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This scene from Wuthering Heights
"We buried him, to the scandal of the whole neighbourhood, as he wished. Earnshaw and I, the sexton, and six men to carry the coffin, comprehended the whole attendance. The six men departed when they had let it down into the grave: we stayed to see it covered. Hareton, with a streaming face, dug green sods, and laid them over the brown mould himself: at present it is as smooth and verdant as its companion mounds - and I hope its tenant sleeps as soundly. But the country folks, if you ask them, would swear on the Bible that he WALKS: there are those who speak to having met him near the church, and on the moor, and even within this house.
Idle tales, you'll say, and so say I. Yet that old man by the kitchen fire affirms he has seen two on 'em looking
out of his chamber window on every rainy night since his death:- and an odd thing happened to me about a
month ago. I was going to the Grange one evening - a dark evening, threatening thunder - and, just at the turn
of the Heights, I encountered a little boy with a sheep and two lambs before him; he was crying terribly; and I
supposed the lambs were skittish, and would not be guided.
'What is the matter, my little man?' I asked.
'There's Heathcliff and a woman yonder, under t' nab,' he blubbered, 'un' I darnut pass 'em.'
I saw nothing; but neither the sheep nor he would go on so I bid him take the road lower down. He probably
raised the phantoms from thinking, as he traversed the moors alone, on the nonsense he had heard his parents
and companions repeat. Yet, still, I don't like being out in the dark now; and I don't like being left by myself
in this grim house: I cannot help it; I shall be glad when they leave it, and shift to the Grange.
'They are going to the Grange, then?' I said.
'Yes,' answered Mrs. Dean, 'as soon as they are married, and that will be on New Year's Day.'
'And who will live here then?'
'Why, Joseph will take care of the house, and, perhaps, a lad to keep him company. They will live in the
kitchen, and the rest will be shut up.'
'For the use of such ghosts as choose to inhabit it?' I observed."
This scene doesn't fail to raise goosebumps. It's so brilliantly and hauntingly beautiful.
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(UK) Education Secretary: Encourage your child to pick up a book at Christmas
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/20/bridget-phillipson-christmas-encourage-child-book/
https://redd.it/1hkmwed
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What Books did You Start or Finish Reading this Week?: December 23, 2024
Hi everyone!
What are you reading? What have you recently finished reading? What do you think of it? We want to know!
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Struggling with Nightbitch. Should I continue?
26% through Nightbitch and I think I hate this book.
My husband and I are planning on starting a family next year and reading this book is putting horrible images in my mind.
Should I continue reading?
I am a strong reader and can finish most things. I hate not finishing books but so far I have found nothing to like.
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Review of I Who Have Never Known Men by Jaqueline Harpman
I went into this book blind, reading only the back blurb in store and pulling the trigger off vibes alone.
I think that is probably the best way to go about it - but it will be misleading. It should be. I will not spoil anything with the plot, but if you want to stop here for the same experience, please do.
Given the blurb, I figured it would be a psychological thriller, mystery, horror. “Deep underground, thirty-nine women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only a vague recollection of their lives before. As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl - the fortieth prisoner - sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground."
It is actually existential philosophy through and through. It deals with absurdity, meaningless life, unanswered questions, and humanity.
(Some) Spoilers section
You want answers. It drives your whole reading experience. Why are they imprisoned? What world is this? Why are there so many cabins? Where did the guards go? Why isn't there anything else? WHAT IS THE PURPOSE TO ANY OF THIS?! Each new discovery is exhilarating. Each bit of new information makes us feel one step closer, but it ends up just as absurd as everything else we know. A gardening book?! What could it mean?! It must mean something!
Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. We will never know.
The only thing that comes with any amount of certainty is the resilience, love, and tenderness that the women of our story show. The community they build in this scary world. They cope, in ways that may even seem strange (yet, familiar). They build. They try. They love. They settle down to make it more comfortable as they die, even if we want to tell them to keep searching.
Is this what life is? Searching for ways to make sense of the absurd, plunging deeper into it? When that is draining, we make due with what we have and try to be as comfortable as possible with each other? Once that is boring we plunge on again? Once that is fatiguing we settle down again? Our minds tell us there must be a reason. Maybe the next one will figure it out. I'm too old and too tired now. I just want to hold the hand of someone.
Harpman did such a beautiful job. This work should be considered alongside Camus.
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Happy Memory Guide
I read a book titled “The Art of Making Memories: How to Create and Remember Happy Moments” by Meik Wiking, a Danish happiness researcher. I read it partly because it is the third sequel to the Happiness Institute Series, but I have also been struggling with remembering bad memories and forgetting happy memories. This book taught me how to make memorable happy memories and remember them.
# Tip 1: Experience new things or places.
According to the author, extraordinary and novel experiences reside more in your memory.
example 1) Once a year, go somewhere you’ve never been.
example 2) try new food
# Tip 2: Make triggers for happy memories
example 1) make a playlist for a happy period
example 2) cook meals for happy times with your loved ones
example 3) set places that trigger happy times and visit there
example 4) take vivid and bizarre pictures
example 5) collect objects that remind you of happy memories
# Tip 3: Make happy memories without your phone
The author said it makes you pay attention to what you are doing.
# Tip 4: Ask yourself “What activity makes you remember in a decade?” to decide what you do
# Tip 5: Take a longer route to make your memory
example) 3 hours of climbing to the top of the mountain vs 15m of cable car ride to the top of the mountain
# Tip 6: Retell happy memories in order not to forget
# Tip 7: Rename happy memories in your favorite way
# Tip 8: Make a photo album
example 1) Google Photo or Onedrive photo
example 2) private social media accounts
# Tip 9: Record your happiness daily
It includes a happiness score of 1-10 and an answer to the question “What I have been doing?”
# Final Thoughts
I decided to check a Google photo more often and record my happiness on my journey. I will try new places to visit. This book was good overall. If you are interested in this book, check out “The Art of Making Memories: How to Create and Remember Happy Moments”. Thank you for reading.
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Americans are reading less — and smartphones and shorter attention spans may be to blame. 7 tips to help you make books a joyful habit.
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/americans-are-reading-less--and-smartphones-and-shorter-attention-spans-may-be-to-blame-7-tips-to-help-you-make-books-a-joyful-habit-120011124.html
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already.
If I could, I would quote the entire book, but I'm afraid that won't be possible, so I will share some of the quotes that I found absolutely breathtaking and utterly piercing:
***"I was once foolish enough to believe knowledge would clarify, but some things are so gauzed behind layers of syntax and semantics, behind days and hours, names forgotten, salvaged and shed, that simply knowing the wound exists does nothing to reveal it.***
***I don't know what I'm saying. 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?"***
***“When I first started writing, I hated myself for being so uncertain, about images, clauses, ideas, even the pen or journal I used. Everything I wrote began with maybe and perhaps and ended with I think or I believe. But my doubt is everywhere, Ma. Even when I know something to be true as bone I fear the knowledge will dissolve, will not, despite my writing it, stay real. I’m breaking us apart again so that I might carry us somewhere else—where, exactly, I’m not sure. Just as I don’t know what to call you—White, Asian, orphan, American, mother?”***
***"You're a mother, Ma. You're also a monster. But so am I - which is why I can't turn away from you. Which is why I have taken god's loneliest creature and put you inside it."***
***"Even here in these sentences, I place my hands on your back and see how dark they are as they lie against the unchangeable white backdrop of your skin. Even now, I see … your waist and hips as I knead out the tensions, the small bones along your spine, a row of ellipses no silence translates. Even after all these years, the contrast between our skin surprises me–the way a blank page does when my hand, gripping a pen, begins to move through its spatial field, trying to act upon its life without marring it. But by writing, I mar it. I change, embellish, and preserve you all at once."***
***“There are times, late at night, when your son would wake believing a bullet is lodged inside him. He’d feel it floating on the right side of his chest, just between the ribs. The bullet was always here, the boy thinks, older even than himself—and his bones, tendons, and veins had merely wrapped around the metal shard, sealing it inside him. It wasn’t me, the boy thinks, who was inside my mother’s womb, but this bullet, this seed I bloomed around. Even now, as the cold creeps in around him, he feels it poking out from his chest, slightly tenting his sweater. He feels for the protrusion but, as usual, finds nothing. It’s receded, he thinks. It wants to stay inside me. It is nothing without me. Because a bullet without a body is a song without ears.”***
***"Ma. You once told me that memory is a choice. But if you were god, you'd know it's a flood."***
***“Did you ever feel colored-in when a boy found you with his mouth? What if the body, at its best, is only longing for a body? The blood racing to the heart only to be sent back out, filling the routes, the once empty channels, the miles it takes to take us towards each other. Why did I feel more myself reaching out for him, my hand midair, than I did having touched him?"***
***“Sometimes, when I’m careless, I think survival is easy: you just keep moving forward with what you have, or what’s left of what you were given, until something changes—or you realize, at last, that you can change without disappearing, that all you had to do was wait until the storm passes you over and you find that—yes—your name is still attached to a living thing.”***
***“I am thinking of freedom again, how the calf is most free when the cage opens and it’s led to the truck for slaughter. 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
health disorders, caused by her torturous and vile husband (who later went to jail and she finally freed herself), the pain and torment she had to endure left permanent scars to her life, and the sideffects came to our narrator, the son, were aggressive forms of abuse and torture. But beneath all this, lies the tender and loving relationship between the mother and the son, how the son is capable to see within her wounds and how he accepts everything, accepts her mother for who she is and chooses to dwell onto this path, chooses to be by the mothers side till the end. This duality, this rage and hatred of the narrator for his mother, yet his love, respect and care for her, all was so masterfully portrayed by Ocean Vuong that I felt my heart pierced, because I too see myself being a part of such complex and intricate dynamics with the person that matters the most to me, my own mother. It felt so real and striking that at moments I needed to pause and take a deep breath and drink water, to compose and calm myself down, the strong raw and real portrayal of Ocean Vuong left me breathless and wounded.
This books realistically and ever so staggeringly shows us what true forms of racism and sexism can look like, the prejudice that an Asian has to face in America for simply being yellow and not white, back in 1980s and how it was so devastating and heartbreaking for me to proceed, humiliation, insults and self loathing all was so beautifully captured by Ocean Vuong, the realities and the brutalities of life, for being a part of a race that you can't control, for being the part of a gender that you can't control, the way he displays them in such daring yet genuine intensity that it will make you question how you have been living life, how privileged you are and how truly fortunate you are, it will make you question your way of living and it will challenge your own perception of mankind and humanity, of life itself. All this is so shattering and disrupting, Vuong also shows us the other side, the side of the victims who were grown in this prejudiced society and were fostered oppression and oppressive mentalities, even if it was against their own kind. How the mother and the Grandmother perceives themselves as inferior and lowly for being Asian compared to the whites in America, how they constantly kept developing this mentality and the self hatred they felt for something that was never in their hands, the detestation to oneself for something that they are not responsible for, the trailing and growing toxicity of generations and generations, all was shown by Ocean Vuong in it's most rawest form. How the narrator himself was a victim of both the sides, a constant and urgent duality always springing amidst the depths of the heart.
Homosexuality, the exploration, shame and the prejudice against it. This is the part that will be the hardest for me to continue on, because how Vuong showed us the reality for queer people in those times are nothing but real. Vuong shows how our narrator found his love, how he was stroked to explore and identify his own sexuality, the shame that comes after the first intercourse, all so vividly and magnificently that I really have nothing to say. How he found his love, how they shared moments which were limited, how they knew that this was eventually going to end, that they were about to say goodbye, that this, their love, would never persist and shine in a time like this, in a time where homosexuality was perceived as an illness and a disordered state of mind, how the bigoted society painted this to be a crime and how even today, as of speaking, homosexuality and queerhood is considered illegal, illness and a crime in many places across the globe. This was absolutely devastating and heartbreaking, the most striking part of the entire novel for me was when our narrator mustered up the courage to open up and come out to his mother.
Upon knowing this, the mother didn't leave her son, she didn't do anything, she chose to accept her son and keep her as he is. She chose to embrace him and take him in, but,
she said and I quote:
"Tell me, when did this all start? I gave birth to a healthy, normal boy, I know that. When?" This line, this sentence of hers breaks through the human heart, opens up your ribcage and cuts your heart. This pain, the agony is inexpressible, how even with everything, we can see how the mother sees her son as abnormal and treats his homosexuality as an illness. Homosexuality cannot just "start", there is no answer to "when did this start"; this segment made me pause reading for an hour, I needed to collect my thoughts in because of how real this was. A mother, a true mother, will never leave her son and throw him on the brink on an unending darkened void, at the end of the day, she accepted him for who he was in chose to take him in. But it is what that comes next, how the society has painted this disgusting picture of prejudice and oppressive agenda, that even a mother will call her son abnormal for being something that he cannot control, how bigoted and cruel this world is, Vuongs chooses to show us this reality, a reality that coexists with all the beauties and abundance of life and living, the brutality that coexists with it's brilliance and generosity. The kindness that walks in hand in hand with the darkness that embraces it. This is life, this constant surge of unending duality and unjust.
Even as a homosexual, the narrators love, and even the narrator sometimes considered themselves to be a part of an "illness", how his love thought that he will be "fine in a few years", this is just so heartbreaking and painful to endure, this life, this society that we belong to, the bigoted nature of this world, all just rises so tyrannically and diffuses into your mind that you, the one who is homosexual and oppressed, chooses and are being fostered to be the oppressor, that you who is tortured and who's voice is taken away, chooses to torture and the take away the voices of your likes. How it isn't that easy to break from an unending tormenting cycle that proves to keep on repeating generations after generations, but yet again, it is not so hopeless too, because we humans have been masters of breaking and creating such cycles and we know that with time, each cycle is bound to break and create a new existing reality, a new loop of being, a new cycle.
Family dynamics and growing together with your family, is a strong theme that slowly but steadily absorbs you in, that shows the significance of a true family and being there for each of your own, and for being their with your own people. How one finds comfort and safety in the embraces of his own family, and how the loss of a significant member disrupts everything, everything for good. How people are tied together, not by force, but by the want of the heart in their family, and how the influence of the family aids us to develop the future versions of ourselves. Alongside this, self growth and accepting yourself, fighting for your own and never giving up, loving yourself and to keep pushing forward no matter the circumstance, because that is the way to live life, that is the way to proceed.
To conclude, I would like to praise Ocean Vuongs ethereal prose and utterly magnificent poetry, he is a poet, I know, but to produce such beautiful texts, to display the rawness and the depths of the human heart and human condition so profoundly? Absolutely a masterpiece, the prose is merely enough to make someone fall in love with his writing, how gorgeous and how daring this was, this book left me speechless and I really can't find any words to express my utmost gratitude and love for this book. If I ever become a writer one day, I want my prose to parallel and reach a level that of Ocean Vuongs and I want it to evoke such strong emotions and rawness like that of Ocean Vuong. So magical, transports you into a world of literary tapestry that caresses past the fragmented fragility of your being. If you read this, and if you take anything from this, then I request you to read this book and experience all this beauty and masterful craft yourself, if you haven't
On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong might be the best book I've ever read
It's been 5 days since I've finished this book and I decided to review it today. I read this book during a very tough time of my life, where I was facing a crisis and the world around me was collapsing. By no means things are the best now, but life is getting better, the trajectory of life and it's vicious cycle of pain, joy, happiness, desolation, madness and torment. During such hard times, Ocean Vuong was there by my side, with his words, with his texts, with his novel that displayed how unjust, cruel and painful our lives might be, but there's still hope. A lingering trail of aspiration and hope that our heart choses to believe on, choses to hold on to. That it gave me the strength and hopes to hold on to, and to keep fighting and to never lose the faith in myself. This novel connected so much with me and my emotions that I feel helpless now, because I can't comprehend with words how much this book meant to me and how blessed I am to be able to read this. I haven't read many books in this lifetime, I'm still very young and feel as though I am quite inexperienced in the field of English Literature, but amongst all the one's I read, Ocean Vuong's On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous perhaps is the best. That for me, literature can't get any better than this.
This novel, is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read, who is illiterate. This mere fact, this very thing on deciding to pen a letter to your mother who is illiterate and cannot read itself penetrates through the human skin and spikes your heart. Why will you write this then? One might ask, the answer is, because it is the yearning of our heart, the wails of our soul, the constant longing to speak in our true selves to the people whom we are most vulnerable to, to the people whom we surrender ourselves to, and in this case, to the mother from the son who meant everything to him. His rage, his detestation, his longing, his yearnings, everything he ever wanted to say to her is in this letter, it is this letter, this book. But still, everything will remain unsaid, his mother will never know what's written, she will never know what her son wrote for her. The society, the world, all is a cruel monsters lair, you know the world is tyrannical, you can never say those intricate and intimate things to her, your mother, you can never express your woes and pain and yourself to the person whom you are the most vulnerable and your soul most connected to, your mother. You know this very well but you still write it, write this letter, because you want, even for the briefest second, to be in the moment without any limitations or borders, to be in a moment where you are true to yourself and expressing your heart, all fragile and vulnerable, to your mother, the dearest person of your life.
This book is filled with rawness that lurks with tenderness and fragility with every passing page. How, I as the reader felt pieces of my heart unwrapping layers after layers to open the fragile intricate self within me whilst reading this book. This books deals with alot of topics, primarily the complicated yet tender and genuine relationship between a mother and her son, also on racism, sexism, the exploration and prejudice against homosexuality. All from the perspective of the son, who is our narrator.
How each and every of these topics are displayed with such genuineness to them, with such stark remark that you feel everything is just so real, because it is real, this is the story of the hardships and struggles of an immigrant family to America from Vietnam, the spanning lives of each member of this family, the struggles and agonies of the individuals who fell victim to the Vietnam War and their lives later on. I'm sorry for being so vague, quite frankly, I don't know how to review this book because I feel like no matter what I say or how I say will provide to be an injustice to this book, will provide to remain as an understatement, anyways I digress. The mother has PTSD and many alike mental
Big dreams: He's the founder of a leading African photobook library
https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2024/12/21/g-s1-30751/books-photos-library-africa-photography
https://redd.it/1hjwxqw
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Is it the story or the storytelling?
I just finished a book which normally would've been a DNF but my sister absolutely loved it and wanted us to be able to discuss it. As I struggled through a book I really wasn't enjoying, it got me thinking. Which of these would you have an easier time forgiving?
- poor writing but captivating plot
- not much action but incredible writing
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The books quiz of 2024 – set by Richard Ayoade, Bernardine Evaristo and more
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/dec/20/the-books-quiz-of-2024-set-by-richard-ayoade-bernardine-evaristo
https://redd.it/1hjty8h
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Reading can bring us together, yet it is so often used to create more divisions.
I was a member of another online forum and found it very frustrating that people were using what they read as a way to create or strengthen divisions. Like between people who liked genre fiction vs. those who read the classics. Or one type of genre fiction vs. another. Or rejecting someone just because they read a book by a disliked author or on a taboo subject or whatever. Felt like high school when you could get rejected if you said you liked, say, a new age musician (as opposed to rock music or something).
I still feel quite wary about mentioning the books I have enjoyed reading, always worrying someone is gonna come out and judge me harshly and say, "How the hell can you like that garbage? I mean you are entitled to your opinion...but damn!"
I think a better question to ask, when someone talks about liking a book that you did not or the kind of book you would not read, is, "What did you like about it the most?"
Often the reason for liking a book has to do with more than intellect, it's something that speaks to the person's heart, validates their experiences or desires, and is true or enlightening in some personal way. You could of course say, "to each their own," and let that be the end of it, but I think by asking open-ended and nonjudgmental questions, reading can be used as a way to bridge gaps and brings us together, not push us further apart.
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Why books are the perfect Christmas present
https://nothingintherulebook.com/2024/12/23/why-books-are-the-perfect-christmas-gift/
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Reading Lonesome Dove while visiting Texas has been an experience
I’m in Texas visiting family for the Holidays, and I decided my final read of the year would be Lonesome Dove.
This is far from my first time in TX (my wife grew up here and I lived here for a bit), but it is my first time experiencing what is arguably the greatest Western of all-time.
What a visceral experience it has been so far (I’m not finished quite yet). Made even more-so by being able to look out my window and see the land being described.
This is a gritty, realistic, but beautiful story that everyone should try, IMHO.
Especially if you are out west.
https://redd.it/1hkmju9
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Thoughts on Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck?
Is there anyone here who has read the book?
As much as I love the reflective and introspective nature of the prose, I’m having a hard time finishing the book. I was wondering if I’m the only one who’s having this experience.
The book’s just overwhelmingly gloomy towards the second half and is wreaking havoc on my emotional and mental state. I should have checked the triggers before deciding to read it, but I only have about 60-65 pages left.
https://redd.it/1hkjawi
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UK: a book club targeting men
Finally secured a venue for my monthly book club aimed at men.
I’ve been calling it ‘Chap-ter & Verse’ In my head, but if there’s a better name, I’d really like to hear!
I love books, love talking about them, but every single book club I know of is essentially female-only.
I’m convinced there are males out there who want to read and share their experiences together, and would rather build it than keep hoping.
https://redd.it/1hkj640
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The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
My teacher read this to us when I was 10. I don't remember what I thought of it then, but I remembered the little girl dying.
Flashforward 16 years later and I'm now crying, cuddling with my sleeping son and his stuffed bunny. I read aloud to him every night but I'm surprised I was able to get through this. Seriously, every word was an effort to get out without breaking into tears. It's sad enough as is, but of course my boy's favorite thing in the world is his stuffed bunny.
I'm going to go eat pumpkin pie and cry some more.
https://redd.it/1hkf7me
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How to Live with Your Sensitivity
I think I am a sensitive person. I have a heightened awareness of criticism. I can’t watch violent movies or ride roller coasters. I used to try changing it. But this book, “Sensitive: The Hidden Power of the Highly Sensitive Person in a Loud, Fast, Too-Much World” taught me not to change, but to live with it. Sensitivity is a superpower.
According to recent research, about 30 percent of the population is highly sensitive individuals. So it’s not rare. Don’t say “You’re overreacting” or “You’re being too sensitive” to people.
The author thinks being sensitive is a form of being respectful and kind to yourself and others. There is evidence that sensitivity is a superpower.
Example ) According to one study, sensitive macaques who were raised by caring mothers grew to be precocious and clever individuals who were resilient to stress.
Example 2) According to the author’s research, there is a correlation between giftedness and sensitivity.
Instead of changing your sensitive mind, you can live with and nourish your sensitivity.
# Tip 1: Notice your early warning signs.
Before you reach a limit of overstimulation, your body must give you early warning signs either from a form of feeling, thoughts, images, or your body’s feelings. Then take a break and move away from the causes of overstimulation.
# Tip 2: Make your space cozy.
Examples) cozy chairs, cozy desks, cozy wall colors, or sitting in a quiet corner.
# Tip 3: Set boundaries with people who exhaust you.
“Narcissistic and ‘toxic’ people are skilled at getting us to doubt ourselves and our intuition.” - Sensitive, 2024
# Tip 4: Make smaller and actionable steps
When you feel overwhelmed, break down the tasks.
# Tip 5: Use gentle discipline to sensitive kids
According to the author, when sensitive kids receive criticism from others, they have a heightened awareness of it, therefore, they tend to criticize themselves severely and avoid situations that cause disapproval. They even start avoiding new situations that lead to failure.
Gentle discipline is a way to expand sensitive kids’ comfort zone gradually.
# Final Thoughts
Instead of thinking that overwhelmed feelings are signs of my weakness, regarding them as early warning signs is mindblowing for me. I will use it. If you are interested in this book, check out “Sensitive: The Hidden Power of the Highly Sensitive Person in a Loud, Fast, Too-Much World” by Jenn Granneman and Andre Sólo. Thank you for reading.
https://redd.it/1hkc23j
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borders. But I took it anyway, the widening. Because sometimes not seeing the bars is enough.”***
***“I remember the room. How it burned because Lan sung of fire, surrounded by her daughters. Smoke rising and collecting in the corners. The table in the middle a bright blaze. The women with their eyes closed and the words relentless. The walls a moving screen of images flashing as each verse descended to the next: a sunlit intersection in a city no longer there. A city with no name. A white man standing beside a tank with his black-haired daughter in his arms. A family sleeping in a bomb crater. A family hiding underneath a table. Do you understand? All I was given was a table. A table in lieu of a house. A table in lieu of history.”***
***"Because the sunset, like survival, exists only on the verge of its own disappearing. To be gorgeous, you must first be seen, but to be seen allows you to be hunted."***
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she said and I quote:
***"Tell me, when did this all start? I gave birth to a healthy, normal boy, I know that. When?"*** This line, this sentence of hers breaks through the human heart, opens up your ribcage and cuts your heart. This pain, the agony is inexpressible, how even with everything, we can see how the mother sees her son as abnormal and treats his homosexuality as an illness. Homosexuality cannot just "start", there is no answer to "when did this start"; this segment made me pause reading for an hour, I needed to collect my thoughts in because of how real this was. A mother, a true mother, will never leave her son and throw him on the brink on an unending darkened void, at the end of the day, she accepted him for who he was in chose to take him in. But it is what that comes next, how the society has painted this disgusting picture of prejudice and oppressive agenda, that even a mother will call her son abnormal for being something that he cannot control, how bigoted and cruel this world is, Vuongs chooses to show us this reality, a reality that coexists with all the beauties and abundance of life and living, the brutality that coexists with it's brilliance and generosity. The kindness that walks in hand in hand with the darkness that embraces it. This is life, this constant surge of unending duality and unjust.
Even as a homosexual, the narrators love, and even the narrator sometimes considered themselves to be a part of an "illness", how his love thought that he will be "fine in a few years", this is just so heartbreaking and painful to endure, this life, this society that we belong to, the bigoted nature of this world, all just rises so tyrannically and diffuses into your mind that you, the one who is homosexual and oppressed, chooses and are being fostered to be the oppressor, that you who is tortured and who's voice is taken away, chooses to torture and the take away the voices of your likes. How it isn't that easy to break from an unending tormenting cycle that proves to keep on repeating generations after generations, but yet again, it is not so hopeless too, because we humans have been masters of breaking and creating such cycles and we know that with time, each cycle is bound to break and create a new existing reality, a new loop of being, a new cycle.
Family dynamics and growing together with your family, is a strong theme that slowly but steadily absorbs you in, that shows the significance of a true family and being there for each of your own, and for being their with your own people. How one finds comfort and safety in the embraces of his own family, and how the loss of a significant member disrupts everything, everything for good. How people are tied together, not by force, but by the want of the heart in their family, and how the influence of the family aids us to develop the future versions of ourselves. Alongside this, self growth and accepting yourself, fighting for your own and never giving up, loving yourself and to keep pushing forward no matter the circumstance, because that is the way to live life, that is the way to proceed.
To conclude, I would like to praise Ocean Vuongs ethereal prose and utterly magnificent poetry, he is a poet, I know, but to produce such beautiful texts, to display the rawness and the depths of the human heart and human condition so profoundly? Absolutely a masterpiece, the prose is merely enough to make someone fall in love with his writing, how gorgeous and how daring this was, this book left me speechless and I really can't find any words to express my utmost gratitude and love for this book. If I ever become a writer one day, I want my prose to parallel and reach a level that of Ocean Vuongs and I want it to evoke such strong emotions and rawness like that of Ocean Vuong. So magical, transports you into a world of literary tapestry that caresses past the fragmented fragility of your being. If you read this, and if you take anything from this, then I request you to read this book and experience all this beauty and masterful craft yourself, if you haven't
On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong might be the best book I've ever read
It's been 5 days since I've finished this book and I decided to review it today. I read this book during a very tough time of my life, where I was facing a crisis and the world around me was collapsing. By no means things are the best now, but life is getting better, the trajectory of life and it's vicious cycle of pain, joy, happiness, desolation, madness and torment. During such hard times, Ocean Vuong was there by my side, with his words, with his texts, with his novel that displayed how unjust, cruel and painful our lives might be, but there's still hope. A lingering trail of aspiration and hope that our heart choses to believe on, choses to hold on to. That it gave me the strength and hopes to hold on to, and to keep fighting and to never lose the faith in myself. This novel connected so much with me and my emotions that I feel helpless now, because I can't comprehend with words how much this book meant to me and how blessed I am to be able to read this. I haven't read many books in this lifetime, I'm still very young and feel as though I am quite inexperienced in the field of English Literature, but amongst all the one's I read, Ocean Vuong's On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous perhaps is the best. That for me, literature can't get any better than this.
This novel, is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read, who is illiterate. This mere fact, this very thing on deciding to pen a letter to your mother who is illiterate and cannot read itself penetrates through the human skin and spikes your heart. Why will you write this then? One might ask, the answer is, because it is the yearning of our heart, the wails of our soul, the constant longing to speak in our true selves to the people whom we are most vulnerable to, to the people whom we surrender ourselves to, and in this case, to the mother from the son who meant everything to him. His rage, his detestation, his longing, his yearnings, everything he ever wanted to say to her is in this letter, it is this letter, this book. But still, everything will remain unsaid, his mother will never know what's written, she will never know what her son wrote for her. The society, the world, all is a cruel monsters lair, you know the world is tyrannical, you can never say those intricate and intimate things to her, your mother, you can never express your woes and pain and yourself to the person whom you are the most vulnerable and your soul most connected to, your mother. You know this very well but you still write it, write this letter, because you want, even for the briefest second, to be in the moment without any limitations or borders, to be in a moment where you are true to yourself and expressing your heart, all fragile and vulnerable, to your mother, the dearest person of your life.
This book is filled with rawness that lurks with tenderness and fragility with every passing page. How, I as the reader felt pieces of my heart unwrapping layers after layers to open the fragile intricate self within me whilst reading this book. This books deals with alot of topics, primarily the complicated yet tender and genuine relationship between a mother and her son, also on racism, sexism, the exploration and prejudice against homosexuality. All from the perspective of the son, who is our narrator.
How each and every of these topics are displayed with such genuineness to them, with such stark remark that you feel everything is just so real, because it is real, this is the story of the hardships and struggles of an immigrant family to America from Vietnam, the spanning lives of each member of this family, the struggles and agonies of the individuals who fell victim to the Vietnam War and their lives later on. I'm sorry for being so vague, quite frankly, I don't know how to review this book because I feel like no matter what I say or how I say will provide to be an injustice to this book, will provide to remain as an understatement, anyways I digress. The mother has PTSD and many alike mental
health disorders, caused by her torturous and vile husband (who later went to jail and she finally freed herself), the pain and torment she had to endure left permanent scars to her life, and the sideffects came to our narrator, the son, were aggressive forms of abuse and torture. But beneath all this, lies the tender and loving relationship between the mother and the son, how the son is capable to see within her wounds and how he accepts everything, accepts her mother for who she is and chooses to dwell onto this path, chooses to be by the mothers side till the end. This duality, this rage and hatred of the narrator for his mother, yet his love, respect and care for her, all was so masterfully portrayed by Ocean Vuong that I felt my heart pierced, because I too see myself being a part of such complex and intricate dynamics with the person that matters the most to me, my own mother. It felt so real and striking that at moments I needed to pause and take a deep breath and drink water, to compose and calm myself down, the strong raw and real portrayal of Ocean Vuong left me breathless and wounded.
This books realistically and ever so staggeringly shows us what true forms of racism and sexism can look like, the prejudice that an Asian has to face in America for simply being yellow and not white, back in 1980s and how it was so devastating and heartbreaking for me to proceed, humiliation, insults and self loathing all was so beautifully captured by Ocean Vuong, the realities and the brutalities of life, for being a part of a race that you can't control, for being the part of a gender that you can't control, the way he displays them in such daring yet genuine intensity that it will make you question how you have been living life, how privileged you are and how truly fortunate you are, it will make you question your way of living and it will challenge your own perception of mankind and humanity, of life itself. All this is so shattering and disrupting, Vuong also shows us the other side, the side of the victims who were grown in this prejudiced society and were fostered oppression and oppressive mentalities, even if it was against their own kind. How the mother and the Grandmother perceives themselves as inferior and lowly for being Asian compared to the whites in America, how they constantly kept developing this mentality and the self hatred they felt for something that was never in their hands, the detestation to oneself for something that they are not responsible for, the trailing and growing toxicity of generations and generations, all was shown by Ocean Vuong in it's most rawest form. How the narrator himself was a victim of both the sides, a constant and urgent duality always springing amidst the depths of the heart.
Homosexuality, the exploration, shame and the prejudice against it. This is the part that will be the hardest for me to continue on, because how Vuong showed us the reality for queer people in those times are nothing but real. Vuong shows how our narrator found his love, how he was stroked to explore and identify his own sexuality, the shame that comes after the first intercourse, all so vividly and magnificently that I really have nothing to say. How he found his love, how they shared moments which were limited, how they knew that this was eventually going to end, that they were about to say goodbye, that this, their love, would never persist and shine in a time like this, in a time where homosexuality was perceived as an illness and a disordered state of mind, how the bigoted society painted this to be a crime and how even today, as of speaking, homosexuality and queerhood is considered illegal, illness and a crime in many places across the globe. This was absolutely devastating and heartbreaking, the most striking part of the entire novel for me was when our narrator mustered up the courage to open up and come out to his mother.
Upon knowing this, the mother didn't leave her son, she didn't do anything, she chose to accept her son and keep her as he is. She chose to embrace him and take him in, but,
That Time Twenty Years Ago When I Ugly-Cried At Reading The Little Match Girl To My Daughter
Well, the title says it all really.
About twenty years ago (my daughter is now a young lady of twenty-two, recently graduated and visiting us briefly for the holidays before she flies off to be exciting in Europe), when she must have been three-ish, we were lying on my younger sister's bed together at my parents' place, and I was reading her an illustrated copy of "The Little Match Girl". You know those kinds of children books where each page is a full on colour illustration?
About the second match in I could feel the physical symptoms of sobbing rise in my throat, my voice began to shake, but I didn't think it was going to be so bad, and I was still hopeful my daughter would fall asleep so I kept reading and tried to fight it down.
A couple more pages and the dams broke loose- I didn't even cry like that for my parents' funerals, many many years later. It was full on ugly-crying such as is rarely inspired by real-life events, and can take only a master story-teller like Hans Christian Anderson to provoke. My poor daughter was confused and had no idea why I was crying, and I think my mom came to the room and told me off for confusing and upsetting my daughter, although maybe she didn't and I am imagining it, a constructed memory of what feels like could have happened, but may or may not have. And I think my sister laughed at me.
Have you ugly-cried at a book? When, where, what book?
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Weekly FAQ Thread December 22, 2024: How do you get over a book hangover?
Hello readers and welcome to our Weekly FAQ thread! Our topic this week is: How do you get over a book hangover? Please use this thread to discuss whether you do after you've read a great book and don't want to start another one.
You can view previous FAQ threads here in our wiki.
Thank you and enjoy!
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The Most Scathing Book Reviews of 2024
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"The Handyman Method" by Nick Cutter and Andrew F. Sullivan.
So it's been a long time after "Little Heaven" and "The Deep", two novels written by Nick Cutter, and now I've finished a collaborative effort by Cutter and another author, Andrew F. Sullivan. It is titled "The Handyman Method".
The Saban has moved into a rural and unfinished development, and already there are cracks forming, not just in their new residence, but in their lives as well.
Trent, a father struggling with unemployment and in his uncertainty of his place in the world, attempts DIY home repairs. Attempts that lead him into a rabbit hole --one that results in dark radicalizations of a supernatural sort, with a mysterious instructor that gives him extremely dark and subliminal suggestions about handling any kind of problem in the house.
Rita steps into the role of breadwinner, and tries to keep the family together when everything begins to get out of hand and goes from bad, to the absolute worse. Especially as their son, Milo, who is left to his own devices, shows some disturbing signs of side effects of spending way to much screen time.
This book is short, but wildly intense, going all the way to 100%! 'The Handyman Method" is a horrifying ride of suspense that keeps going right until the breaking point arrives. It also provides a glimpse of how families can be strained in certain ways and of how social media can oftentimes have a very negative effect on people. Really fantastic stuff despite the short length.
So far I've read a few novels by cutter including this one, but Andrew F. Sullivan is a new one for me. It looks like he's published some material himself, material that just might be of intense interest for me!
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Do you ever feel the urge to write a book whenever reading a book?
I wonder if it's just me, but particularly whenever I read a work of fiction I picture myself writing a book and get lost in thought imagining what I'd write. Presently I have been reading the first chapter of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (which I have never read before) and I got lost picturing myself writing an autobiography... Am I crazy or does this happen to anyone else?
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