On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
“You once told me 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, an inch away, just as hungry, as empty.”
ON EARTH WE'RE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS
This book is a letter from a son to his illiterate mother. It's written when the narrator, Little Dog, is in his twenties, and it brings to light a family's history that began before he was born. It's a history that's epicentre is rooted in Vietnam and serves as a doorway into parts of Little Dog's life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation.
“Dear Ma” Little Dog writes in the letter to his mother, Rose, at the beginning. He writes to go back in time, referring to a rest stop in Virginia, “when you stared, horror-struck, at the taxidermy buck hung over the soda machine by the restrooms, its antlers shadowing your face.”
Little Dog couldn't understand why his mother would want to display death in such a way.
He remembers when he was just a boy, four years old, in their small Connecticut apartment, the first time his mother hit him. There was that time with the kitchen knife, too. Rose yelling, “Get out. Get out.” Little Dog was ten then.
He remembers better times, too, like the time Rose rode the Superman roller-coaster with him at Six Flags, or when she tried on a fancy dress at Goodwill, her asking him in Vietnamese, “Do I look like a real American?”
Rose bought a dress at Goodwill once, and Little Dog, wanting to look more like his mother, put it on. Just then, a boy from the neighbourhood rode by on his bike and saw him wearing it. At school the kids taunted him, calling him homophobic slurs.
In an earlier draft of his letter to Rose, he explained how he had become a writer, but since discarded it. Little Dog doesn't think it matters anymore. The only thing that matters now is the letter itself, even though she isn't likely to read it.
When his mother was five, she watched her schoolhouse in Vietnam burn to the ground after an American napalm raid, and she never returned to school; never learned how to read.
There's so much Little Dog wants to tell his mother.
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a book I'll never forget. Vuong’s prose is so impactful, raw, and emotionally charged, it left me stunned and in awe.
The author showed his immense talents as a writer throughout this book. It truly took my breath away, and left me speechless.
 |
| Ocean Vuong by Tom Hines |
Born on a rice farm in Ho Chi Minh City, Ocean Vuong arrived with his family as a two-year-old refugee to the United States, settling in Hartford, Connecticut. After spending some time at community college, he enrolled then at Brooklyn College, where he received a B.A. in English, then went on to receive his M.F.A. in poetry from NYU. His poems have been published by various media outlets including The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Rumpus.
Vuong has won a number of prestigious awards for his work including the Dylan Thomas Prize (2020), MacArthur Fellow, and the T.S. Eliot Prize.