly understandable and might just be a matter of individual taste. The latter is a declaration of critical finality, the rightful domain of consensus and posterity. And to those who recoiled in homophobic disgust, I beg you to try opening yourself up to the world as others live it. I'm a straight white male, so I share neither the same sexual desires nor experiences of America (or world) as the author, but allowing myself to empathize with the characters Vuong writes only makes the scope of human understanding that much broader for me. To feel like some agenda is being pushed upon one here is less a reflection on author, publisher, or reviewers than upon one's own defense mechanisms and inability to momentarily leave a world that only affirms only a dominant narrative that reflects one's own experiences. The abuse of the narrator and other figures, the violence against animals: these things are horrific and abject, yes. But they are also a part of life. As part of life they are subjects of poetic reflection; life is not all happy songs and roses, why should art be? I remember someone complaining that Goya's "Disasters" were so horrific as to render his art bad, or not art at all. Most of us would find that idea risible, but I see the sentiment repeated here. Turning our backs on brutality is to give it access to us unchecked and unexamined. The violence in "On Earth," never felt gratuitous to me nor aestheticized for the sake of glorifying violence or excusing it. Rather, it seemed to me that Vuong explored the ambivalences of our brutality, our ability to be loving, caring monsters, beautiful and horribly flawed. Anyhow, I loved the book and recommend it if you are looking for a read that with at once enthrall and challenge you. I read it in one sitting, so I can say that Vuong captured something profound and compelling for me, personally. I honestly find it hard to believe how young he is; there is a wealth of experience and reflection here that is seemingly beyond his years. I look forward to his future endeavors.

In April 2022, the book discussion group at the LGBT Center in NYC was in almost universal agreement about this poetic memoir-novel, with only some minor disagreement about whether this is a four-and-a-half-star or full-five-star work. Everyone was wild about the brilliant and colorfully impressionistic writing - completely over the top. Bob compared the writing to the complexity of a millefleur paperweight. While I'm a sucker for this sort of literary folderol, a few of us thought that it might be too poetic at times, and that a bit ugly language might be better to describe the Vietnamese war or some of Little Dog's abuse. We talked about the animal metaphors: the taxidermied deer in the rest area, the trapped monkey, the caged veal calves, the Monarch butterflies that fly in one direction (only the children return), the buffalo who fall off the cliff (search for David Wojanrowicz's buffalo image) and, of course, Little Dog, himself. "On Earth..." presents the truly poor, the working impoverished. It also shows Vietnam and the war from the point of the invaded Vietnamese, and shows Little Dog as a true outsider: "Keep your head down. Stay invisible. You're already Vietnamese." Racism is common. Little Dog's boyfriend Trevor is also from an impoverished and alcohol-addled broken home (literally, a falling apart trailer). The intergenerational trauma extends across all the families in the novel. Heterosexuality gets a bad rap, too; there are no intact straight families to be found. This is not a coming out story. Little Dog and Trevor find each other and explore their sexuality. When Little Dog tells his mother that he's gay, she accepts it as she accepts so many other things she doesn't understand. All the humor is midnight dark: the women at the nail salon, one with the dead horse and the other with one leg; the taxidermied deer in the rest area; and Lan's dentures after she dies. Facts are dropped into the novel, both about the Oxy epidemic of overdoses and the multi-racial outsider hero Tiger Woods. It reminds us that these stories are real. The novel is built on the themes of escape, memory, and language. It is full of floating fragments, perhaps too many fragments at times, too jumpy, too overlapping and spiral without enough story, and overly metaphoric at times, but beautiful and authentic, all at the same time.

This book is marketed as a debut novel by a rising and increasingly acclaimed poet, Ocean Vuong. But that’s a little misleading. It is a stream of consciousness memoir written in very poetic terms. Some of the writing is fantastic: “It was everything I hid from, everything that made me want to be a sun, the only thing I knew that had no shadow.” Or, “Because the sunset, like survival, exists only on the verge of its own disappearing.” The stuff of poets. Great poets, actually. Some of the writing, however, was, well, not so fantastic: “And there, on the kitchen table, beside the gallon of milk on its side, the liquid coming down in white strings like a tablecloth in a nightmare…” Trying too hard on that one, I think. The themes of the book are pretty standard fare. The horror of war. (Vietnam) The sometimes horror of being an immigrant in the US. And coming out as a gay immigrant that doesn’t look like the people around him. Oh, and there is some parental abuse. I don’t agree with the reviewers who felt that the abuse and the sexuality deserve trigger warnings, however. I’m not much for trigger warnings to begin with but I thought the treatment of both subjects was really quite tame in this day and age. You can see much more graphic treatment on prime time television. I do agree with the reviewers, however, who felt that the author failed to plow any new ground. All of these themes have been explored rather exhaustively and a “highly anticipated debut novel,” as the publicity promised, should offer some new and unique insight. And this book, for me at least, didn't. I did give it a four, however, but not because I strongly recommend you run out and buy it. I gave it a four because I want to give the author enough confidence to write another one. I dare say he has “great novelist” in him somewhere. And I truly hope he finds it. As readers, we will all benefit.

I loved this book, from front to back. It’s been a long time since I’ve been so enamored with a book that I’ve struggled to put it down. This one I was attached to at the hip for days, even after finishing it. It is so beautifully poetic and thoughtful, so deep, and so authentic to the innate human experience of sensitive souls. I cannot wait to read more of his books and return to this one, time and time again. What a gem Ocean Vuong is!