A Little Life

Struggles presented as universal take on a quality of mocking delusion when the excess of protagonists (only male voices) all become famous millionaires at the top of their fields who own fabulous and plural homes and have access to private jets and Alhambra strolls. The decided main character also has riches in an expansive circle of equally jet-setting friends who over the span of decades never give up on him despite constant vehement testing-our-friendship pushback. We’re told they remain devoted and compassionate yet none ever actually do rudimentary research on how to, if not guide him to knowledgeable help, talk to him and make steps to reposition the thinking and identity of a friend who has lived through extremities of harm. The glamour and American dreaming has its counterbalance in a childhood filled with horrors heaped on horrors of sexual, physical, and psychological abuse.

Even if it had been thoughtfully pruned and calibrated to a relatable scale, the novel’s early glimmers of resonance could not survive the author’s carrel of privilege and vision for suffering. The exploration of the aftermath of childhood trauma and the role of friendship in the potentiality of healing is weightily disrespected.

3.5

This book makes me really want to discuss it with other people. The writing is beautiful and the detail the author finds in so many walks of life is fantastic. Everyone said it was sad and they weren't wrong, there are some sad parts, but overall I'd classify it as depressing more than sad.

How much trauma is enough to justify being a bad person? To not even want to be better even though you have the tools available to try and you're hurting all those around you by not doing it? I don't know, but this book made me think about it a lot.

The characters are interesting, the 'privilege porn' is fun if a little on the nose. Seriously, all the main characters are ultra high functioning success stories, live in beautiful places and travel to stunning exotic locations as well as being super gifted both artistically and professionally with a deep knowledge of any high culture they can reel off at any time. This ain't a book about having to come to grips with not being good/rich/famous/smart enough.

Glad I read it, look forward to a spirited discussion about it with someone in the future.

The writing is beautiful and goes a long way in redeeming some of the book’s weaknesses. It really is the best writing I’ve read in a while. Early on, someone asked me how the book I was reading was and I’d said that it was devastatingly beautiful. The problem is that, as good as the writing is, Three quarters of the way through, I just wanted it to end.

Some issues:

The book says it’s about the relationship between four men but it’s really only about two of them and, even then, leans heavily in the direction of one man - Jude - and his tragic life. The story is really about him.

Malcolm is nearly invisible as a character. Why does this character exist?

The whole second half of the book could have been lopped off. It would have been an excellent book. Instead, it goes on too long and is too focused on Jude’s brokenness.

Every single person Jude has ever met up until school is evil incarnate.

An adult being adopted? This was unexpected and, because it was such an odd thing, I kept expecting it to figure into the story in a big way but it never really does.

Nienawidzę tej książki.
Autorka trochę na początku oszukuje - książka ma być o czterech młodych przyjaciołach. Jednak szybko okazuje się, że tak nie będzie.
Książka skonstruowana jest idealnie - poprzez liczne retrospekcje jesteśmy uderzani "gorszącymi" scenami. Zaczyna się od małej ranki (dosłownie), kończy się na zmiażdżeniu głowy (dosłownie).
Książka jest niesamowita pod tym względem, że poznajemy życie bohaterów od ich młodości aż do starości i śmierci.
Jeśli tak wygląda życie, to nie chcę żyć. Choć książka ukazała mi, że jedna śmierć, cierpienie prowadzi do kolejnych i w sumie trudno to powstrzymać.
Poznałem bohaterów doszczętnie - ich relacja nie pozwala się zatrzymać, choć w przedostatnim rozdziale odczuwa się głęboką nienawiść do książki.
Ostatni rozdział mnie trochę rozczarował. Wprowadzenie trzeciosobowego narratora powoduje, że czyta się relację dużo lżej, praktycznie bez emocji.
Zastanawia mnie też nagromadzenie homoseksualnych pedofilów w tej książce - w USA wg autorki jest nim sporo kierowców TIRów i braci zakonnych. Same uczucia brzmiałyby realistyczniej, gdyby były podzielone między trzy osoby. Nie mogę uwierzyć, by ktokolwiek na świecie doznał AŻ takich smutnych wydarzeń.
Mimo wszystko książka skojarzyła mi się z opowiadaniami "Autora Silvera" - zwłaszcza z jego "Pierrem i Raimundem". Dostępne za darmo w internecie (legalnie) - polecam przeczytać.

A Little Life is a novel about the lifelong friendship of four classmates from a Massachusetts liberal arts college. After college, Willem (an actor), JB (an artist), Malcolm (an architect) and Jude (a lawyer) move to New York to begin their lives. The novel begins by following the friends through their lives and careers and the shifting dynamics of the group. However, Jude becomes the primary focus as we learn about his horrifying backstory.

I am of two minds with this novel; first of all, there are some very important issues explored within A Little Life. I am sure many people have been told about the high amount of trigger warnings that come with this book, dealing with depression, abuse, self-mutilation and so much more. It was nice to explore friendship that are not just a group of heterosexual men. The book itself explore so many issues and I got to a point where I wanted to yell at the friends of Jude, telling them to get mental health first aid certificate, and learn how to handle the situation better.

This brings me to all the problems I had with A Little Life; for starters, I felt like Hanya Yanagihara was just piling all the worst situations onto the character of Jude to a point where it was just getting ridiculous. I understand that some people have suffered a lot but in proportion to everyone else in the book, Jude just has to suffer through it all. I began to hate this aspect of the book to the point where if this was not a library book I would have thrown the novel across the room. Everyone focuses on how wonderful this book was for dealing with so many issues, and I agree, but if we dealt with these issues more regularly in fiction and the media then this book would not get the same amount of attention. I found the writing very flat and boring, it was dull. It became a real chore to read through the novel but I was determined to finish A Little Life for the themes.

Congratulations on Hanya Yanagihara for writing a novel that is dealing with so many important issues. A Little Life is great for this and I hope it paves the way for literature in the future. I hope this will begin a shift from the norm where we are constantly reading about white heterosexual males where there only problem is their own self destructive nature (even if I enjoy that in fiction). A Little Life is the crowd favourite to win the Man Booker prize but I really hope it does not win. There is better literature in the short-list, and I do not think A Little Life is a good representation of what they consider ‘good’ fiction.

This review originally appeared on my blog; www.knowledgelost.org/literature/book-reviews/genre/contemporary/a-little-life-by-hanya-yanagihara/