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.
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没有什么事物能一直与快乐产生联系,巴特曾写道,不过,对于作家而言,母语可以。可假如母语没学好呢?假如说母语的舌头不但代表了空白,而且本身就是空白,假如舌头被割了呢?一个人能否在不彻底失去自我的情况下,从失去中得到快乐?我会的越南语,是你教我的越南语,是词汇和句法只有二年级水平的越南语。
你有一次告诉我,人的眼睛是神最孤独的创造。世上有多少东西会穿过瞳孔,可它什么都留不下。一只眼睛孤零零地待在自己的眼眶里,完全不知道一英寸之外,还有完全相同的另一只,一样饥渴,一样空洞。你打开前门,对着我人生中的第一场雪,耳语道:“看。”
The rules, they were already inside us.
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