Before you begin reading, I would like you to take a few minutes to read the opening passage of the poetic masterpiece that is the centerfold of this post.
I’m struggling to find a way to begin this. I read On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous the summer before my senior year of high school and picked it up after nearly a year. One year can change your thought processes drastically. I gave the book to my mom and she read it over the course of a month. The novel is set in Hartford, about an hour south of Amherst, where I’ll be attending college this fall. Ocean Vuong lives a mere fifteen minutes away from my dorm next year and I will have the opportunity to take one of his English classes, which I’m very overjoyed about. Literally speaking. When I found out, I rushed over to tell my mom as soon as I could, to which she was excited for me since she too respects his writing.
The book is framed as a letter addressed to the author's illiterate mother. He doesn't outright refer to the narrator of the book by his name, but by a childhood nickname: Little Dog. It weaves in and out of different points in the author's lives and those of his mother and grandmother. He talks about experiences that revolve around his race and sexuality and ties into how he struggles with these themes as an outsider from both his American and Vietnamese side.
Ocean Vuong blends poetry and prose in what I found to be a breathtakingly beautiful way. It's evident that when the paragraphs merge the vast themes and imagery together, one finds it hard to understand what he's trying to convey. It’s like a family picture book of memories he is only sharing because nobody who’s mentioned can hear him and read his book, and he just has enough courage to say his thoughts out loud for the first time. But sometimes it's not about the meaning, it's the emotions that the words evoke. No word of his is wasted, they all contain themes interconnected throughout the book. Though some people may think that his prose was too excessive, I believe that was the entire point. He compromised his own voice, since that was the only way that he could express himself without judgment. His metaphors and language literally touch your soul. Take this quote for example: "He loves me, he loves me not, we are taught to say as we tear the flower away from its flowerness. To arrive at love, then, is to arrive through obliteration.” It doesn’t have much plot, but I actually like it that way in these types of stories.
Literary fiction is one of my favorite genres. This novel in particular does deal with heavy topics, which I was aware of, but I think it’s important to read and discuss such topics. I never quite understood why some books are banned.
Like the first time, I read the novel in one sitting. I was in bed, with a semi-warm hot chocolate my mom had so kindly brought up for me. Every few pages or so, I wiped the consolidation of moisture in my eyes away. It came as an instinct. The pretty prose paired with the thoughtful subject matter glistened in my mind. As Little Dog is, I feel a sense of emotional disconnect with many of the people I’m close with. I would like to say it’s my fault, but I know now that I can’t always blame myself.
My relationship with language is quite unique. I communicate with three languages. When I’m sad, I switch to Tamil in my head. When I try to distinguish whether or not my writing flows, I recite it in Spanish and determine if it’s understandable. I interact with most everyone in English. It’s also the language I’m most comfortable in expressing my emotions. I don’t speak to my parents or my brother very much in English, so it’s difficult to express emotions in that way. In fact, I’m not familiar with more than three ways to express affection in my mother tongue. The cultural connotations such expressions envelop are clouded with implicit interdiction. I resorted to writing down every feeling that I could explain in English.
As a second-generation American, I never found anyone who captured my disconnection with language until I read this: “The Vietnamese I own is the one you gave me, the one whose diction and syntax reach only the second-grade level… Our mother tongue, then, is no mother at all—but an orphan. Our Vietnamese, a time capsule, a mark of where your education ended, washed. Ma, to speak in our mother tongue is to speak only partially in Vietnamese, but entirely in war.” Sometimes it’s overwhelming. Everything is cranked to maximum emotional level all the time and it sometimes feels exhausting. There are so many reputable quotes in this novel that I could talk about for days, but it’s better said to leave it unarticulated until you read it yourself.
Lately I have been thinking about who I want to be and how I want to move through life better than I was before. I've been thinking about the courage it takes to admit your mistakes and how lonely it feels when your side is not on the side of fate. I’ve been thinking about growing older and all the responsibility that awaits. Writing evokes such strong feelings and I’ll forever be in awe of everyone who manages to evoke such feelings within me. Thank you, Ocean Vuong, for being one of the few people who was able to do that for me.
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