ON EARTH WE'RE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS

The first novel by Ocean Vuong, a Vietnamese-American poet whose collection of poems Night Sky with Exit Wounds has remained by our bedsides since first read of those searingly vulnerable, tender, violent words, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous takes the form of a letter from Little Dog to his mother, who cannot read. A master of juxtaposition, Vuong, in gossamer-fine language, explores subjects as dense and far-ranging as identity, immigration, language, love, sex, America and the opioid crisis. Non-linear in narrative, Little Dog writes mid-way 'I’m not telling you a story so much as a shipwreck — the pieces floating, lit up, finally legible'.

In interviews Vuong speaks about the way he wanted to draw people's attention to the minutiae of the everyday – often, more specifically, to the detritus – and that in this way he is moving away from the pursuit of timelessness. What he wants to show is what is ephemeral, momentary. That it is these things that build a life. It is a move away from the statue building of patriarchal literature and a step towards something queerer in approach.

'In a world myriad as ours, the gaze is a singular act: to look at something is to fill your whole life with it, if only briefly.' For Little Dog, for Rose (his mother), for Lan (his grandmother), these generations whose history is a catalogue of trauma and loss, to look on beauty – even if only briefly – is a balm. It is Little Dog, aged six, climbing a tall fence to retrieve some tiny purple flowers for his grandmother; it's buying three mood rings at the supermarket when they haven't much to eat; it's a pink bicycle, white dresses, hummingbirds, Chopin. 'It was beauty, I learned, that we risked ourselves for.' This book is so layered, so rich, it feels reductive to focus on just one thread. But it's this, the hunger for beauty, the turning towards so ephemeral a thing, that feels like one of its foundations.

BEFORE SUNRISE

The biggest boon to interrailing in the mid-to-late nineties, Before Sunrise takes place over less than twenty four hours when Jesse, a young American traveller, meets French student Céline on a train bound for Vienna. Immediately hitting it off, when the time comes for Jesse to disembark, rather than say goodbye, they decide to spend his last night in Europe together, walking, talking and ultimately, falling in love, before he has to leave to catch his flight home.

Smart, authentic, unashamedly earnest … and boy-oh-boy is it romantic. (Especially if you're into a sort of low-key grunge meets Éric Rohmer realism). A precursor to mumblecore, the film is one long, luxurious conversation. The script is tight and the musings engaging but what's truly brilliant is just how accurately it conveys the feelings. Take the scene in the record store listening booth: it's early on and they both so desperately want to stare at each other but neither wants the other to catch them. Shyness, sweetness. It's excruciating and delicious. The brief encounter element making it even more so. 'It's like our time together is just ours, it's our own creation' says Céline. Everything's heightened, suspended. And isn't that just the essence of falling in love? 'We’re back in real time' says Jesse later. And ain't that also the way? Luckily for them, and us, this isn't the end of their story.