A Little Life

Long and short listed for just about every award out there, I picked up Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life and read about 100-150 pages before putting it down for months because I was struggling to keep my eyes open as I read. The continued raves convinced me to give it another go though and this time I pushed on to the end. Now here comes the heresy about this much lauded book: I was bored. There was plenty that should have inspired an emotional response but it didn’t because I never felt any connection with the characters. In fact, I rooted for the end I knew must come and I wanted it to come far sooner than it did.

Be warned that spoilers will follow in the below paragraphs.

Ostensibly the story of four friends who meet in college, one show more character quickly takes over the narrative. Even to his closest friends, Jude remains an enigma. They only know him from the moment he enters their lives, never sharing any personal information, staying infuriatingly blank. His history is slowly, over the course of the novel, revealed to the reader and it is a terrible, horror filled history indeed. Jude is literally and figuratively crippled by his childhood, and understandably so given the magnitude of wrongs done to him. That these terrible wrongs would define his life forever is certainly believable. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that there was so much else that wasn’t believable. That this secretive and unknowable person should inspire such love and loyalty from close to everyone around him is not quite believable. Only one person in his adulthood treats him as he expects to be treated and that character is drawn so firmly evil that he was a caricature who only exists briefly in the story to reinforce Jude’s unworthiness to himself. That Jude and all three of his closest friends would be wild successes in their chosen fields, Jude a ruthless attorney, JB an artist of such renown that MOMA wanted one of his paintings, Malcolm a celebrated architect, and Willem a famed actor on both stage and screen, stretches credibility. That one of Jude’s professors feels such a connection to his enigmatic, culinarily skilled student that he and his wife fall in love and welcome Jude into their family is head shaking. That every single grown man that Jude encountered before college was a sexual predator/pedophile and attracted to him, and I'm not just talking about the creepy men that Brother Luke finds for him (yes, he was beautiful and all that but...) and then all but one notable exception after college was practically sainted is a strange and incredibly unlikely dichotomy.

Credibility is not the only thing that stymied me about the book either. There is scant character development of anyone but Jude and there's not much development of him either as we have to take it on faith that despite his ongoing struggles to feel worthy, he overcame everything to become who he is presented as in his adult life. There's no credible transition from the abused child to the steely and determined lawyer. There's no nuance here; everyone is either/or. Two of the four friends in this life-saving and amazing friendship essentially disappear from the novel for large chunks of time and the friendship itself presents problems. Nothing in Jude's character makes the reader understand how he comes to trust not only these three college friends, but also his doctor and his professor to the extent he does. All of this is just presented as a fait accompli although trust to this extreme would be a serious, hard earned accomplishment in someone with his background. The narrative was overwritten to the point that this reader wished that the story would just get on with it already (and I'm not proud to admit that I just wanted Jude to die already because I was tired of him--clearly not the visceral reaction Yanagihara was going for). The story felt endless and the reoccurring scenes of sexual abuse started to feel as if they were included for a prurient reaction rather than to add depth to the story. Even Jude's understandable despair got old in this drawn out telling. I know every prize committee on the planet thought it was amazing. I thought it was an exercise in lengthy tedium. In short, I just didn’t get it. And it was a very long commitment to come away feeling this way about it. I wasn’t emotionally drained by the story, I was disappointed, a far less welcome feeling after 800 plus pages. show less

My impression about 5% in was "ah okay Secret History for 2010's" and that it was. Very fanfiction-y, fantasy novel with the magic setting being rich in New York. Recommended reading for people who read 500 000 word, overwritten & repetitive hurt/comfort slow burns to Work Through Some Stuff. I am one of those people, but it's a very specific insufferable niche.

The author gets a lot of style points for writing almost 1000 pages about trauma, without mentioning the word trauma even once - nor many other diagnoses or medical terms. The disability is a fantasy disability, diseases are decidedly fantasy diseases, and the trauma is a fantasy trauma. In the current discussion context this approach can be refreshing, and allow for exploring show more some rarer answers to complicated questions. Facts all bend around the story the author wants to tell, and it's easy to argue why this is problematic on many levels ( then again wtf do I know about rich people stuff, maybe they really have total accessibility at the workplace and all inclusive orthopedists. ) For what the book sets out to do, it mostly works, and the fantasies hold up their own internal logic. If you're going to be this extra, why not go all in.

All that said, there is absolute beautiful writing and great observations. I was especially moved by descriptions of paintings and films, and the whole art school friend group satire was funny and relatable*. Kudos left, subscribed.

* quote of the day:
I found myself
admiring them, much as he did—their perseverance, their dumb, hardy
faith. These were people no one and nothing could ever dissuade from life,
from claiming it as theirs. show less

While it’s not unusual for a book to make me cry, it is a little out of the norm for me to burst into tears when talking about a book—which is exactly what happened when I tried to explain this maudlin plot to my husband. This book should come with a warning: it’s melancholic and hard to read in places—everything horrible in a piteous life happens here. It’s Shakespearean tragic. But, it’s also one of the most beautiful stories of friendship I’ve ever read: real and reverent, forgiving and sacrificial, loyal and loving.

This is a decades-long, panoramic friendship saga of four college friends: JB, an indulgent, insecure, self-involved but, also, lovable artist; Willem, a charming, good-looking actor who’s fiercely show more protective and loyal; Malcolm, an architect who craves propriety and struggles with guilt and indecision; and Jude, an intensely private and serious litigator with an obscure, traumatic past. The story follows these friends passionately pursuing their dreams after college in NYC with the peaks and valleys of their friendship as the focal point of this narrative. While they see themselves as a unit, it’s really Jude at the center of it all, as the sun they all orbit around. However, Jude sees himself only as “an extravagant collection of problems,” even though everyone around him, everyone who gets pulled in as if by centripetal force, deeply desires to help him move past the extreme trauma of a childhood that has scarred him both physically and emotionally (392).

In this story of friendship and, ultimately, of love, it asks the question of whether or not love is enough to save someone—whether or not that person thinks they’re worthy of being saved. If my previous warnings of trauma don’t scare you off, I highly recommend this lit-fic read. Other than being a little too long and having too many terrible things happen to these characters—some more than others, some of Job-like proportions, moving it from reality to something more mythic, too incredulous to believe—it really is a beautiful story of friendship and love that’s worth all 720 pages, a 4.5 star read. show less

I would have given this book 6-stars if there were such a rating. I don't think you can find another book like this. I read this book almost cringing all the way, you wonder how could all these things happen to one person? And yet you don't find it unbelievable. Same too with the incredible friends Jude made. Willem is Jude's best friend and partner but his two other friends from college have done things for Jude which he didn't know of. As a reader, we have this privilege of knowing. JB was the one who asked Harold not to ask Jude any more questions about his background and Malcolm was the one who first realized that Jude probably cuts himself. There are others who have stood by him and helped him tremendously too, who can forget Andy? show more so although Jude died, I feel that this book is not totally depressing. Friendship can be the balm to all things. Much as I think this book is great, Hanya has got certain writing techniques that take a bit of getting used to. For example, she likes to refer to a character by just 'he', instead of using the name. Can be a bit hard to follow initially when you don't realize it. And she also likes to move the plot along by using 'one night', 'one day' etc. But this is still an excellent read, which I would recommend without hesitation. show less

Every year I seem to read one 700+-page novel. This is the one for 2015. I just finished it and feel as if I’ve been on an emotional roller-coaster ride for the last few days. Whew! I won’t soon forget this one.

The book is about the lives of four young men who became friends in university and moved to New York to begin their careers. They are Willem Ragnarsson, a waiter and wanna-be actor whose family ranched in Wyoming; Malcolm Irvine, a biracial man from a wealthy family who is beginning his career as an architect; J.B. Marion, the son of Haitian immigrants whose goal is to become a renowned artist; and Jude St. Francis, a lawyer about whose past virtually nothing is known. We see how they maintain their friendships as they become show more established in their professions. Gradually, though, the focus turns to Willem and Jude’s friendship and the revelation of Jude’s traumatic childhood.

Though the book covers about 40 years, there is a timelessness to it. There are no references to specific years or historical events, though it is clearly set in contemporary times. For example, 9/11 receives no mention. This sense of things happening in an eternal present gives the book a fable-like quality.

This is not an easy book to read. There are graphic depictions of suffering. Abandonment, physical and sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, rape, prostitution, addiction, self-harm, domestic violence, suicide, and grief are detailed, so readers need to be prepared for an emotionally harrowing experience. Most of these miseries are revealed in flashbacks to Jude’s early life, “the snake- and centipede-squirming muck of Jude’s past.” The relentlessness of Jude’s traumas reminded me of Sisyphus, though Jude has committed no great sin. The novel can be seen as an examination of the effects of trauma. Jude emerges from his upbringing physically and emotionally damaged: “those fifteen years whose half-life have been so long and so resonant . . . have determined everything he has become and done.” Chronic pain, shame, insecurity, and self-hatred are just some of the effects. Because of what happened to him, Jude can think of his life only in terms of “its smallness, its worthlessness.”

On the other hand, the book is also an examination of friendship. Willem thinks about friendship: “Why wasn’t friendship as good as a relationship? Why wasn’t it even better? It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified. Friendship was witnessing another’s slow drip of miseries, and long bouts of boredom, and occasional triumphs. It was feeling honored by the privilege of getting to be present for another person’s most dismal moments, and knowing that you could be dismal around him in return.” Later, he tells Jude, “’I know my life’s meaningful because . . . I’m a good friend. I love my friends, and I care about them, and I think I make them happy.’”

Though friendship has its value, certainly giving Jude some solace, the book also suggests that it has its limitations. The friendships Jude has cannot repair him. As in All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews, a character concludes, “how hard it is to keep alive someone who doesn’t want to stay alive.”

It is some of these friends who are a weakness in the novel. For thematic development, it is necessary for Jude to have friends. The difficulty is that he has so many who remain unstintingly loyal and concerned regardless of his behaviour. It would be expected that some of those friends would fall away, tiring of his repeated actions, but that is not the case. No one ever seems to outgrow a friendship. Except for Willem, Malcolm and J.B., however, those friends are not differentiated. Often, they are just listed: “Citizen, or Rhodes, or Eli, or Phaedra, or the Henry Youngs” and “Andy, JB, Richard, Harold and Julia, Black Henry Young, Rhodes, Citizen, Andy again, Richard again, Lucien, Asian Henry Young, Phaedra, Elijah.” Willem, when trying to explain to Jude who he is, says, “’You’re the friend of Malcolm Irvine, of Jean-Baptiste Marion, of Richard Goldfarb, of Andy Contractor, of Lucien Voigt, of Citizen van Straaten, of Rhodes Arrowsmith, of Elijah Kozma, of Phaedra de los Santos, of the Henry Youngs.’”

But the characterization of Jude can only be called amazing. His inner turmoil is detailed so specifically that there is a vividness to his character that will remain with the reader for a long time. We may not approve of his behaviour and we may want to shake him and yell at him, but we will certainly understand his motivation.

This dark and disturbing novel will leave the reader almost overwhelmed. It is a totally immersive read. Though it may seem implausible in parts, it will nevertheless leave a lasting impression. I’m in awe that all that was accomplished in only 700+ pages.

Please check out my reader's blog: http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/ show less

In a letter to one of his friends, Franz Kafka once wrote:

I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy [..]? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.

"A Little Life" is, I believe, one such books. At the surface, show more this might appear to be a book about friendship, and friendship in New York City, and all things hip and pop that surround the literate, snobbish, and superficial world in the Big Apple. And at times, the book can be exactly this. One can sense the excess of NYC in the writing. It's hard to blame Yanagihara, considering that she's a New Yorker herself. But that's only at the surface. As the book progresses, the subject matter deepens and we're presented with the tale of a life skillfully unveiled little by little, that contrary to what the title suggest, is not little at all.

There are few fiction books that have made me sob like a child or as if someone I knew had died, and I have to confess this to be one of them. It's hard to write a review without giving a book away, but this wouldn't be a fair review without saying that this is a crushing book. A book that at times one needs to put down but that despite its intense emotional load one wants to read further. Some of the chapters, in particular those written in first person, are beautiful prose, and the rest is pretty good too. But what makes this book so emotional is that the character development is very well achieved, and once you're invested in the characters it's hard not to feel for them when things don't go exactly as you'd want for them.

I don't know if this book will become a classic with time, but I'm glad I read it anyway and will do it again at some point. show less

How do I hate this book, let me count the ways. I hate the pretentious writing, the author's dedicated lack of research, the bloated, overblown length of the repetitive text, the bandwagon that everyone jumped on, the hype generated by the bandwagon - which I fell for - and first and foremost, I HATE JUDE ST FRANCIS, a protagonist so miserable that he can't even put his friends (and the readers of this obnoxious published fan fiction) out of their misery by ending his life far flaming sooner than he did.

If there was such a thing as compensation for badly written books, I would be claiming back the week I wasted with Jude and his exaggerated, ongoing life of trauma, and also suing for damages because my reading mojo nearly flatlined. show more Ploughing through section after section of Jude apologising for existing while simultaneously being successful at every task he turned his giant brain to became old pretty quickly but by the time I realised that I should DNF, I was too far in to quit - not that I thought the story would pick up, only that I had already wasted hours getting up to the halfway point of OVER 700 PAGES! Why did this book need to be so long when Jude whining like a bitch is the only thing that ever happens? Even his three close college friends rarely get a look in, or develop believable personalities. Willem is an award-winning actor, JB is the toast of the New York art scene (despite only ever painting the portraits of his three friends) and Malcolm is a innovative architect, but all they have in common is fawning over Jude.

Jude himself is like the fantasy hero of a teenager's over-emotive Wattpad fiction. Putting aside his backstory of abuse so overwrought that the slow drip-drip of details is both comic and yet painfully insulting to actual survivors of childhood sexual and physical assault, he is described - ad nauseum - as both devastatingly handsome and universally talented. In the words of Willem:

“You’re a swimmer. You’re a baker. You’re a cook. You’re a reader. You have a beautiful voice, though you never sing anymore. You’re an excellent pianist. You’re an art collector."

He's also a brilliant mathematician and a cutthroat lawyer who instantly rises to the top of the firm he joins despite spending half of his professional life recovering from some physical or mental trauma. And everybody loves him! That should actually have been the title of this book: 'Everybody Loves Jude: Though God Knows Why'. Willem, his chick magnet best friend falls in love with him, an older couple legally adopt him when he's in his thirties, the parents of his friends all love him more than their own children, his doctor practically dedicates his career to being on call 24/7 (while betraying his professional duty to report self harm and get the little brat committed).

And yet. Does this sudden good fortune after a childhood of being abused by everyone from predatory paedophiles to Franciscan monks make Jude happy, or even independent and resilient? Not a chance! He is an emotional vampire who drains every drop of love and care out of his friends and adopted family, while selfishly proclaiming that he hurts himself and deceives others to protect them from the 'truth' about who he is:

"I’m sorry I’m such a problem for you. I’m sorry I’m ruining your retirement. I’m sorry I’m not happier. I’m sorry I’m not over Willem. I’m sorry I have a job you don’t respect. I’m sorry I’m such a nothing of a person."

Sorry, sorry, sorry. I wanted to end him myself after 300 pages of incessant whining. Harold and Julia are nothing but loving, Willem - despite, you know, forcing Jude to have sex because everyone needs sex, right? - constantly puts his high-flying celebrity on hold to mop up after Jude cuts himself to ribbons, Dr Andy spends thirty years patching him up when he should have had him locked up. I took great delight in the isolated moments where first JB, then Andy and finally Willem all snapped and told Jude what they thought of his shitty attitude. Of course, such brutal honesty was only answered with five paragraphs of 'sorry, sorry, sorry'.

Yes, abuse is horrific, but Yanagihara - who admitted that she didn't do any serious research into the sensitive issues of Jude's story - is hardly helping to raise positive awareness about the reality of surviving such trauma. Neither does her frankly homophobic attitude to the lgbt characters in the book make this a 'great gay novel' - Willem falls in love with Jude, outs their relationship while refusing to comprehend how Jude's past might make him fear intimacy, and then announces that he is 'not fundamentally' gay and goes back to sleeping with women.

I hated every page of this novel, finally started skim-reading to get through the never-ending misery and have now deleted the download entirely from my Kindle. I wish I could do the same for my brain. The only positive note I can add is that the edition with the melodramatic, cry baby man's face is the most appropriate cover art I have seen all year. Really, all l I can do is echo the advice I recently read in another less than glowing review: 'If you haven't read this, then don't'. show less