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Situational Irony
Style
Explanation and Analysis:
Vuong’s writing style in On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is distinctive, at times resembling poetry more than prose. Vuong himself was a poet before he became a novelist. His lauded poetry collection Night Sky With Exit Wounds explores many of the themes also present in On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous: queerness, Americana, war, PTSD, generational trauma.
Given Vuong’s aptitude for poetry, it comes as no surprise to see him apply an impressionistic, poetic style to prose writing. Vuong’s sentences often carry the metaphorical density of a poem, interlaced with motifs and allegories that weave in and out of different segments of the novel. These frequent instances of extended figurative language string together otherwise unrelated events and images, comprising anything but a traditional narrative.
Vuong’s poetic approach, applied over the course of an entire novel, evolves into a vignette-centric writing style. Each fragment of Little Dog’s story appears to surface at random from his subconscious, in some ways mirroring stream-of-consciousness writing. Little Dog includes his emotions, feelings, and memories as snippets in each reflective vignette—a process he himself compares to shipwreck debris appearing above the water. This fragmentary style is an offshoot of Vuong’s poetic background. Such style lends itself well to the telling of a trauma narrative.
Related Themes:
