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marz 's review for:
To Paradise
by Hanya Yanagihara
Ah, this was a really tough book to get through. I’m not unfamiliar with Yanagihara’s prose-heavy writing style - but TP just felt much longer than usual, and lacked the sense of immersion I usually feel when reading her works. This sets the tone for my review to be a bit jaded, but I’ll do my best to break down my thoughts on this lengthy novel.
Let’s get some better stuff out of the way first. Having the character names be motifs throughout the three distinct stories is a very cool idea, and something I’ve never seen before in anything I’ve read. From my understanding, each name represented some element of human nature - Edward for danger and uncertainty, Charles for safety and comfort, etc. - and it was fascinating to see the way these played out in the different stories. The way the main character by the third book had become a ‘Charles’ (Charlie) herself, despite the other 2 parts having displayed a sense of discomfort with their versions of Charles-named characters, was a very interesting development, and provided a new perspective into the characterisations present across the entire novel.
The formatting of the sections was also quite unique, with some written in the form of letters, others in regular prose, and so forth. The structural changes played well into the novel’s exploration of familial relationships and generational difference as well, and overall broke up some of the fatigue that comes with tackling works of this length. But that’s just about where my positive thoughts on the novel cease.
The issues I have with Yanagihara’s writing extend beyond just this book. First and foremost, TP centres around the gay male experience, but also touches on aspects like Hawaiian sovereignty, racism, pandemics and refugee camps. For a novel covering such a great amount of content, I wish more time had been spent exploring the different societal constructs she herself had introduced for each time period, rather than solely focusing on the individual dreariness of her character’s lives. I understand that her style is character-driven, but there is so much more nuance that can come from diving into the societies she had written, and it just falls flat when this doesn’t happen. This is something I picked up on while reading The People in the Trees as well, so it’s disappointing to see such heavy issues get written off once again.
However, most importantly, the biggest criticism I have of TP is Yanagihara’s position to write first-hand and in great lengths about a queer identity that she herself has never experienced. If you read her interviews, she goes above and beyond to defend her right to write about gay males, going as far as saying “it’s easier, freer, and safer to write about your own feelings as an outsider when cloaked in the identity of a different kind of outsider”. As someone who has read all of her books now, I believe I’m posed to question the extent to which her writing comes from an informed perspective, and also to ask whether or not she has considered the impact that her constant push of queer suffering has on her large audience - especially since she seems to preach so heavily her fascination with being an outsider voice for the community. I have also seen discussions around her representations of disability being subject to the same criticism, and it really sucks that she seems to believe ideas of human misery can only arise from specific types of characters. This is a binary that doesn’t have a right or wrong answer, but as a longtime reader of her works, her writing no longer sits right with me, and this book only served to reiterate that.
Now why, if I am such a hater, did I force myself to push through and finish this book despite it taking me months and monumental effort? And my honest answer to this is that I don’t really know. I guess I just find something fascinating in dissecting the themes of her writing, especially since I largely disagree with her conclusions. For now, I believe it may be best if I take a step back from her writing for a while :,(
- 2.5/5 stars.
Let’s get some better stuff out of the way first. Having the character names be motifs throughout the three distinct stories is a very cool idea, and something I’ve never seen before in anything I’ve read. From my understanding, each name represented some element of human nature - Edward for danger and uncertainty, Charles for safety and comfort, etc. - and it was fascinating to see the way these played out in the different stories. The way the main character by the third book had become a ‘Charles’ (Charlie) herself, despite the other 2 parts having displayed a sense of discomfort with their versions of Charles-named characters, was a very interesting development, and provided a new perspective into the characterisations present across the entire novel.
The formatting of the sections was also quite unique, with some written in the form of letters, others in regular prose, and so forth. The structural changes played well into the novel’s exploration of familial relationships and generational difference as well, and overall broke up some of the fatigue that comes with tackling works of this length. But that’s just about where my positive thoughts on the novel cease.
The issues I have with Yanagihara’s writing extend beyond just this book. First and foremost, TP centres around the gay male experience, but also touches on aspects like Hawaiian sovereignty, racism, pandemics and refugee camps. For a novel covering such a great amount of content, I wish more time had been spent exploring the different societal constructs she herself had introduced for each time period, rather than solely focusing on the individual dreariness of her character’s lives. I understand that her style is character-driven, but there is so much more nuance that can come from diving into the societies she had written, and it just falls flat when this doesn’t happen. This is something I picked up on while reading The People in the Trees as well, so it’s disappointing to see such heavy issues get written off once again.
However, most importantly, the biggest criticism I have of TP is Yanagihara’s position to write first-hand and in great lengths about a queer identity that she herself has never experienced. If you read her interviews, she goes above and beyond to defend her right to write about gay males, going as far as saying “it’s easier, freer, and safer to write about your own feelings as an outsider when cloaked in the identity of a different kind of outsider”. As someone who has read all of her books now, I believe I’m posed to question the extent to which her writing comes from an informed perspective, and also to ask whether or not she has considered the impact that her constant push of queer suffering has on her large audience - especially since she seems to preach so heavily her fascination with being an outsider voice for the community. I have also seen discussions around her representations of disability being subject to the same criticism, and it really sucks that she seems to believe ideas of human misery can only arise from specific types of characters. This is a binary that doesn’t have a right or wrong answer, but as a longtime reader of her works, her writing no longer sits right with me, and this book only served to reiterate that.
Now why, if I am such a hater, did I force myself to push through and finish this book despite it taking me months and monumental effort? And my honest answer to this is that I don’t really know. I guess I just find something fascinating in dissecting the themes of her writing, especially since I largely disagree with her conclusions. For now, I believe it may be best if I take a step back from her writing for a while :,(
- 2.5/5 stars.