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A review by sarahglen
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
5.0
Finished this last month and found the energy to jot down some notes. tl;dr: This is one of the most beautiful books I've ever read.
Some of my favorite passages, but tbh I underlined so much of this book.
— "How it was not the grotesque mounting of a decapitated animal that shook you — but that the taxidermy embodied a death that won't finish, a death that keeps dying as we walk past it to relieve ourselves."
— "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, an inch away, just as hungry, as empty. Opening the front door to the first snowfall of my life, you whispered, 'Look.'"
— "He was only nine but had already mastered the dialect of damaged American fathers."
— "And like that it was over. Their shadows cleared above me. I let my nose drip with snot. I stared at my feet, at the shoes you bought me, the ones with red lights that flashed on the soles when I walked. My forehead pressed to the seat in front of me, I kicked my shoes, gently at first, then faster. My sneakers erupted with silent flares: the world's smallest ambulances, going nowhere."
— "Some people say history moves in a spiral, not the line we have come to expect. We travel through time in a circular trajectory, our distance increasing from an epicenter only to return again, one circle removed."
— "Who will be lost in the story we tell ourselves? Who will be lost in ourselves? A story, after all, is a kind of swallowing. To open a mouth, in speech, is to leave only the bones, which remain untold. It is a beautiful country because you are still breathing."
— "I guess what I mean is that sometimes I don't know what or who we are. Days I feel like a human being, while other days I feel more like a sound. I touch the world not as myself but as an echo of who I was. Can you hear me yet? Can you read me?"
— "Ma. You once told me that memory is a choice. But if you were god, you'd know it's a flood."
— "Sorry, for these men, was a passport to remain."
— "Under the covers, we made friction of each other and fiction of everything else."
— "Fuck. Me. Up. It felt good to name what was already happening to me all my life. I was being fucked up, at last, by choice... Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you've been ruined."
— "Maybe we look into mirrors not merely to seek beauty, regardless how illusive, but to make sure, despite the facts, that we are still here. That the hunted body we move in has not yet been annihilated, scraped out. To see yourself still yourself is a refuge men who have not been denied cannot know."
— "It is no accident, Ma, that the comma resembles a fetus — that curve of continuation. We were all once inside our mothers, saying, with our entire curved and silent selves, more, more, more. I want to insist that our being alive is beautiful enough to be worthy of replication. And so what? So what if all I ever made of my life was more of it?"
— "Three freckles on his nose. Three periods to a boy-sentence."
— "Imagine I could lie down beside you and my whole body, every call, radiates a clear, singular meaning, not so much a writer as a word pressed down beside you."
— "In a world myriad as ours, the gaze is a singular act: to look at something is to fill your whole life with it, if only briefly."
— "Did you know people get rich off of sadness?" I want to meet the millionaire of American sadness. I want to look him in the eye, shake his hand, and say, 'It's been an honor to serve my country.'"
— "What if art was not measured by quantity but ricochets? What if art was not measured?"
— "Remember: The rules, like streets, can only take you to known places. Underneath the grid is a field — it was always there — where to be lost is never to be wrong, but simply more."
— "Let no one mistake us for the fruit of violence — but that violence, having passed through the fruit, failed to spoil it."
Some of my favorite passages, but tbh I underlined so much of this book.
— "How it was not the grotesque mounting of a decapitated animal that shook you — but that the taxidermy embodied a death that won't finish, a death that keeps dying as we walk past it to relieve ourselves."
— "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, an inch away, just as hungry, as empty. Opening the front door to the first snowfall of my life, you whispered, 'Look.'"
— "He was only nine but had already mastered the dialect of damaged American fathers."
— "And like that it was over. Their shadows cleared above me. I let my nose drip with snot. I stared at my feet, at the shoes you bought me, the ones with red lights that flashed on the soles when I walked. My forehead pressed to the seat in front of me, I kicked my shoes, gently at first, then faster. My sneakers erupted with silent flares: the world's smallest ambulances, going nowhere."
— "Some people say history moves in a spiral, not the line we have come to expect. We travel through time in a circular trajectory, our distance increasing from an epicenter only to return again, one circle removed."
— "Who will be lost in the story we tell ourselves? Who will be lost in ourselves? A story, after all, is a kind of swallowing. To open a mouth, in speech, is to leave only the bones, which remain untold. It is a beautiful country because you are still breathing."
— "I guess what I mean is that sometimes I don't know what or who we are. Days I feel like a human being, while other days I feel more like a sound. I touch the world not as myself but as an echo of who I was. Can you hear me yet? Can you read me?"
— "Ma. You once told me that memory is a choice. But if you were god, you'd know it's a flood."
— "Sorry, for these men, was a passport to remain."
— "Under the covers, we made friction of each other and fiction of everything else."
— "Fuck. Me. Up. It felt good to name what was already happening to me all my life. I was being fucked up, at last, by choice... Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you've been ruined."
— "Maybe we look into mirrors not merely to seek beauty, regardless how illusive, but to make sure, despite the facts, that we are still here. That the hunted body we move in has not yet been annihilated, scraped out. To see yourself still yourself is a refuge men who have not been denied cannot know."
— "It is no accident, Ma, that the comma resembles a fetus — that curve of continuation. We were all once inside our mothers, saying, with our entire curved and silent selves, more, more, more. I want to insist that our being alive is beautiful enough to be worthy of replication. And so what? So what if all I ever made of my life was more of it?"
— "Three freckles on his nose. Three periods to a boy-sentence."
— "Imagine I could lie down beside you and my whole body, every call, radiates a clear, singular meaning, not so much a writer as a word pressed down beside you."
— "In a world myriad as ours, the gaze is a singular act: to look at something is to fill your whole life with it, if only briefly."
— "Did you know people get rich off of sadness?" I want to meet the millionaire of American sadness. I want to look him in the eye, shake his hand, and say, 'It's been an honor to serve my country.'"
— "What if art was not measured by quantity but ricochets? What if art was not measured?"
— "Remember: The rules, like streets, can only take you to known places. Underneath the grid is a field — it was always there — where to be lost is never to be wrong, but simply more."
— "Let no one mistake us for the fruit of violence — but that violence, having passed through the fruit, failed to spoil it."