On Earth Were Briefly Gorgeous

Posted on 07 December 2017 by Ocean Vuong

Poet Ocean Vuong s debut novel is 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 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, On Earth We re Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one s own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years. Free Download [ On Earth Were Briefly Gorgeous ] By [ Ocean Vuong ] – kino-fada.fr All freedom is relative you know too well and sometimes it s no freedom at all, but simply the cage widening far away from you, the bars abstracted with distance but still there, as when they free wild animals into nature preserves only to contain them yet again by larger borders But I took it anyway, that widening4 1 2 stars Stunning.On Earth We re Briefly Gorgeous is quite a book It is not surprising that the author is a poet, as this reads almost like a poetry collection prose poeAll freedom is relative you know too well and sometimes it s no freedom at all, but simply the cage widening far away from you, the bars abstracted with distance but still there, as when they free wild animals into nature preserves only to contain them yet again by larger borders But I took it anyway, that widening4 1 2 stars Stunning.On Earth We re Briefly Gorgeous is quite a book It is not surprising that the author is a poet, as this reads almost like a poetry collection prose poems, each capturing a moment, a memory, a feeling, or an idea so beautifully It doesn t follow a regular narrative structure, but is instead a series of snippets or moments The style won t be for everyone, but for those who love the raw punches of poetry, it is a fantastic book.I found it difficult to believe this was fiction There is something about Little Dog s story, a certain raw honesty and earnestness, that seems to come from a place of...Ocean is a brilliant writer and I am a fan of his work I even published him once in PANK It has been thrilling to watch him soar The prose in this novel is sublime The way he writes is just exquisite He writes the body so well He writes about the complicated relationship between a mother and son with real tenderness, with compelling honesty He writes sex better than almost anyone out there There are so many lines that gutted me or exhilarated me or stunned me I wanted to sit with each Ocean is a brilliant writer and I am a fan of his work I even published him once in PANK It has been thrilling to watch him soar The prose in this novel is sublime The way he writes is just exquisite He writes the body so well He writes about the complicated relationship between a mother and son with real tenderness, with compelling honesty He writes sex better than almost anyone out there There are so many lines that gutted me or exhilarated me or stunned me I wanted to sit with each line and just feel it as deeply as I could The...Dear Ma , within the narrator s head or it might have been his heart the name begins tolling, very much like a bell, I am writing to reach you even if each word I put down is one word further from where you are And although he knows his mother is illiterate her education capped at the age of 5 after a napalm raid destroyed her schoolhouse in Vietnam and thus, all his hours and pain will be folded in paper and put away, the words kept tumbling out, catching fire as they went.He is Little Dear Ma , within the narrator s head or it might have been his heart the name begins tolling, very much like a bell, I am writing to reach you even if each word I put down is one word further from where you are And although he knows his mother is illiterate her education capped at the age of 5 after a napalm raid destroyed her schoolhouse in Vietnam and thus, all his hours and pain will be folded in paper and put away, the words kept tumbling out, catching fire as they went.He is Little Dog a nickname given to him by his grandmother because to love something is to name it after something so worthless it might be left untouched and alive But he is a wound in the fabric of t...May 31 marks the 200th anniversary of Walt Whitman s birth, and the best present we could possibly receive is Ocean Vuong s debut novel, On Earth We re Briefly Gorgeous The connection between the Good Gray Poet and this young Vietnamese immigrant may seem tenuous, but with his radical approach to form and his daring mix of personal reflection, historical recollection and sexual exploration, Vuong is surely a literary descendant of the author of Leaves of Grass Emerging from the most margin May 31 marks the 200th anniversary of Walt Whitman s birth, and the best present we could possibly receive is Ocean Vuong s debut novel, On Earth We re Briefly Gorgeous The connection between the Good Gray Poet and this young Vietnamese immigrant may seem tenuous, but with his radical approach to form and his daring mix of personal reflection, historical recollection and sexual exploration, Vuong is surely a literary descendant of the author of Leaves of Grass Emerging from the most marginalized circumstances, he has produced a lyrical work of self discovery that s shockingly intimate and insistently universal.The fact that we can hear Vuong s voice today in America stems from a function of tragedy and se...ON EARTH WE RE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS will be described rightly as luminous, shattering, urgent, necessary But the word I keep circling back to is raw that s how powerful the emotions here are, and how you ll feel after reading it scoured down to bone With a poet s preci...This is such a beautiful book title and it was the title that drew me to read the description and request a copy of it Not only is the title beautiful, but much of the writing here is as well It s described as literary fiction, but a brief look at Ocean Vuong s bio after I read this book made the biographical nature of the story striking This letter from a young Vietnamese immigrant to his mother who doesn t know how to read is raw, impactful, achingly sad, painful to read It is filled with This is such a beautiful book title and it was the title that drew me to read the description and request a copy of it Not only is the title beautiful, but much of the writing here is as well It s described as literary fiction, but a brief look at Ocean Vuong s bio after I read this book made the biographical nature of the story striking This letter from a young Vietnamese immigrant to his mother who doesn t know how to read is raw, impactful, achingly sad, painful to read It is filled with flashbacks to his childhood when he is bullied at school, physically abused by his mother, protected by his grandmother It is filled with stories and memories of his mother and grandmother s past fleeing Vietnam as their pasts become part of his story It is about a love between a mother and son It is a story of a young boy trying to find his place in this country It s an intimate portrait of his first relationship as he falls in love with another boy A warning to those who might ...Thoughtful and tender, On Earth We re Briefly Gorgeous meditates on the powers of storytelling The autobiographical novel s framed as a letter from a queer Vietnamese son, Little Dog, to his illiterate single mother, Rose Across three expansive parts Little Dog reflects on his turbulent youth spent in Hartford, Connecticut, and hopes that the act of remembering family history through writing might heal longstanding wounds and bring parent and child closer Using as guideposts the works of thin Thoughtful and tender, On Earth We re Briefly Gorgeous meditates on the powers of storytelling The autobiographical novel s framed as a letter from a queer Vietnamese son, Little Dog, to his illiterate single mother, Rose Across three expansive parts Little Dog reflects on his turbulent youth spent in Hartford, Connecticut, and hopes that the act of remembering family history through writing might heal longstanding wounds and bring parent and child closer Using as guideposts the works of thinkers as diverse as Elaine Scarry and Qiu Miaojin, the narrator roams among a wide array of shared memories, from his mother s harrowing acts of abuse to her infrequent but intense displays of affection So, too, does Little Dog contemplate the nuances of his relationships with his grandmother, his absentee father, and his first love, and he reckons with how the legacy of the Vietnam War and the experience of im...I am out here stanning the success of Ocean Vuong s debut novel As a fellow queer Vietnamese American, it feels so amazing to see someone with my same ethnic and queer identities breaking through in the literary world and so sad that we have to fight so hard for our voices to be heard This book took me on a scattershot, beautiful emotional journey It felt less like reading a novel andlike reading tender, poignant passages about several connected moments our narrator Little Dog accide I am out here stanning the success of Ocean Vuong s debut novel As a fellow queer Vietnamese American, it feels so amazing to see someone with my same ethnic and queer identities breaking through in the literary world and so sad that we have to fight so hard for our voices to be heard This book took me on a scattershot, beautiful emotional journey It felt less like reading a novel andlike reading tender, poignant passages about several connected moments our narrator Little Dog accidentally triggering his immigrant mother by pretending to be an explosion, Little Dog listening to his grandmother s stories of war and survival as she descends into mental decay, Little Dog reflecting on his gayness and the violence experienced by gay people both in Vietnam and in the United States At several points I had little clue what was happening chronologically and where we were exactly in Little Dog s life, and I didn t feel too bothered by that lac...With a title like this, an author whose name is Ocean and the remarkable reviews, I thought this would surely be a great one Little Dog writes to his mother in such a raw emotional and passionate way He reflects on his life in his 20 s the relationship with his mother who abused him at the same time suffering from her own mentalIllness having survived the Vietnam war his own journey through sexual exploration of his own orientation to finding himself and the relationships he s had with fam With a title like this, an author whose name is Ocean and the remarkable reviews, I thought this would surely be a great one Little Dog writes to his mother in such a raw emotional and passionate way He reflects on his life in his 20 s the relationship with his mother who abused him at the same time suffering fr...Books by poets always have the best titles, don t theyOn Earth We re Briefly Gorgeous , acclaimed poet Ocean Vuong s semi autobiographical debut novel, takes the form of a letter from Little Dog to his mother, both Vietnamese refugees now living in the U.S This poignant, lyrical storythan delivers on the promise of that striking titleBecause gunshots, lies, and oxtail or whatever you want to call your god should say Yes over and over, in cycles, in spirals, with no other reason but Books by poets always have the best titles, don t theyOn Earth We re Briefly Gorgeous , acclaimed poet Ocean Vuong s semi autobiographical debut novel, takes the form of a letter from Little Dog to his mother, both Vietnamese refugees now living in the U.S This poignant, lyrical storythan delivers on the promise of that striking titleBecause gunshots, lies, and oxtail or whatever you want to call your god should say Yes over and over, in cycles, in spirals, with no other reason but to hear itself exist Because love, at its best, repeats itself Shouldn t itIt is an emotionally affecting tale wrought with a poet s artistry Little Dog translating for his mother on their awkward outings together his grandmother s experiences during the war in VietnamI ...I went back and forth wondering if I should give this a 4 or 5 star rating.it was just such a combination of beautiful writing poetic, raw and brutalthat it had to end up with a 5 star, for me This novel is a letter from little dog a Vietnamese American gay man to his Vietnamese mother.The family came to America when little dog was a little boy with just a few relatives, settled finally in Connecticut where life was tough.I m not going to go into the story because you need to just rea I went back and forth wondering if I should give this a 4 or 5 star rating.it was just such a combination of beautiful writing poetic, raw and brutalthat it had to end up with a 5 star, for me This novel is a letter from little dog a Vietnamese American gay man to his Vietnamese mother.The family came to America when little dog was a little boy with just a few relatives, settled finally in Connecticut where life was tough.I m not going to go into the story because you need to j...No review Just a list of adjectives.BrutalRawDevastatingBeautifulIncandescentStunningThe author didn t write this book he opened his heart and just let it bleed all over the pages Reading it cracked mine op...

English
07 December 2017

Ocean Vuong