"Our Fleeting Splendor on Earth" is an epistolary novel written by award-winning poet Wang Ouxing. "Dear Mom, I am writing this letter to reach you, although every word I write is another word away from you."
This is a letter written by a son to his illiterate mother. It bears witness to the unspoken and deep love between a mother and her son. The narrator "Puppy" wrote these words when he was in his twenties, recalling in detail the childhood memories of him, his mother, and his grandmother living together in a foreign country, his family history, and his life. The content is deeply touching. These people survive trauma and are sustained by compassion and tenderness. Although life is full of holes, we have also lived a short and glorious life on this earth.
Reader comments
To read this novel, you should read it on a hazy day with the sun high in the sky.
"I write because I want to reach you - although every word I write is one word away from you."
"I am writing to you from the body that once belonged to you. In other words, I am writing as the Son of Man."
Personally, I like the content of the first chapter the best. Every time I read a word, my heart feels like it is being stretched a little wider. For this reason, I will read my favorite sentences over and over again until they are all implanted in my brain. Two of the smallest ambulances in the world. Car windows are the cruelest walls. Puppy shield. I placed you in God's loneliest creation. Our mother tongue is more like an orphan.
There are many metaphors in the novel: monarch butterflies, monkeys whose heads were dissected, buffalo herds rolling down like gravel, and moose whose legs were torn off. They are like the keys that unlock the author's heart. Only after you understand them can you understand why this book came out and why it could only be written by Wang Ouxing.
Rose. Red. Mom.
Delicate emotions, floating and dreamy associations. Transient, personal, and thick as blood. It is difficult to summarize, the smell of blood, it is fishy and hot, attracting the same touch of bright red life pumping in everyone's body. Hong is my mother's name.
A very in-depth book, the sentences in it all reveal the author's true feelings.
Monarch butterflies and macaques also symbolize the Vietnamese people who fled to the United States after the war. They migrate like monarch butterflies. He said that monarch butterflies that fly south will not return to the north. In this way, every departure is the last. Only their children come back, only the future visits the past.
The survivor is the last one to go home, the last monarch butterfly to land on a branch that has been bent by ghosts.
As a refugee from Vietnam, my mother once mistook fireworks for bombs and was afraid to lie down. She also asked me if this skirt was fireproof. Perhaps when the hard-earned shopping moment came, she would also murmur that I am a real American.
He said this, our mother tongue is not like our mother, but more like an orphan. Our Vietnamese language is a time capsule of when your education ended and turned into ashes. When speaking our mother tongue, only part of it is speaking Vietnamese, the whole is speaking the language of war. The Vietnamese language is a relic of the war. It is the connection between one side of the ocean and the other after the ocean was separated. It is the proof of that tragic experience.
So, that night, I promised myself that I would never be speechless again when you need me to speak for you. Just like that, I became the official translator for the whole family. Since then, I've done everything I can to fill in our gaps, our silent, stuttering moments. I code-switched. I take off my mother tongue and put on my English, like a mask, so that others can see my face, and then yours.
In this way, I rashly chose to major in English in order to be heard. I then turned to writing, perhaps to express and record
From "seven" to "orchid", a flower that blooms in pain
This book is delicately written and tells the story of the growth of a Saigon boy with sincere emotions. The story contains profound explorations of family, race, class and other issues, which are thought-provoking. The experience of having a puppy made me realize the difficulty of life and the power of perseverance. Highly recommended!
After reading dozens of pages, I couldn't help but leave a comment. It is a book with very beautiful words and sentences... It is so gorgeous that reading it feels like walking through a dream, with amazing imagination. Delicate and sincere, I like it very much. There are a lot of things worth learning, and I want to write something like this.
Super beautiful [crying] very philosophical
Really beautiful
The author, and everyone around him, lives with the trauma of the war
[I'm almost crying][I'm almost crying][I'm almost crying][I'm almost crying] War brings too much harm.
Soft, like fire, like red
I'll kill you, Divine Writing Pen!
It is a poetic language.
But sometimes I feel that it is too much, and it seems a bit obscure.
To read this novel, you should read it on a hazy day with the sun high in the sky. "I write because I want to reach you - although every word I write is one word away from you." "I am writing to you from the body that once belonged to you. In other words, I am writing as the Son of Man." Personally, I like the content of the first chapter the best. Every time I read a word, my heart feels like it is being stretched a little wider. For this reason, I will read my favorite sentences over and over again until they are all implanted in my brain. Two of the smallest ambulances in the world. Car windows are the cruelest walls. Puppy shield. I placed you in God's loneliest creation. Our mother tongue is more like an orphan. There are many metaphors in the novel: monarch butterflies, monkeys whose heads were dissected, buffalo herds rolling down like gravel, and moose whose legs were torn off. They are like the keys that unlock the author's heart. Only after you understand them can you understand why this book came out and why it could only be written by Wang Ouxing. Rose. Red. Mom.
Delicate emotions, floating and dreamy associations. Transient, personal, and thick as blood. It is difficult to summarize, the smell of blood, it is fishy and hot, attracting the same touch of bright red life pumping in everyone's body. Hong is my mother's name.
A very in-depth book, the sentences in it all reveal the author's true feelings. Monarch butterflies and macaques also symbolize the Vietnamese people who fled to the United States after the war. They migrate like monarch butterflies. He said that monarch butterflies that fly south will not return to the north. In this way, every departure is the last. Only their children come back, only the future visits the past. The survivor is the last one to go home, the last monarch butterfly to land on a branch that has been bent by ghosts. As a refugee from Vietnam, my mother once mistook fireworks for bombs and was afraid to lie down. She also asked me if this skirt was fireproof. Perhaps when the hard-earned shopping moment came, she would also murmur that I am a real American. He said this, our mother tongue is not like our mother, but more like an orphan. Our Vietnamese language is a time capsule of when your education ended and turned into ashes. When speaking our mother tongue, only part of it is speaking Vietnamese, the whole is speaking the language of war. The Vietnamese language is a relic of the war. It is the connection between one side of the ocean and the other after the ocean was separated. It is the proof of that tragic experience. So, that night, I promised myself that I would never be speechless again when you need me to speak for you. Just like that, I became the official translator for the whole family. Since then, I've done everything I can to fill in our gaps, our silent, stuttering moments. I code-switched. I take off my mother tongue and put on my English, like a mask, so that others can see my face, and then yours. In this way, I rashly chose to major in English in order to be heard. I then turned to writing, perhaps to express and record From "seven" to "orchid", a flower that blooms in pain
This book is delicately written and tells the story of the growth of a Saigon boy with sincere emotions. The story contains profound explorations of family, race, class and other issues, which are thought-provoking. The experience of having a puppy made me realize the difficulty of life and the power of perseverance. Highly recommended!
After reading dozens of pages, I couldn't help but leave a comment. It is a book with very beautiful words and sentences... It is so gorgeous that reading it feels like walking through a dream, with amazing imagination. Delicate and sincere, I like it very much. There are a lot of things worth learning, and I want to write something like this.
Super beautiful [crying] very philosophical
Really beautiful
The author, and everyone around him, lives with the trauma of the war
[I'm almost crying][I'm almost crying][I'm almost crying][I'm almost crying] War brings too much harm.
Soft, like fire, like red
I'll kill you, Divine Writing Pen!
It is a poetic language. But sometimes I feel that it is too much, and it seems a bit obscure.
Wang Ouxing, you have a heart like gold. . .