On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
Ratings423
Average rating4
A memoir written as a letter to the mother. It's beautifully written, though disjoint as times, as our thoughts often are.
I loved the sections of experiences with mom and grandmom, of finding love, of loss (twice), and of addiction. The short section of friends lost to drug addiction was simple yet moving. The prose sometimes, written as thoughts flow, often made comprehension hard. It was a bit hard to read, to stay interested in. Yet, there are many moments from the book, both beautiful and sad, which have stayed vividly in memory.
A beautiful piece of poetry. The long letter of a son to his mother who can't read, the depth of human feeling and one's history. The family history and the impact of immigration and living in an unknown country, the rural America and its pains and trials. Truly a thing of beauty, deeply moving.
One sentence synopsis... The lyrical coming-of-age story of Little Dog, the son of Vietnamese immigrants to the U.S. .
Read it if you like... reading poetry - the author is a poet and first time novelist. Stylish, yet deeply personal prose, like Joan Didion. .
Further reading... Vuong's prize winning book of poetry, “Night Sky with Exit Wounds”.
I'm not sure what I'm missing that everyone else seems to love about this book. Yes, Vuong's writing is unbelievably beautiful. I listened to the audio, in which he narrates it himself, and I was glad to hear the cadence of the prose the way he intended it to be. However, many times it felt almost poetic to a point where it was a detriment to what narrative there was. It was also quite disjointed; if I found myself zoning out while listening even for a moment, I was completely lost and felt myself missing story threads.
The most evocative moments, and likely the ones that I will remember, are the ones related to Little Dog's work on the tobacco farm and his relationship with Trevor.
4.5 ???the children, the veal, they stand very still because tenderness depends on how little the world touches you. to stay tender, the weight of life cannot lean on your bones.???
Ocean Vuong has a way of using words that conjure such vivid images for me - truly mesmerizing
There are parts of this book that are described uniquely and beautifully; there are other parts that drone on with abstract metaphors for pages at a time. A particular part I found beautiful was the chapter on the word sorry. The author explains how the word is used to humble oneself before the person(s) you are speaking to or servicing. The word has multiple meanings and becomes a language of its own. I also loved the part where the main character describes the first time he viewed himself as beautiful and how life altering that moment was. Perhaps it is because this book reads like a memoir, that my enthusiasm waned as I read through it. I have never had the necessity nor the desire to pluralize buffalo before this book and I definitely had to look it up to verify that it is spelled as: buffaloes.
I really wanted to like this, but I couldn't get into it. I mean, I finished it quickly, so that's something. I can definitely see why people like this, so I don't think giving it a two is fair, but it just wasn't my cup of tea, and I didn't really enjoy it. So, I'm giving it a two-rounded-up-to-a-three.
The writing was often quite beautiful, with some genuinely profound imagery – the title alone is quite breathtaking - but there just wasn't enough story beneath it all for me. It seemed more like a gesture of depth rather than actually exploring the depths. At times it felt more like richly embellished bullet points of memories and anecdotes, and we were onto the next thing before I was really invested in the last one. Nothing that was there was bad, but my prevailing feeling was that the book was missing some connective tissue. I often quite appreciate non-linear story telling, but in this case it felt less like a feature and more just disjointed and messy.
Ultimately, it had some nice moments, and some beautiful sentences, but left me feeling unsatisfied. I would have liked it more if Vuong had leaned into and committed to the more unconventional poeticism of some of the later chapters, which I think were the stronger moments in the novel, or wrangled it and refined it into something more solid with more depth and structure.
With that said, I'd still be interested in reading Vuong's poetry, because I can see how this style would appeal to me more in that format.
Beautiful. Gorgeous. Reads like a poem- and that's probably why I didn't love it. I just require more plot. Trigger warnings for violence to animals. I'm not quite sure how much of this is actually going to stick with me, but I did enjoy reading it and it's super short.
I had a few issues with this book.
First, I listened to audiobook. The narrator was female and she spoke (more of a breathy whisper) each individual word as if breath she breath had breath trouble breath breathing.
Second, although I felt the words were well written and I felt sorry for the painful life this young man lived, I didn't feel there was enough substance to his story to make it unique. But it's really sad.
Finally, I had a difficult time with the chronological order. Was he a teenager, or was he five? Maybe it was me or the narrator, but I kept getting lost in where we were in time.
Sorry, but not one I'd recommend.
The kind of book that you should read slowly to savor the language but you also want to read quickly because it's too sad and horrific to linger on. Beautiful but heartbreaking.
I went through phases while reading this where I didn't feel super engaged / into the story. The writing is very poetic and pretty and I think Ocean's story is historically underrepresented and unique and this book absolutely deserves the praise and attention it has been getting. Still, I didn't love it.
I can definitely tell this author is a poet. Very pretty writing.
Vietnam book around the world. AND a goodreads choice of the year book!
Vuong's writing is literally one of the most beautiful prose I have ever had the opportunity to read. This, paired with the stream of consciousness and poetry throughout the book does a GORGEOUS (pun intended) job of creating a sense of rawness in Little Dog's narration. The emotions in this novel; love, betrayal, anger, loss, and more feel SO real. I felt myself tearing up more than I care to admit throughout the book. The ONLY big negative was that I felt like the writing style was a bit confusing. There were definitely points where I had to re read sections just to understand what was happening. To be honest, though, I think often the author did this on purpose. I could literally write another 5 pages about this book, but I won't bore you too much. A must-read!
Think the experience was improved by his reading, as I most likely would have quit the written book after the monkey brains scene (though I guess a testament to his quality writing that it made me so nauseated?) I can see why it's winning awards, but I wanted more of a story to hold this shimmering gossamer web of sadness together.
3.5 stars, rounded up to 4. Coming out. Coming of age. Immigrant story. Abusive parent. Opiod abuse. There doesn't seem to be much fresh about the story itself, although the language is beautiful. The author is a poet, after all. Perhaps the most intriguing character in the book for me is Paul, the “grandfather” of the narrator, and even his story is familiar–the well-meaning soldier separated from his Vietnamese love who ends up marrying an American girl back home, leaving the Vietnamese girl to fend for herself.
Gorgeous. A bit thematically dense for me to get everything the first time around, so it might be worth a reread. Several passages made me ugly cry.
this made me feel like I was beaten to a bloody pulp, but then I was tenderly cleansed and calmed by a gently flowing river, but then the current suddenly got really intense and oops I drowned
