“But that act (a son teaching his mother) reversed our hierarchies, and with it our identities, which, in this country, were already tenuous and tethered.”
I love the moment where a certain line makes you catch your breath and pause, taking the time to soak in the sentence. Ocean Vuong provides that experience consistently throughout On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, gifting the reader chapter after chapter of breath-taking sentences.
Written as a long-form letter to his illiterate mother, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is an account, confession, and reflection written by Little Dog as he puts down on paper all the things he could never verbalize to her.
The story weaves back and forth between timelines and countries as Little Dog reflects on how the lives of his mother and grandmother in Vietnam during the war shaped them and, in return, impacted him. The novel unpacks family relationships and illuminates the realities of immigrant life in America, slowly coloring in the picture of Little Dog’s life and the elements that shaped him.
The writing is lyrical, poetic, and absolutely gorgeous. With his other work being poems, this is Vuong’s first novel and his natural gift of painting images and articulating emotions is breathtaking. The beautiful language contrasted sharply with some of the harder topics the narrator grapples with such as war, immigration, and homosexuality, but Vuong balances the elements delicately throughout.
It’s been a while since I’ve read a novel that was so poetic and, for me, it felt like a breath of fresh air. It was a refreshing change of pace from my usual fiction and I appreciated how often it made me pause and reflect, either on Little Dog’s life or my own.
Personal rating: 8/10
Recommend? I’d strongly suggest giving it a go, even if it’s not your usual cup of tea
Re-read? Hopefully at some point
Time: 1:40
Bonus content because I also learned not to start sentences with ‘because’:
“I am writing because they told me to never start a sentence with because. But I wasn’t trying to make a sentence–I was trying to break free. Because freedom, I am told, is nothing but the distance between the hunter and its prey.”