A Review of Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

by Addie Rahmlow

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a story of craters—of the distant, gaping holes in time that memories churn in. It is the story of a mother and her son and of all of the generations that came before—of a single, distilled portrait: the sun slipping over the horizon, time melting into years. Vuong begins his novel with the sentence, “Let me begin again,” because beginnings are fraught and messy, and where is there to start when there is so much to say?  

So let me begin again, too.

“The Great American Novel” is an idea as entrenched in literature as a Shakespearean archetype, for at the end of the day, if a work doesn’t reach such “great” or Shakespearean standards, what is it worth? Yet with On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong proves that a novel does not need to follow a classic, rigid structure in order to be esteemed, but rather that a work of fluidity can connect with an audience just as much as an archetypal one.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is written in the form of an unsent letter from the speaker, Little Dog, to his mother. The novel is semi-autobiographical, and weaves in some of Vuong’s own experiences growing up as a Vietnamese-American in Hartford, Connecticut. Throughout the novel, Vuong’s words shift between stories of Little Dog’s childhood, his mother’s experiences growing up in Vietnam during the war, and the tales his grandmother has told him.

However, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is more than a mere account that fills the spaces of time, but one that shifts and moves within them. In an interview with The Guardian, Vuong speaks of the tales that he heard as a child—the stories that inspired his novel. “The stories, at first, were folklore. My grandmother would tell a ghost story, then she would say: oh, that was after the napalm. So through cycles of these stories, that world started opening and as a child I would ask: what’s napalm?” Thus, Vuong’s novel is one of inquisitions and ponderings—where personal narratives bloom into larger revelations.

“What do we mean when we say survivor? Maybe a survivor is the last one to come home, the final monarch that lands on a branch already weighted in ghosts,” Vuong writes, reflecting on Little Dog’s family. Much like his poetry book, Night Sky With Exit Wounds, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous explores, above all, family and time and the relationship between the two. Vuong’s body of work extends beyond  Night Sky With Exit Wounds and On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous; Vuong’s latest poetry book, Time is A Mother, was published in 2022. Additionally, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is set to be produced by A-24 in the coming years.

Overall, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous redefines what it means to be a “great novel.” It proves that one does not have to write in an archetypal way in order to create a lasting impact, and that sometimes a letter between mother and child can convey the most raw truth. “You once told me that the human eye is god's loneliest creation...” Vuong writes in Little Dog’s voice, laying out all of his thoughts that will never be read by his mother. “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.”

Vuong writes in a way that is lyrical and potent, that is lasting and sincere. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is the kind of story that lingers with one long after the final page is turned—long after its fraught beginning. 

Sources

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jun/09/ocean-vuong-on-earth-we-are-briefly-gorgeous-interview