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A review by salimah
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
This is one of those books--tomes--that render the star-rating system reductive and pointless. I will give it one, but must give it with explanations and qualifiers.
It is/has been a devastating, difficult, important, and propulsive read. There are swaths of it, elements of it, that strike me as problematic in the same way that life is "problematic." We know that more than one thing can be true at a time. Often multiple truths vie for dominance and singularity, but there is no singularity to be secured. As the principal character, Jude, asserts fairly early into the story about pure math: there are many paths to one answer. That assertion seems to be ultimately about singularity, but not finality, not really. It is rather about all the ways, all the truths you have to consider, before you ultimately arrive at a conclusion.
To say that this story is an unflinching look at trauma would be an understatement. I have wondered many times during my reading how much detail (after much detail had already been provided) was necessary before it became cruelty on the author's part--both to her character and her readers. I understand not shrinking back from the horrors a life might contain, but after a while, it felt sadistic and indulgent.
The after-effects of that trauma are especially realistically drawn. Any five of the things our principal character endures would be more than enough for a lifetime of complex post-traumatic stress disorder, let alone the legion he faces and the irreparable, rippling damage they cause.
I have considered whether the four friends we meet at the beginning of the novel were meant to function as archetypes--and in the case of one of them-- as a platonic ideal of unconditional, platonic love. Ultimately, the idea rejects itself as the main relationship's dynamic gets flipped on its head for a time and mimics the greatest distress the lead protagonist faced in his childhood. It was a maddening choice and served as an example of the sadistic indulgence I referred to before. It felt wholly unnecessary. It also required the most sensitive, balanced character in the book to display a selfishness, a willful obtuseness that was atypical of him. I suppose that, too, is irreducibly human.
The author uses one member of the foursome--the only one of them who is unambiguously, wholly black--to serve as the id of their nucleus. He is talented and successful, but he lacks impulse control; he is often profoundly mean and jealous; he is the instrument of Jude's humiliation on three separate occasions--one of these events was especially unforgivable, and often finds himself on the fringes of his friend group because of these trespasses. I have wondered what to make of this, whether to make anything of it. But, an author with a pen this searing, this detailed, and this precise surely knew what she was doing when she made this character someone who would begrudge someone as destroyed as Jude the few happinesses his life had afforded him.
At the craft level, A Little Life is superior. At the levels of emotional depth and resonance, it is peerless among books I've read in the last year or more. I have wrestled with how I feel about it for hundreds of pages, the sign of writing doing its most important work. I was invested in and cared for these characters. I was by turns frustrated with them, mourned with them, and for them. I was able to hold the work dear while also holding it out for objective consideration, for critical analysis.
If I'd had a more full idea of what this book was about I probably would not have chosen it. I'm glad I didn't, but for those who have experienced, even peripherally or indirectly, some of these traumas I offer the following content warnings:
Sexual Abuse of a child/children
Sexual Trafficking of a child
Sexual Assault
Physical Violence/Intimate Partner Violence
Death of a child
Self-harm
Pervasive Suicidal ideation/attempts
PTSD (complex)
Sexual relationship difficulty/inadvertent/unconscious coercion
It is/has been a devastating, difficult, important, and propulsive read. There are swaths of it, elements of it, that strike me as problematic in the same way that life is "problematic." We know that more than one thing can be true at a time. Often multiple truths vie for dominance and singularity, but there is no singularity to be secured. As the principal character, Jude, asserts fairly early into the story about pure math: there are many paths to one answer. That assertion seems to be ultimately about singularity, but not finality, not really. It is rather about all the ways, all the truths you have to consider, before you ultimately arrive at a conclusion.
To say that this story is an unflinching look at trauma would be an understatement. I have wondered many times during my reading how much detail (after much detail had already been provided) was necessary before it became cruelty on the author's part--both to her character and her readers. I understand not shrinking back from the horrors a life might contain, but after a while, it felt sadistic and indulgent.
The after-effects of that trauma are especially realistically drawn. Any five of the things our principal character endures would be more than enough for a lifetime of complex post-traumatic stress disorder, let alone the legion he faces and the irreparable, rippling damage they cause.
I have considered whether the four friends we meet at the beginning of the novel were meant to function as archetypes--and in the case of one of them-- as a platonic ideal of unconditional, platonic love. Ultimately, the idea rejects itself as the main relationship's dynamic gets flipped on its head for a time and mimics the greatest distress the lead protagonist faced in his childhood. It was a maddening choice and served as an example of the sadistic indulgence I referred to before. It felt wholly unnecessary. It also required the most sensitive, balanced character in the book to display a selfishness, a willful obtuseness that was atypical of him. I suppose that, too, is irreducibly human.
The author uses one member of the foursome--the only one of them who is unambiguously, wholly black--to serve as the id of their nucleus. He is talented and successful, but he lacks impulse control; he is often profoundly mean and jealous; he is the instrument of Jude's humiliation on three separate occasions--one of these events was especially unforgivable, and often finds himself on the fringes of his friend group because of these trespasses. I have wondered what to make of this, whether to make anything of it. But, an author with a pen this searing, this detailed, and this precise surely knew what she was doing when she made this character someone who would begrudge someone as destroyed as Jude the few happinesses his life had afforded him.
At the craft level, A Little Life is superior. At the levels of emotional depth and resonance, it is peerless among books I've read in the last year or more. I have wrestled with how I feel about it for hundreds of pages, the sign of writing doing its most important work. I was invested in and cared for these characters. I was by turns frustrated with them, mourned with them, and for them. I was able to hold the work dear while also holding it out for objective consideration, for critical analysis.
If I'd had a more full idea of what this book was about I probably would not have chosen it. I'm glad I didn't, but for those who have experienced, even peripherally or indirectly, some of these traumas I offer the following content warnings:
Sexual Abuse of a child/children
Sexual Trafficking of a child
Sexual Assault
Physical Violence/Intimate Partner Violence
Death of a child
Self-harm
Pervasive Suicidal ideation/attempts
PTSD (complex)
Sexual relationship difficulty/inadvertent/unconscious coercion
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Child abuse, Death, Ableism, Car accident, Chronic illness, Addiction, Abandonment, and Child death