Title: The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
Book Beginnings quote:
The hardest thing in the world is to live only once.
Friday56 quote:
When the tour was over, Hai followed BJ into the office, which was the size of a large porta-potty.
Summary:
One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to alter Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink.
Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. (Publisher)
Review: One of my favorite Christmas movies is "It's a Wonderful Life" starring Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey. At one particularly low moment in his life, George stands on a bridge over the river, contemplating suicide. At the exact moment before the jump, another man falls into the river. We learn that this second man is actually an angel, Clarence, who is sent to save George. One can't read the opening sequence of The Emperor of Gladness, outlined in the summary, without comparing the two stories. Hai, a desperate and very unhappy boy is saved from killing himself by the ancient Grazina who, like Clarence-the-angel, devises a life-saving scheme on the spot.
Unlike George, who lives in Bedford Falls surrounded by a family and a whole community who loves him and indeed cheers for him, Hai lives in East Gladness, a town past its prime with no sense of community spirit at all. Hai feels alone, isolated by culture, experiences, and trauma.
When Grazina extends an invitation for Hai to live with her, she essentially offers a way out of this isolation and eventually a found family. Grazina needs Hai as much as he needs her. Later Hai finds a group of friends, to add to his found family, at his place of employment, HomeMarket. There is Sony, Hai's neurodivergent cousin; BJ, the restaurant manager whose dream is to become a professional wrestler; and a whole host of misfits. "The reader is forever being dragged along, metaphorically speaking, as someone slips slow motion on a banana peel." (NYT).
Hai is a Vietnamese-born immigrant. Both his mother and grandmother brought the trauma from the war with them when they left their homeland. Now Hai is saddled with their expectations to make something of himself but his drug addiction and grief over the death of a friend have trapped him in inaction. He confesses to Grazina that he once wanted to be a writer. "My dream was to write a novel that held everything I loved, including unlovable things." He may have wanted to be a writer but he lied to his mother, telling her he was in medical school in Boston, a deception he kept up even though he almost killed himself for the knowledge he was disappointing her.
Author Ocean Vuong puts a lot into this book. There are so many topics/theme, if is hard to keep track of them: books, wars, racism, drugs. "For sure this is a book deeply attentive to oft-overlooked populations and simple survival; Hai may be reading Slaughterhouse-Five and The Brothers Karamazov, but he’s living out of Fast Food Nation and Nickel and Dimed (NYT). I'm sure a ton of the literary references were lost on me, but I caught those. In particular, one reference I didn't get until reading reviews of the book later had to do with the title. One of the two epigraphs is by poet Wallace Stevens, who wrote a poem titled "The Emperor of Ice Cream." An obscure reference that maybe only another poet, such as Vuong, would recognize.
I find Ocean Vuong's poetry and prose difficult to read. I am not sure if it is that he writes about experiences I haven't lived or if it is just over my head. Often I am left wondering what just happened as when I got to the end of The Emperor of Gladness. Does it end on a note of hope or not? I couldn't tell. If you've read the book, you tell me.
My rating: 4 stars.
Challenge: Big Book Summer, 404 pages
The Emperor of Gladness Discussion questions,
modified from ReadingGroupGuides.
1. One of the epigraphs is taken from a Connecticut poet, Wallace Stevens who wrote a poem "The Emperor of Ice Cream." What do you think Vuong is saying with his title while giving a nod to Stevens?
2. Both Hai and Grazina are immigrants. Talk about their stories. Are they typical American immigrant stories? Are they living the American Dream?
3. When Hai got hired at HomeMarket he gained a "real, quantifiable foothold in the world" (59). Talk about the value of work, using examples from the book and from your own experiences.
4. When Grazina asked Hai to live with him and after he makes friends at HomeMarket it is as if he finds a family. Talk about the ways all these people supported one another. Compare them to actual family members actions.
5. The theme of war was sprinkled throughout the book. What wars? What do you think Vuong was saying how wars affect us even those long over?
6. There are several mothers and mother-figures in the book. What insights does Hai gain from Grazina and Maureen about the challenges of parenting? Why do you think Hai doesn't feel like he can be honest with his mother? Do you think there is any way to repair their relationship?
7. Ghosts make several appearances in the book (see pages 35, 160, 165). Why do you think Vuong included so many references to ghosts? Were the characters being haunted or helped by them?
8. Hai says we tell ourselves stories to make our life more bearable. What are the stories some of the characters are telling themselves? (BJ, Maureen, Sony)
9. What are the different ways that characters cope with the death of loved ones?
10. Both Sony and Hai lie to their mothers. Why do people lie? Are lies ever good?
11. The end of the novel has Hai hiding in a dumpster seeing into the future for other characters but he doesn't see his own future. What do you think happens to Hai? What ending would you write for him? Why do you think the author left the ending hoving someplace between hope and despair?
12. The Emperor of Gladness is described as semi-autobiographical. If you met Vuong, what questions would you like to ask him about this book compared to his life?
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