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thopp84 's review for:
To Paradise
by Hanya Yanagihara
I am seeing A LOT of reaction to this book and many mixed reviews. And I, myself, wasn't quite sure how I was going to rate it up until I finished it. I absolutely adored A Little Life. It was bleak and depressing and incredibly powerful and hard to put down. Where does an author go after writing something that powerful but also that controversial? If you're Hanya Yanagihara, you go the route of this book, another massive tome that is essentially three books in one.
The first book is set in 1893 in an alternate version of the United States where people are free to marry whomever they wish, regardless of sex. Or at least, that's how it appears on the surface. Yet, we find ourselves uncovering layers that show that everything is not quite as perfect or as easy as it seems here. Our protagonist is named David. He is from a wealthy family and as such is expected and encouraged to marry a rich older man. David doesn't really care for this man but knows that he must do what is expected of him. Until he meets Edward, a poor music teacher. David's feelings for Edward are so completely unlike his feelings for Charles, the older gentleman. And the rest of this part of the book deals with David trying to figure out how he can be with Edward and not disgrace his family. I kept thinking there was probably something wrong with Edward, some sinister intent with him. The book kind of hints at that but never fully reveals everything. My main complaint with this section is that it ends rather abruptly. It just fades to black basically and we don't actually learn what happened to David or Edward or anyone else. Also, David is such an incredibly passive character. He never allows himself any agency and that could at times be very frustrating.
Part II is set in 1993 during the AIDS pandemic. Again, we have a main character named David. He is trying to sort out his identity and who he is and what he wants. The second half of this part is a letter to David from his father, a Hawaiian man who is hospitalized. I struggled with this part and didn't fully understand or follow it. And I had a hard time caring.
Finally, we get to Part III which takes up the bulk of the novel. This is set in 2093, in a future that has been ravaged by multiple pandemics. This is where the book really started to grab me and wouldn't let go. Yanagihara's vision of the future is so beautifully written that I could picture every detail of it. Her writing is illustrative and mournful. Here, we follow a young woman who because of a childhood illness has been rendered sterile. She is married to a man who is good to her but doesn't love her. Because of all the government regulations, their life is very regimented. And she begins to wonder what her husband is doing when he goes out on his free nights. This part of the book is interspersed with letters from the woman's grandfather to a close friend of his. These are written decades earlier and detail the early days of the pandemics and the grandfather's role in causing them and the government fallout from them. We also learn about the young woman's father and the part he played in the whole thing.
It took a while for those disparate parts of the story to connect for me. I couldn't figure out for the longest time how the grandfather and the young woman were connected. Once it became obvious to me, I was impressed by Yanagihara's ability to interweave their stories so organically. Yanagihara's prose is still so gorgeous. She has a beautiful way with words.
So, if I was less than enthusiastic about Parts I & II, why did I give this five stars then? Well, there's a reason for that. Because ultimately, what this book achieves is a work of great beauty. The ends justifies the means as it were. We get some absolutely heartbreaking stuff in the last third of this that bumps this from a three or four star all the way up to five. The last sentences in particular are just gorgeous.
Ultimately, this book gives us three different views of paradise and reveals that all is not what it seems on the surface. And it becomes a book about how these characters keep looking for a paradise that they can never achieve or reach. They all want something that they cannot have. There is a longing in these pages, for freedom, for love, for adventure, for understanding. And that makes it a universal story. We all have that longing, that craving, that desire. We are all searching for paradise. And unfortunately, none of us will ever get there. Yanagihara's gift is being able to tap into that universal longing and write it so eloquently on the page. While the three parts are separate stories, they share this common theme. And that gives them a connective thread all the way through.
Look, I get the negative reviews on here just like I get the negative reviews for A Little Life. This won't be to everyone's liking. Some will find it too long or too boring or too ponderous. And others will be annoyed by the way the book divides itself. And I get it. I wasn't sure how I felt about this book until I was 2/3rds of the way through. Yes, the stuff set in 2093 was a little difficult to read given that it dealt with pandemics and the precautions that had to be taken during them. And well, that was just not something I wanted to read during an actual pandemic. But if you can make it through that stuff, you'll get to the real heart of the book which is about our desire to find connection, to find love, to find our version of Paradise. None of the characters achieve it for various reasons (money, education, pandemic, infertility) but that doesn't mean that the rest of us shouldn't stop striving for it. If anything, this book made me want to work that much harder to achieve those things. It made me want to connect better, to love better and to work to make a paradise here on Earth.
This is a massive achievement, almost on par with A little Life. What she manages to do in these 700+ pages is give us the story of ourselves. Just a true joy to behold and to be a part of. So glad I read this. The first great book of 2022!
The first book is set in 1893 in an alternate version of the United States where people are free to marry whomever they wish, regardless of sex. Or at least, that's how it appears on the surface. Yet, we find ourselves uncovering layers that show that everything is not quite as perfect or as easy as it seems here. Our protagonist is named David. He is from a wealthy family and as such is expected and encouraged to marry a rich older man. David doesn't really care for this man but knows that he must do what is expected of him. Until he meets Edward, a poor music teacher. David's feelings for Edward are so completely unlike his feelings for Charles, the older gentleman. And the rest of this part of the book deals with David trying to figure out how he can be with Edward and not disgrace his family. I kept thinking there was probably something wrong with Edward, some sinister intent with him. The book kind of hints at that but never fully reveals everything. My main complaint with this section is that it ends rather abruptly. It just fades to black basically and we don't actually learn what happened to David or Edward or anyone else. Also, David is such an incredibly passive character. He never allows himself any agency and that could at times be very frustrating.
Part II is set in 1993 during the AIDS pandemic. Again, we have a main character named David. He is trying to sort out his identity and who he is and what he wants. The second half of this part is a letter to David from his father, a Hawaiian man who is hospitalized. I struggled with this part and didn't fully understand or follow it. And I had a hard time caring.
Finally, we get to Part III which takes up the bulk of the novel. This is set in 2093, in a future that has been ravaged by multiple pandemics. This is where the book really started to grab me and wouldn't let go. Yanagihara's vision of the future is so beautifully written that I could picture every detail of it. Her writing is illustrative and mournful. Here, we follow a young woman who because of a childhood illness has been rendered sterile. She is married to a man who is good to her but doesn't love her. Because of all the government regulations, their life is very regimented. And she begins to wonder what her husband is doing when he goes out on his free nights. This part of the book is interspersed with letters from the woman's grandfather to a close friend of his. These are written decades earlier and detail the early days of the pandemics and the grandfather's role in causing them and the government fallout from them. We also learn about the young woman's father and the part he played in the whole thing.
It took a while for those disparate parts of the story to connect for me. I couldn't figure out for the longest time how the grandfather and the young woman were connected. Once it became obvious to me, I was impressed by Yanagihara's ability to interweave their stories so organically. Yanagihara's prose is still so gorgeous. She has a beautiful way with words.
So, if I was less than enthusiastic about Parts I & II, why did I give this five stars then? Well, there's a reason for that. Because ultimately, what this book achieves is a work of great beauty. The ends justifies the means as it were. We get some absolutely heartbreaking stuff in the last third of this that bumps this from a three or four star all the way up to five. The last sentences in particular are just gorgeous.
Ultimately, this book gives us three different views of paradise and reveals that all is not what it seems on the surface. And it becomes a book about how these characters keep looking for a paradise that they can never achieve or reach. They all want something that they cannot have. There is a longing in these pages, for freedom, for love, for adventure, for understanding. And that makes it a universal story. We all have that longing, that craving, that desire. We are all searching for paradise. And unfortunately, none of us will ever get there. Yanagihara's gift is being able to tap into that universal longing and write it so eloquently on the page. While the three parts are separate stories, they share this common theme. And that gives them a connective thread all the way through.
Look, I get the negative reviews on here just like I get the negative reviews for A Little Life. This won't be to everyone's liking. Some will find it too long or too boring or too ponderous. And others will be annoyed by the way the book divides itself. And I get it. I wasn't sure how I felt about this book until I was 2/3rds of the way through. Yes, the stuff set in 2093 was a little difficult to read given that it dealt with pandemics and the precautions that had to be taken during them. And well, that was just not something I wanted to read during an actual pandemic. But if you can make it through that stuff, you'll get to the real heart of the book which is about our desire to find connection, to find love, to find our version of Paradise. None of the characters achieve it for various reasons (money, education, pandemic, infertility) but that doesn't mean that the rest of us shouldn't stop striving for it. If anything, this book made me want to work that much harder to achieve those things. It made me want to connect better, to love better and to work to make a paradise here on Earth.
This is a massive achievement, almost on par with A little Life. What she manages to do in these 700+ pages is give us the story of ourselves. Just a true joy to behold and to be a part of. So glad I read this. The first great book of 2022!