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Whut4 t1_j5odi8t wrote

Reply to comment by boysen_bean in Just finished reading “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” by Ocean Vuong, and it was amazing by Stanley910

Same here. Life is horrifying sometimes. Sometimes you can't sugar-coat things. I do not like or enjoy knowing that people do that, but it is out there at the edge of strange disturbing things people do. Many strange disturbing things are commonplace but not considered. My friend who was upset by the >!monkey brains thing !<had visited a slaughterhouse and still has no problem eating meat. There are different levels of what we are sensitive to or shocked by. What is commonplace or accepted in one culture could be shocking in another - strange stuff. The book makes poetry of it all, yet it is readable like prose or a story - even in the form of a letter to his mom who can't read at all.

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boysen_bean t1_j5peuoj wrote

Right. The juxtaposition of American audiences (i know plenty of people from around the world have read this book, but im thinking about my book club which consisted of people from the United States) being horrified by that scene, yet had little to say about the treatment of the Vietnamese humans whose country and lives were torn apart so thoroughly that many had to flee the country as refugees. It also spoke to the lengths men will go to in order to be more masculine- the eating of live monkey brains, toxic masculinity at its finest.

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