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A review by velvettwink
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
5.0
Through insightful detail and her incantatory prose, Yanagihara has drawn a deeply realised character study that inspires as much as devastates. It's a life, just like everyone else's, but in Yanagihara's hands, it's also tender and large, affecting and transcendent; not "A Little Life" at all
At the beginning of Hanya Yanagihara’s second novel, “A Little Life,” four young men, all graduates of the same prestigious New England university, set about establishing adult lives for themselves in New York City. They are a pleasingly diverse crew, tightly bound to each other:
-Willem, the handsome son of a Wyoming ranch hand, who is working as a waiter but aspires to be an actor
-Malcolm, the biracial scion of a wealthy Upper East Side family, who has landed an associate position with a European "starchitect"
-JB, the child of Haitian immigrants, who works as a receptionist at a downtown art magazine in whose pages he expects, one day soon, to be featured
-Jude, a lawyer and mathematician, whose provenance and ethnic origins are largely unknown, even by his trio of friends. Jude, we later learn, was abandoned and deposited in a bag by a dumpster and raised by monks.
At the very beginning of this novel, as we follow the four friends as they attend parties together, gossip amongst one another and go on dates, it becomes very easy for the reader to assume where this story will lead. Yet it becomes so evident that Yanagihara has bigger plans than the conventional big city bildungsroman. The 700 page tome in the readers hand indicates this, however the biggest sign is the gradual focus of the text on Jude's mysterious and traumatic past. As the pages turn, the ensemble recedes and Jude takes centre stage. And with Jude at the centre "A Little Life" becomes surprisingly subversive- a novel that uses the middle-class trappings of fiction to deliver an unsettling exploration of sexual abuse, suffering and the difficulties of recovering from trauma. Yanagihara having once disrupted our expectations, does so again in not allowing the reader any consolations- something we have come to expect in any book with darker themes.
The graphic depictions of abuse and trauma are rarely found in mainstream literature like they are in "A Little Life". Novels that deal with similar issues tend to have the violence off-page. The main ones that come to mind are Nabokov's "Lolita" and Donoghue's "Room". Ever since the release of this novel, there has been an incredible amount of discourse surrounding Yanagihara's decision to include these graphic depictions and whether they were gratuitous or not. For me, the rendering of Jude's abuse was never excessive and I never once believed it was done for shock value. Jude's suffering is so well documented as it is an integral part of his character.
Yanagihara evens out the chapters about Jude’s trauma with paragraphs portraying his friendships and his successful career within the law space. One of the reasons the book is so long is that it draws on these lighter stretches to make the darker ones bearable.
Counterintuitively, the most moving parts of “A Little Life” are not its most brutal but its tenderest ones, moments when Jude receives kindness and support from his friends- specifically his developing relationship with Willem, and the father son relationship he has with Harold. These sections were some of my favourites as they really explored the themes of found family and brotherhood in the most excellent way.
What makes "A Little Life's" depictions of trauma subversive is that it does not offer any possibility of redemption and deliverance beyond these tender moments. It gives us a moral universe in which spiritual salvation of this sort does not exist. None of Jude’s tormentors are ever termed “evil” by him or anyone else. Jude consistently questions whether or not he was the cause of his own trauma throughout this book- making for some incredibly moving passages.
Though he is named after the patron saint of lost causes—the name given to him by the monks who raised him—what’s most obviously lost here is the promise of spiritual absolution or even psychological healing. To me, the message that Yanagihara was trying to get across, was that in this godless world friendship is the only solace available to any of us.
In addition to his law degree, Jude pursues a master’s in pure mathematics. At one point, he explains to his friends that he is drawn to math because it offers the possibility of “a wholly provable, unshakable absolute in a constructed world with very few unshakable absolutes.” For Jude, then, mathematics takes the place of religion. Later, during one of his worst episodes of suffering, Jude turns to a concept known as the axiom of equality, which states that x always equals x.
"A Little Life" is not misery porn, and if thats what you're looking for, you will be denied catharsis. It is truthful, sometimes so much so, it becomes too much to bear- hope is a qualified thing and even love, no matter how pure or freely given, is not always enough.
Simply put, this is without a doubt in the top 10 books I have ever read- the prose is sublime and empathy full, the character study is well realised, and the depictions of suffering are never done for a
cheap emotional response. However for me, despite the trauma and the depictions of abuse, this story is not all dark. It is an unforgettable modern masterpiece about the enduring grace of friendship.
At the beginning of Hanya Yanagihara’s second novel, “A Little Life,” four young men, all graduates of the same prestigious New England university, set about establishing adult lives for themselves in New York City. They are a pleasingly diverse crew, tightly bound to each other:
-Willem, the handsome son of a Wyoming ranch hand, who is working as a waiter but aspires to be an actor
-Malcolm, the biracial scion of a wealthy Upper East Side family, who has landed an associate position with a European "starchitect"
-JB, the child of Haitian immigrants, who works as a receptionist at a downtown art magazine in whose pages he expects, one day soon, to be featured
-Jude, a lawyer and mathematician, whose provenance and ethnic origins are largely unknown, even by his trio of friends. Jude, we later learn, was abandoned and deposited in a bag by a dumpster and raised by monks.
At the very beginning of this novel, as we follow the four friends as they attend parties together, gossip amongst one another and go on dates, it becomes very easy for the reader to assume where this story will lead. Yet it becomes so evident that Yanagihara has bigger plans than the conventional big city bildungsroman. The 700 page tome in the readers hand indicates this, however the biggest sign is the gradual focus of the text on Jude's mysterious and traumatic past. As the pages turn, the ensemble recedes and Jude takes centre stage. And with Jude at the centre "A Little Life" becomes surprisingly subversive- a novel that uses the middle-class trappings of fiction to deliver an unsettling exploration of sexual abuse, suffering and the difficulties of recovering from trauma. Yanagihara having once disrupted our expectations, does so again in not allowing the reader any consolations- something we have come to expect in any book with darker themes.
The graphic depictions of abuse and trauma are rarely found in mainstream literature like they are in "A Little Life". Novels that deal with similar issues tend to have the violence off-page. The main ones that come to mind are Nabokov's "Lolita" and Donoghue's "Room". Ever since the release of this novel, there has been an incredible amount of discourse surrounding Yanagihara's decision to include these graphic depictions and whether they were gratuitous or not. For me, the rendering of Jude's abuse was never excessive and I never once believed it was done for shock value. Jude's suffering is so well documented as it is an integral part of his character.
Yanagihara evens out the chapters about Jude’s trauma with paragraphs portraying his friendships and his successful career within the law space. One of the reasons the book is so long is that it draws on these lighter stretches to make the darker ones bearable.
Counterintuitively, the most moving parts of “A Little Life” are not its most brutal but its tenderest ones, moments when Jude receives kindness and support from his friends- specifically his developing relationship with Willem, and the father son relationship he has with Harold. These sections were some of my favourites as they really explored the themes of found family and brotherhood in the most excellent way.
What makes "A Little Life's" depictions of trauma subversive is that it does not offer any possibility of redemption and deliverance beyond these tender moments. It gives us a moral universe in which spiritual salvation of this sort does not exist. None of Jude’s tormentors are ever termed “evil” by him or anyone else. Jude consistently questions whether or not he was the cause of his own trauma throughout this book- making for some incredibly moving passages.
Though he is named after the patron saint of lost causes—the name given to him by the monks who raised him—what’s most obviously lost here is the promise of spiritual absolution or even psychological healing. To me, the message that Yanagihara was trying to get across, was that in this godless world friendship is the only solace available to any of us.
In addition to his law degree, Jude pursues a master’s in pure mathematics. At one point, he explains to his friends that he is drawn to math because it offers the possibility of “a wholly provable, unshakable absolute in a constructed world with very few unshakable absolutes.” For Jude, then, mathematics takes the place of religion. Later, during one of his worst episodes of suffering, Jude turns to a concept known as the axiom of equality, which states that x always equals x.
"A Little Life" is not misery porn, and if thats what you're looking for, you will be denied catharsis. It is truthful, sometimes so much so, it becomes too much to bear- hope is a qualified thing and even love, no matter how pure or freely given, is not always enough.
Simply put, this is without a doubt in the top 10 books I have ever read- the prose is sublime and empathy full, the character study is well realised, and the depictions of suffering are never done for a
cheap emotional response. However for me, despite the trauma and the depictions of abuse, this story is not all dark. It is an unforgettable modern masterpiece about the enduring grace of friendship.