Book Review - A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
It's difficult to know where to start with a review of 'A little life'. If you've read it, you'll know what I mean. Quite difficult to quantify and do it justice in a couple of short paragraphs but here goes.
What is ‘A little life’ about?
It's the story of four graduates who move to New York to make their way in life. Willem is an aspiring actor; Malcolm wants to be an architect but finds his job unfulfilling; JB is talented and trying to break his way into the art world; and Jude, an ambitious, brilliant lawyer, but deeply troubled.
We follow their lives over the decades, as their relationship with each other changes. They come together, drift apart, fall in and out of love and deal with addiction. But it's Jude with his body damaged by injury and childhood trauma, who is the centre of the book, both for his friends and the reader. Can he overcome his demons?
That's about as much as I can say in terms of an overview.
Yanagihara
I bought this book at the Sun bookshop in pre-pandemic Melbourne, December 2019. I had a gift voucher, so picked this and a couple of others and dragged them back half across the world to Ireland. I can only think the sun and bushfire smoke must have affected my brain, because it must have pushed my luggage allowance close to the limit.
‘A little life’ has taunted me from my TBR bookshelf. I had heard about the subject matter, so kept putting it off until I was ready for it. Truth is, having read it, I don't think that time would ever have arisen. I did eventually read another Yanagihara book called ‘To Paradise’ which I found interesting, if a bit long, and decided this summer, with the sun arriving early in Ireland (as if that would help) I was going to tackle it. One of the questions that get asked is ‘How many pages is a little life?’ and the answer is a hefty 720.
Word of warning - this book contains descriptions of abuse, self-harm, and suicidal ideation. If you're not in a good place mentally, I wouldn't be reading this book.
Immersive
Initially, I found this book completely immersive. It doesn't happen so often to me these days, but one afternoon, I think around the 200-page mark, I realised I'd read for an hour and barely stirred. There it is, I thought, that’s the book I've been hearing so much about it.
But this was soon to change. I think this is a great book if you have a fitness tracker, as increasingly I had to put this book down and go for a walk. Sometimes into another room, sometimes out of the house and into the local park.
There are a lot of disturbing scenes and thoughts in this book. It was a challenge for me to lift it from around the 500-page mark, and there were times I could only manage a few pages. But of course, I was so invested in the characters of Jude and Willem that I was never going to walk away from the book. The characters are so rich and detailed, the prose is clean and evocative, and the storytelling and structure keep you engaged.
Jude St. Francis
I found it hard to imagine Jude's character. For some unknown reason, he became in my head Rami Malek's character 'Louis Dega' from the film 'Papillion'. Even when he was described slightly differently, it was too late. I think the lack of details from Hanya Yanagihara was deliberate - the reader had to compose their own Jude.
I liked how Yanaghira paced the book - the story of Jude's childhood is told incrementally, interspersed with a matter-of-fact narration of his life in New York. It's not dumped on you all at once.
For all the pain and trauma in the book, I think it's important to highlight the love and kindness shown to Jude by Willem, Harold, Andy, and others.
It asks the big questions - how much can a person take? Can someone be saved if they don't want to be and if they have suffered so much? Can you truly shield yourself through your money and career? And is love and friendship enough?
Polarising
Of all the books I've read and reviewed, I've never been more on the fence than I have with this one. On the one hand, it felt incredibly depressing and bleak at times, much too long and depressing ( I realise I said that twice).
On the other hand, parts of it, especially the initial sections, are completely immersive and it has a lot to say about the importance of love, of art, of friendship. And it will most likely break your heart a little, get under your skin, and I think that's a good thing too.
It's a book that has polarised opinion and I can see why. I am glad I read it and it's not taunting me from my bookshelf. I will never forget the character of Jude St. Francis, and I'm glad that this book challenged me - I think that's a good thing.
I think I would have to know you well before I could recommend this - only you know if you'd be able for it. Incidentally, reading it in an Irish summer didn't help, as the weather soon turned to shit.
If you've read it, please let me know below - I think I need to talk to someone after reading 'A little life'.
720 pages, Hardcover
Published March 10, 2015 by Doubleday
Hanya Yanagihara talks about ‘A little life’.
A Little Life Quotes
“You won’t understand what I mean now, but someday you will: the only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people who are better than you are—not smarter, not cooler, but kinder, and more generous, and more forgiving—and then to appreciate them for what they can teach you, and to try to listen to them when they tell you something about yourself, no matter how bad—or good—it might be, and to trust them, which is the hardest thing of all. But the best, as well.”
“….things get broken, and sometimes they get repaired, and in most cases, you realize that no matter what gets damaged, life rearranges itself to compensate for your loss, sometimes wonderfully.”
“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.”
“Who am I? Who am I?”
“You’re Jude St. Francis. You are my oldest, dearest friend. You’re the son of Harold Stein and Julia Altman. 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. You’re a New Yorker. You live in SoHo. You volunteer for an arts organization; you volunteer for a food kitchen. 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. You write me lovely messages when I’m away. You’re patient. You’re generous. You’re the best listener I know. You’re the smartest person I know, in every way. You’re the bravest person I know, in every way. You’re a lawyer. You’re the chair of the litigation department at Rosen Pritchard and Klein. You love your job; you work hard at it. You’re a mathematician. You’re a logician. You’ve tried to teach me, again and again. You were treated horribly. You came out on the other end. You were always you.”
"And who are you?"
"I'm Willem Ragnarsson. And I will never let you go.”
“He had looked at Jude, then, and had felt that same sensation he sometimes did when he thought, really thought of Jude and what his life had been: a sadness, he might have called it, but it wasn't a pitying sadness; it was a larger sadness, one that seemed to encompass all the poor striving people, the billions he didn't know, all living their lives, a sadness that mingled with a wonder and awe at how hard humans everywhere tried to live, even when their days were so very difficult, even when their circumstances were so wretched. Life is so sad, he would think in those moments. It's so sad, and yet we all do it.”
“Harold sighs. “Jude,” he says, “there’s not an expiration date on needing help, or needing people. You don’t get to a certain age and it stops.”