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Review: The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
Written in poetic prose and set in a fictional town in the US, this is a novel that captures the mundanity and the beauty of existence
A tale of the unsung American life set in the fictional town of East Gladness in Connecticut, Ocean Vuong’s second novel, The Emperor of Gladness, is a chronicle of Hai who, on the edge of a bridge, hears a voice calling to him. This voice, belonging to Grazina, an elderly widow with dementia, persuades him to give life another chance. He becomes her caregiver and they develop a bond that changes them both. Built on the foundation of empathy, kindness and a common knowledge of heartbreak, this connection gives Hai the power to heal his relationship with himself, his family, and his community. Perhaps, the older idea of the American Dream — to study hard, get a job, work hard, buy a house, and live a happy life with your family — has become obsolete. Here, Vuong writes of the struggles and values of those who exist on the fringes; he portrays how, despite the difficult cards dealt them, they build their lives on the basis of love, labour and community, and fight injustice with the spirit of togetherness.
Hai takes up a job at a HomeMarket to help support him and Grazina. As he works shift after shift, not really making enough even for food – here, the reader senses Vuong’s criticism of late-stage capitalism -- he discovers what it’s feel like to belong: “Never in his life had he been so included in something as to be swallowed by it, invisible among a visible human mass.” Surrounded by vibrant folk, Hai slowly finds rhythm in his new life. He experiences moments of fun and bonds with his coworkers who go from being “the third best team in New England” to becoming his new family.
While Vuong’s debut novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous followed an unconventional structure and flow, The Emperor of Gladness is more regular with its focus on plot, structure and narrative. Yet, in many ways, this work serves as a mirror to the earlier one. The stories of Little Dog from On Earth… and Hai seem to unfold in parallel timelines with elements from the first being found in the latter. It’s almost as if The Emperor of Gladness is the autofiction that Little Dog would have written had he become a successful writer.
An immigrant and a refugee himself, Vietnamese-American Vuong adeptly presents the struggles of Grazina as a young girl escaping war torn Lithuania. As waves of dementia break her down in the present, her memory terrorizes her with vivid flashbacks of her life during the Second World War. The novel suggests that war trauma endures through succeeding generations moulding even those who have no first-hand experience of it. This is evident in Hai’s autistic cousin Sony’s deep interest in the American Civil War as a coping mechanism.
While the book tackles heavy themes like drug abuse and war, it also has a strong undercurrent of hope. Despite the terrible things that have happened to them, the characters operate from a place of love and compassion. With perfectly placed humour, and passages of fine writing exploring existential questions and philosophical differences, The Emperor of Gladness is a rich and layered read. Here is Vuong on food as a source of security, a sign of wealth and a beacon of hope: “You see, carrots become bright orange because it’s so dark in the ground. They make their own light because the sun never reaches that far — like those fish in the ocean who glow from nothing? So, when you eat it, you take in the carrot’s will to go upward. To heaven.”
READ MORE – Ocean Vuong: “War is the most common and steadfast reality of our species”
Largely based on the author’s experience of living with and caring for his own “Grazina”, the book is also remarkable for its presentation of queer characters – whom Grazina mistakenly calls “Liggabit” – whose sexuality is merely incidental.
As with his earlier poetry collections, Time Is A Mother and Night Sky With Exit Wounds, Vuong’s novels, too, have a disarming quality that allows the reader to reflect, find parts of themselves in the story, and realise that they are not alone. He writes about people and what makes them tick, about the immigrant child failing to make his family proud, the troubled one turning to drugs, the old woman confused by the present turning into a haunting past. In a sense, all of these characters mirror each other and through them, the author captures the mundanity and the beauty of existence, ultimately asking the reader: What do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
Rutvik Bhandari is an independent writer. He lives in Pune. You can find him talking about books on Instagram and YouTube (@themindlessmess).
