On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
by Ocean Vuong
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A shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born--a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam--and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a show more witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness. show lessTags
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Stunning, I think
Our narrator is writing a letter to his illiterate mother.
”…the very impossibility of your reading this is all that makes my telling it possible.”
This novel is a flow of words that is both poetry and prose. It doesn’t invite you in, it engulfs you, holds you firmly, doesn’t let go.
There is a childhood: with magic that only children know and grandma’s stories; this is welded together with child abuse, poverty, and a family that carries war and their tragedies inside them, always. It’s been a while since I’ve read a book that paints the immigrant experience and being Vietnamese in the USA so very vividly.
There is an adolescence: the seeking, the confusion, drugs, first love, and heartbreak. The sexuality show more is very graphic, and rightly so.
This book left my soul battered. I am grateful.
Quotes:
”He was only nine but had already mastered the dialect of damaged American fathers.”
”Ma, to speak in our mother tongue is to speak only partially in Vietnamese, but entirely in war.”
”Ma. You once told me that memory is a choice. But if you were god, you’d know it’s a flood.”
”The one good thing about national anthems is that we’re already on our feet, and therefore ready to run.” show less
Our narrator is writing a letter to his illiterate mother.
”…the very impossibility of your reading this is all that makes my telling it possible.”
This novel is a flow of words that is both poetry and prose. It doesn’t invite you in, it engulfs you, holds you firmly, doesn’t let go.
There is a childhood: with magic that only children know and grandma’s stories; this is welded together with child abuse, poverty, and a family that carries war and their tragedies inside them, always. It’s been a while since I’ve read a book that paints the immigrant experience and being Vietnamese in the USA so very vividly.
There is an adolescence: the seeking, the confusion, drugs, first love, and heartbreak. The sexuality show more is very graphic, and rightly so.
This book left my soul battered. I am grateful.
Quotes:
”He was only nine but had already mastered the dialect of damaged American fathers.”
”Ma, to speak in our mother tongue is to speak only partially in Vietnamese, but entirely in war.”
”Ma. You once told me that memory is a choice. But if you were god, you’d know it’s a flood.”
”The one good thing about national anthems is that we’re already on our feet, and therefore ready to run.” show less
Pick it up. Put it down. Pick it up. Put it down. Not because it’s hard to read. Not because it’s uninteresting. Quite the contrary: I cannot recall reading a book so beautifully written yet so hard to read. The best word I have to describe it is “raw.” Painful. Sensitive. Brittle. Emotionally (and in other ways) graphic. Pick it up. The intensity is so overwhelming that one page, maybe two pages later I have to put it down again. Over and over. I marvel at his talent for writing; I am astonished at his depiction of human emotion, his gift for images. The racism; child abuse; sex; the love…for his mother, his grandmother, his boyfriend. Cages. Poverty. Otherness. Pain. Always pain. All of it so open, so raw that it bleeds on show more the page. Vuong’s metaphors are often completely unexpected and all the more perfect for that. There is little in the book, no matter how apparently unrelated, that he does not connect and illuminate. All that said, the book is not without flaws. There is a level of self-indulgence, self-awareness that I sometimes couldn’t quite accept occasionally. And yet the power of the writing is so undeniable that I simply cannot help but rate the book highly and recommend it. show less
Bleak and heartbreaking, this novel is based on the author's life. He writes to his mother, an immigrant from Vietnam with her own horrifying history. The poetic, haunting writing was my favorite part. It was painful and uncomfortable to read because it puts someone else's raw anguish on full display. As he struggles with abuse from his mom, drug addiction, bullying, his sexuality, and so many other pains, he is honest and vulnerable. Sometimes we need to read books like this to glimpse another person's hurt and gain a deeper empathy. Trigger warnings abound.
I borrowed this audiobook from the library with barely enough time to listen before it was due. I didn’t finish it, and the story haunted me until my hold came through. It’s a raw, visceral experience, rooted deeply in generational trauma and reflection. It's painful, lyrical, and unrelentingly honest. The narrative unfolds through a letter to a mother, taking us through a grandmother’s history, the impact of America on Vietnam, and a deeply personal coming-of-age story. It's a meditation on toxic masculinity, sexual repression, shame, and belonging. It confronts the opioid crisis with a mournful call to action. It feels unpolished and abrasive, yet there’s a breathtaking precision. It captures life's beauty and ugliness, show more feeling casually strung together and perfectly crafted. The words are direct, slim, and cutting. It hurts to listen to, and thinking back on it makes my chest ache. It lingers, and I highly recommend it if you want to hurt. show less
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.
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 show more 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. show less
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 show more 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. show less
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 show more 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.” show less
I had mixed feelings about this book. It is very raw, and show more 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.” show less
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Author Information
13+ Works 9,638 Members
Some Editions
Awards and Honors
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Work Relationships
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
- Original title
- On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
- Original publication date
- 2019
- People/Characters
- Little Dog; Trevor; Rose; Lan
- Important places
- Vietnam; Hartford, Connecticut, USA; Connecticut, USA
- Epigraph
- But let me see if—using these words as a little plot of
land and my life as a cornerstone—
I can build you a center.
—Qiu Miaojin
I want to tell you the truth, and already I have told you about the wide rivers.
—Joan Didion - Dedication
- For my mother
- First words
- Let me begin again.
- Quotations
- You once told me that the human eye is god's loneliest creation. How so much of the world passes through the pupil and still it holds nothing. The eye, alone in its socket, doesn't even know there's another one, just like it,... (show all) an inch away, just as hungry, as empty.
...the most useful thing one can do with empty hands is hold on. (p.76)
They say nothing lasts forever but they're just scared it will last longer than they can love it. (p.176)
From the wind, I learned a syntax for forwardness, how to move through obstacles by wrapping myself around them. (p.185) - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Then, for no reason, you start to laugh.
- Blurbers
- James, Marlon; Lerner, Ben; Straub, Emma; Orange, Tommy; Ng, Celeste; Cunningham, Michael
- Original language
- English
- Canonical DDC/MDS
- 813.6
- Canonical LCC
- PS3622.U96
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- ISBNs
- 48
- ASINs
- 10