On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous: A Novel

I didn't know what to expect from this book, but was pleasantly surprised. Even though it is hard to read - it is beautifully written. Little Dog is writing a letter to his mother. He tells her his story and reveals some secrets about himself, his feelings, his love life, and his relationship with his grandfather. His mother was from Vietnam and came to the US seeking her lover. He discusses his life, and the way he was treated and how he came to experience love.
A short but powerful novel.

I am incapable of capturing the power of this novel; of that I’m certain. Even to describe it broadly feels like a disservice. I would be inclined to say that it’s drawn in sketches, for instance, because it certainly doesn’t follow a set, linear path. But these passages don’t feel sketchy. They feel solid, inescapable even. In the same way, no character is fully drawn—we don’t even know some of the simplest details about them—and yet they feel deeply real.

Then, too, it’s a really challenging book. I don’t know if I’ve ever had such a hard time, emotionally, with an intimate book. Some of Toni Morrison’s work, I guess, but honestly even Beloved didn’t hit me this hard. And yet I never for a moment considered putting it down.

I’m also pretty sure I could read it a couple more times before I really wrapped my head around it, and at that point I might start to see some flaws. I don’t know if I’ll be up to that any time soon; for now, five stars almost doesn’t feel like enough.

I was half way through this story when my beloved cat passed away.  I couldn't keep going with it while my emotions were so raw.

I’ve been stalling about writing a review for this book that might touch on a little of my reaction as a reader, appreciation as a writer and editor, and compassion as a human. I’m not sure that there are adequate words, but I’m equally unsure that there need to be, in the end.
If you get it, you really, really get it.

Ocean Vuong is a poet much like many vegans are vegan - you need to know it and to be told it and told it and told it.

I'll give two examples. "On the screen, a tiny red Mario jumped from platform to platform. If Mario fell off, he would have to start the level over, from the beginning. This was also called dying." First of all, is it called dying? And is it really profound to equate Mario's fall to death? Such profundity - or the attempt - is found not just on every page, but practically in every paragraph.

The second example: "I remember Red. Red. Red. Red. Your hands wet over mine. Red. Red. Red. Red." You know what it made me think of? Garth Marenghi. And that's not a compliment.

This is a book that attempts to talk about so much - homosexuality, the immigrant experience, addiction, domestic violence... for me, it's too much, especially in a book that tries so hard for poetic expressiveness. In fact, I'd go so far as to say this book is now a touchstone for me - if a book is recommended on its similarity in tone or style to 'On Earth...', I'll have to say thank you but no thank you. Life is just too brief.

incredible writing, just gorgeous.
but also so damn sad.

This book is creative and poetic, but the subject matter is grim. The narrative is in the form of a letter from a son to his mother. The son is a Vietnamese immigrant to the United States, where he has arrived with his mother, aunt, and grandmother. He looks back at some of his mother’s and grandmother’s experiences during and just after the War in Vietnam. It is a family history and gay coming of age story about memory, communication, abuse, first love, and loss. His mother cannot read, which makes the story read more like a diary, full of scenes remembered, fragments of memory, a releasing of pent-up painful feelings and frustrations of “Little Dog,” the writer.

I had mixed feelings about this book. It is very raw, and contains some extremely difficult material, such as scenes of child abuse, nightmarish animal cruelty, bullying, exceptionally graphic sex, PTSD, mental illness, prostitution, abortion, drug addiction, homophobia, racism, and death. While I appreciate the artistry of the book, I don’t feel it held together well as a novel, as if the author is trying to impart too much in too few words. The figurative language occasionally detracts from the message. It felt more like reading poetry than a cohesive story, and perhaps that was the point, but it was so primal and intimate that it made me feel very uncomfortable reading it, almost like an invasion of privacy. I know it is supposed to be fiction, but it still felt that way. I appreciated this book, but the topics were too intense for me.

Samples of the writing style:
“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?”

“All this time I told myself we were born from war—but I was wrong, Ma. We were born from beauty. Let no one mistake us for the fruit of violence—but that violence, having passed through the fruit, failed to spoil it.”

“I am thinking of beauty again, how some things are hunted because we have deemed them beautiful. 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.”

So beautifully written about such painful and difficult things. I could read it only in small pieces at a time.

“A woman, a girl, a gun. This is an old story, one anyone can tell. A trope in a movie you can walk away from if it weren’t already here, already written down.”
“They have a pill for it. They have an industry. They make millions. Did you know people get rich off of sadness? I want to meet the millionaire of American sadness. I want to look him in the eye, shake his hand, and say, ‘It’s been an honor to serve my country.’”
“A page, turning, is a wing lifted with no twin, and therefore no flight. And yet we are moved.”
A prose poem about being a Vietnamese American, about being gay, about family, opioid addiction, poverty and violence, and beauty.

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous follows Little Dog through a letter to his mother. His whole life, he has lived in a limbo between two different cultures and languages, which have hindered his ability to connect with his mother. So, he uses this letter, despite his mother being illiterate, to create a form of connection with her through language, which he has never been able to fully achieve.

The writing is exquisite and beautiful, filled with poetry, prose, and musings on life and human connections. It works really well at showing the disconnect Little Dog has with language and communicating, specifically with his mother.

I listened to this on audiobook, and I will absolutely be purchasing this book so I can re-read and annotate it.

Trigger warnings:
- Drug abuse/addiction
- Vietnam war
- Animal abuse
- Homophobia
- Xenophobia/racism
- Abuse (domestic, child, sexual)

Having finished reading this novel, On Earth we're briefly gorgeous, one looks back at its poetic title and wonders what it means. Like the words and the story elements in the novel it seems the five words that make up the title are each beautiful, and they are seemingly connected; they seemingly suggest an ideal state that we might long for, but more likely these five words are disconnected, they are simply suspended in the air.

Reading On Earth we're briefly gorgeous, you also have to recall the time frame of the Vietnam War. Since it took place before I was born, and ended during my early youth, nonetheless, the images of the boat refugees is clearly in my mind. Significant dates and the start of the conflict as early as 1955, the end of American involvement in 1973 and the fall of Saigon in 1975, and the subsequent migration crisis of the Vietnamese boat people from its height in the late 1970s till the beginning of the 1990s. In as far as On Earth we're briefly gorgeous autobiographical, that means that the flight it set in that final decade of the late 1980s.

Much of the story is quite horrible. Little Dog, as the main character is dubbed, has made a narrow escape, but misery follows his. The history of his grandmother, the troubles of his mother which also beset Little Dog in the new land, as he often needs to solve their problem follow him wherever he goes. In fact, the misery left behind in Vietnam is only replaced by different misery in the new land. A brief moment of bliss and love is foreshortened by his lover's death from drug abuse.

Little Dog is in the centre of all this misery. Still, all is dressed in the most beauteous, poetic language. Beauty, in the form of language: poetry, beautiful language surrounds him. It is where he turns to find relief. None in his family could read, but from the age of 11 Little Dog manages to read. Writing becomes the way to deal with his life's misery. The book, though not in linear chronological order, is a letter, written to his mother.

Words to say to family who will never see them

Lyrical debut, memoir-like in dealing with generational traumas.

I read this on the kindle app, so unfortunately I was inconsistent in steady reading so next time, I'll try to not have month long gaps between sessions.

Absolutely love the beautiful writing style.

"The piano drips its little notes, like rain dreaming itself whole."
What?
"The smell of sewage from the water plant stung my eyes just before the wind did with it what it does with the names of the dead, swept it behind me."
Ok, but wot?
"Because someone opened their mouth and built a structure with words and now I am doing the same time each time I see my hands and think table, think beginnings."
Hahaha, wot tho?

This book didn't speak to me at all. I really didn't connect with a lot of the metaphors and images, and there were a lot of metaphors and images. The book is self-consciously literary, both in the prose and in the refusal to just tell the story. Maybe those who loved it found that the non-linear structure reflected the nonlinear nature of memory, or something, but I wasn't remembering these events, I was reading about them. I would frequently get a paragraph or two into a section before I figured out who was who. The scene involving the author's grandmother in Vietnam was a mess of analepsis and prolepsis and more or less incomprehensible to me. To be fair, I wasn't exactly toiling to understand at that point because it didn't really seem to matter who was who because they were all really sad all the time. Any good book needs at least one laugh and this book had none. There is absolutely no humour or even wit in the pages.

I stuck with the book because it kept threatening to open out into a story, with each chapter slightly better than the last. Then the last three or four chapters were just mush. After each one I thought, "Ok, well at least that's over," assuming the remainder of the e-book was taken up with book club questions and other stuff, as they sometimes are. As it turned out, each time there was more, like in one of those Hollywood movies when they tie up every bow and the hero kisses the girl, then they cut to them getting married, now they have children for some reason, now they're burying the emotionally significant thing at the tree in the place, thank god there's the credits.

I wouldn't rule out reading another book by Ocean Vuong, but I would be poised to put it down on every one of the first hundred pages.

Needs more jokes.

How to describe this book and give it the credit it is due? It is beautiful and poetic and atmospheric and difficult in equal measures. It is described as a letter from a son to a mother but it feels more like a poem. There are so many turns of phrase that danced off the page which makes sense when you discover Vuong is a poet and he brings this lyricism to every word.

Vuong tells the story of 'Little Dog' in a series of snippets from his life and the lives of the (mostly) women around him. Covering everything from the Vietnam war to falling in love with a local boy. The narrative is broken and in that we see the brokenness of Little Dog and his family in a stark, raw honesty. But it is not a traditional narrative. There is no overarching plot . This is a mix of personal story, sexual coming of age, war and immigrant life. I can't help feel that the beauty of it would only deepen with every re-read.

Digital audiobook read by the author
3.5*** (rounded up)

A young Vietnamese man, now living in America, writes a letter to his mother who cannot read. In it he relates a short family history –his grandmother, mother and himself – and pours his heart out to the woman he calls both a mother and a monster. He tells of his grandmother Lan’s life as a sex worker during the Vietnam War, which resulted in her pregnancy. Her daughter, Rose, named for a flower, later gave birth to a son, whom they call “Little Dog” hoping to trick demon spirits who might otherwise harm a cherished child. They come to America full of hope, but meet with harsh reality: language barriers, poverty, and discrimination.

Vuong uses a nonlinear storyline but weaves an intricate tapestry from Vietnam to Connecticut, incorporating his thoughts on war, racism, drugs, love, and culture. The author is a poet, and this novel has the ethereal feel of poetry, with some passages so beautiful as to take my breath away, and others so raw with pain as to make me wince, even cringe.

Vuong narrates the audiobook himself. I cannot imagine anyone else doing a better job of it.

Immigrant family transplanted from Vietnam with a son who is coming out and a mother who runs a nails shop...[in progress]

In this poetic, nonlinear narrative, the narrator - nicknamed Little Dog - writes a letter explaining his life to his mother, Hong.  The story is based on Vuong's own life, who like Little Dog is the grandchild of a Vietnamese woman and a white American soldier, emigrated to Hartford, Connecticut as a refugee, and is raised by a single mother.  The center of the narrative is Little Dog's teenage experience of coming out gay and his first relationship with a boy named Trevor.  The language in this book is beautifully deployed in describing ugly things, from Little Dog's grandmother Lan's experiences in the Vietnam War to Trevor's narcotics addiction. From the pain, Vuong is able to extract a novel of beauty.

The narrator, Little Dog, doesn't shy away from the uncomfortable parts of life: his, his friend's, his mother's. He also doesn't shy away from the beautiful parts of those same lives: it goes together, the beautiful and the uncomfortable.

The novel is imagist more than event-centred, a portrait of Little Dog's place in community and family. While there is a story, the pieces are told separately and lovingly gathered together, some not quite fitting with the others, hovering around the edges like a jigsaw puzzle partway assembled. In the end the picture comes clear, how each piece fits in with the others, and also separates from them, the corners and curves not quite matching. Maybe they matched better, at one time, and maybe some never did fit comfortably with the others. So a story, but more character driven than plot driven, with our understanding unfolding more than events being revealed or leading to an end.

It is tempting to read it as autobiographical. It's unclear how much is Vuong's intention, this invitation to map specifics from his novel to details of his life story, and how much that broad suggestion is lazy marketing. I tried to remind myself regularly, Vuong never says he is Little Dog. Though listening to some interviews (On Being pod, others), the parallels are clear between certain features of his life and Little Dog's life. Still, an author writing from personal experience is not the same as writing an autobiography. I hesitate to draw any conclusions about the meaning of the book as biography, or to make assumptions about Vuong's life based on the book.

Beautifully written, as promised. There are a couple scenes that will stay with me, but it didn't have a strong enough storyline to make me feel invested or interested the whole way through. I'm glad I read it though and would recommend it just for the quality of writing.

This is remarkable, and such beautiful writing. But Ocean Vuong's narration is what brings it to gorgeous-ness.

A young Vietnamese American man writes (or tries to write) a letter to his Mother. Since she doesn't read English, he knows from the start she'll never read the letter.

Moving backward and forward in time - much like our memories often do - the narrator "Little Dog" brings forward family memories from before he was born, from before his own Mother was born. And also replays parts of his life his Mother never knew.

The book is very emotionally powerful and so well written.

Beautiful beautiful prose. Imagery and rhythm. A needed voice and story. Full of emotion, centered on relationships, innovative structure. But I felt old reading this -- the urgencies and emotions are so youthful. May be a case of me not being its audience. Ultimately I did not think the epistolary structure worked well enough -- did not always seem like it was written to a specific person -- and I craved more plot. It was tough for me to get through because there is so much misery and suffering in it. But again, beautiful prose.

Is it enough to say that On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is heartbreakingly beautiful? I could go on to elaborate: the language is harsh yet poignant, stark yet lush, truthful yet magical. Little Dog writes a letter to his mother to...what? Explain his choices? Tell her how her life has shaped his? Make a declaration of love to the world around him? His motives are unclear, but the language stirs the heart.

2021 book #68. 2019. Poet Ocean Vuong's first novel is a lyrical nonlinear story of an immigrant from Vietnam growing up in Hartford CT. It was a beautiful story although hard to follow at times. Read for a book club.

This was written with such beautiful language, I'm awestruck. I wasn't prepared for reading about male homosexuals. Guess I should pay attention to other reviews before picking up a book. I'm not sorry I did read this, tho. It gave me a whole other perspective.

When a poet writes in prose, beautiful things often happen, like this novel. The narration has phrases, even paragraphs, that are like embedded poems, giving power to the pain that this Vietnamese teenager experiences as he navigates through a culture as different as American.

I like how the author achieves a balance in telling the lifestyle of the marginalized class of a farming town in Connecticut, with job precariousness and alcohol and drug abuse, and the traditions and idiosyncrasies of Vietnam, so diametrically opposed to Western thought, through the ways of being of his mother and grandmother.

It is one of those books where you underline phrases that leave you pondering. (Translated from Spanish)

It was quite difficult for me at first, the way it is written. It is in the form of a letter addressed to his mother. He knows that she will never read it because she doesn't understand the language. There are very beautiful passages and others that are very hard and sad. Throughout the letter, he reflects on his entire life and his loved ones. He tells his mother about his sexual experiences, when he started and realized he was gay. It is not a fast-paced or easy read. It is a beautiful book, but I wouldn't recommend it to just anyone. (Translated from Spanish)

I had heard so much about this book before I picked it up. I will say that Ocean Vuong's writing is gorgeous. He is a poet, and it shows in the beautiful way he crafts and weaves his words in this book. At times I re-read passages, just to taste the words again in the stunning way that Vuong expressed them.

Having said that, I didn't particularly like the book all that much. There were parts that were difficult to stomach - child abuse, the harsh brutalities of war. The book is about love -- a son for his mother, a son for his grandmother, a mother for her son, a boy for another boy, a grandfather for his family. Love is messy and comes with pain and heartache, and this book shows this love in all its rawness. There were moments of incredible tenderness and devastating heartache, and I loved these moments, but I found it difficult to digest the other parts that were deliberately unpleasant.

I guess you could say that I had mixed feelings about this book, but I can definitely see why it received all the hype that it did.

This book was something very different from the idea I had in my head, given the synopsis. It is a very lyrical book, with beautiful passages, of very fleeting moments, but it is also very harsh—a letter to a mother from someone who knows it cannot be read and therefore can say everything without a filter. I think it is interesting to get into the life of this child and then young man, without a homeland, growing up in marginality. Sometimes it loses the reader with its time games and a discourse that doesn't seem to have a specific meaning; however, in the end, or at least in my case, it leaves a feeling of being pushed into voyeurism that is uncomfortable because of what is seen. As if I didn't want to know so much. List 2021 November What I want to read. (Translated from Spanish)

What can I say that hasn't already been said by the synopsis from other readers regarding the narrated story? In my opinion, it is a poetry/novel that connects with what happens in life: pain/illusion/suffering/hope. I acknowledge that the narrative is different and at times becomes complex (if not dense). Ultimately, the author writes the letter for himself, telling his story, which leads me to think it is an autobiographical novel/poetry?? I recommend reading it slowly and occasionally letting it "rest," as there are unforgettable passages that will remain imprinted in our minds. (Translated from Spanish)