A Little Life
Reviews
While I understand the “trauma porn” take on this book: I personally loved it. I will always make sure that a potential reader checks tw’s and is down for a devastating read, but after that I think it’s an incredible story and a heartbreaking experience.
I love split perspective books and stories that provoke intense emotion. I loved this
Okay even from the get-go this book is so melodramatic which is not for me, but the funny thing is what actually made me abruptly lose interest was in Part 2 when Jude for kinda no reason asserts that abortion is “indefensible on moral grounds but necessary on social ones” 🙄like, ok 👍🏻 what a judgmental, pretentious, fake smart thing to say lolol (that also has nothing to do with anything, plot-wise?)
a very emotional read
This is equally the most heartbreaking and best book I've ever read. I've seen many reviews saying this is unbelievable that this many bad things can't happen to one person and it was made up just for the shock factor. This stuff does happen to every day people. There are people like Jude who have gone through unspeakable horrors, people like Willem who you only think their backstory was made up because of who they became. Following these four friends through life and seeing how the friendships ebb and flow was an honor even though these men were just made for paper. I feel like you can find a piece of yourself in each man, more in some than the others. A wonderful book that evokes every emotion under the sun.
The writing in this book is absolutely beautiful. I was drawn into the story immediately. The descriptions of the characters were amazing, I almost felt like I knew some of them personally. This book really describes the true love and devotion of friendship and chosen family. It also follows the brutal realities of life and the trials and triumphs that we as humans go through. It’s a book that might not be for everyone, but I found it to be hauntingly beautiful. This book is truly devastating, I was in tears for a good portion of the time while reading. Please look up the trigger warnings for this book before reading, there are a lot. I think about Jude St. Francis every single day.
Disclaimer: this is not a review.
I have 50 pages left but I overdosed on it and simply don't have the strength to finish it today. Still I want to simbolically leave it in 2024. This book is just devastating. And any other thoughts I would maybe form around it, are clouded by how heavy it is. Which doesn't sound good. Still, there must be a reason I read 700 pages of it.
I am so glad to be finally finished with this so I can have definitive own opinion for it. I am so brave for this, such an independent thinker, so controversial but so true, etc.
Firstly, can I start off with the fact that famous takedown article and the reviews calling it "euthanasia" fanfiction are sort of true but after having read the novel itself, seem a little bit overly hyperbolistic? It is not that there is nothing there but I feel like sometimes dunk on the novel without really trying to analyse why exactly the depiction of - let's be honest - suffering in the novel comes off so cheap to some and why it works for others. This an immensely successful novel that is pretty firmly central to the literary conversation - surely this is worth examining?
On my own thoughts, I would like to start with Yanagihara's prose itself. Her turn of phrase and use of language is gorgeous; it is clear that she is incredibly erudite in a manner that does not come off as pretentious. There is a lulling quality to the narration, in the way the words fall one after the other. An absolute paradise for people who enjoy long sentences, benefitting of multiple instances of punctiation, without losing their sense. (The downside here, of course, is that, due to the length of the novel, and if one does not find particular interest or pleasure in the plot, the writing begins to appear too long. There is also a talent and skill in brevity).
Beyond that, is this a bad novel? Well, it is not the worst. I am not sure whether it is because I have read a lot and because I tend to read broadly but I cannot say that I found anything that I particularly connected with or elicited a strong emotion from me. It is unfortunate but by now I have encountered many instances of cruelty that made me flinch away but also somehow prepared me for this novel. (And, I would suggest, the sheer amount of trauma that Jude, in particular, undergoes risks desensetising the reader to it. It is not writter for shock value but after a while it loses impact all the same.)
And therein lies the division in opinion for the novel, in my view.
Why do we write about suffering? For some, it offers great release - to receive catharsis through second-hand experience, second-hand extreme emotions (not unlike horror). For others, there is an interesting psychological or sociological examination to be presented. For some, even, there is pleasure to be derived (whether this tips into torture porn or not).
"A Little Life" is a novel that concerns itself with the act of suffering itself. The cruelties and acts of senseless violence, the constant emotional and physical pain Jude endures are as long as the list of ships in <i>The Iliad</i>. And as the novel offers no examination of the reasons why Jude, in particular, was uniquely vulnerable to life's cruelties, this becomes a novel that seek the catharsis of the reader.
I do not want to argue whether this is exploitative - of gay people, of socially vulnerable people, of people with chronic illnesses and/or disabilities; though this is the social context within which the novel has been released and it is a worthwhile effort to discuss it, I do not currently feel prepared enough to delve into it. What is a more succint conclusion for myself about the way this novel functions is this: if the writing does not connect to the reader, so much to offer them emotional release, it can quickly tip into apparent torture porn. If neither of those are a reason for reading, the novel then cannot be much of a pleasurable experience.
This was the case for me. To me, there was a disconnect between the litany of cruelties to which Jude is subjected and why someone would be uniquely positioned so. The narrative is so squarelly focused on Jude's suffering, it feels like the misfortunes of others (even Willem's loss of his brother or Harold's loss of his son) is to add to it by way of shaping their relationships with him. Here, the novel truly loses its effect with a reader such as myself; due to the sheer amount of misfortune and the exceptional cruelty, at some point, the novel tips into caricature. It becomes simply too difficult to take it with the seriousness it seems to demand.
I could elaborate more on each of the points above but frankly, it is NYE day and I have better things to do, and the above briefly captures what I find interesting about the novel and what may or may have not worked for me. Maybe I can pick this up another time but I have not kept many notes and I doubt I will ever re-read it.
P.S. Yanagihara hates fat people, change my mind.
hurt a little too much
sad. beautiful but so painfully sad.
Mit unendlichem Leid, können keine Gefühle erzwungen werden.
The magnum opus of sadness. This book broke me. It’s hauntingly beautiful yet concomitantly devastating. I’ve never thought a book would genuinely shatter my heart to pieces but here I am, still crying as we speak. I think I’ll never be the same anymore.
if you value your mental health, avoid this book. if you’re like me and you don’t, please read it because it has broken me as a human (in a good way?). also genuinely all the trigger warnings needed
I will have to say it's well-written but I got tired of it near the end. It can get repetitive, and it's very, very, long.
I also didn't cry, but that's more on me than on the book.
Otherwise, I thought it painted a nice picture of male companionship. The title drop was was also masterfully executed, and quite unforgettable. Keep your eyes peeled for it, that's all I ask of you.
Haunting. Beautiful. Raw.
I went in thinking “I never cry at books. Everyone’s being dramatic.”
Dearest gentle reader - they are not being dramatic.
I am missing characters as if they existed. Just a beautiful story of friendship, pain, healing, and loss. Please, please pick it up.
watched the stage play and i do not need to emotionally go through that again goodbye
The best and worst book there ever was or will be. Took me months to finish it. It is a literary equivalent of someone stabbing you with a knife and twisting it and twisting it.
Best of luck to anyone who reads it.
no one can save a person who thinks he/she doesn't deserve to be saved
I bought this book in June and had started reading it immediately. I love Hanya’s style of writing; easy to follow yet so much depth and details… but this wasn’t an easy read at all.
I had already known that this book is going to be a slow, sad, and depressing read. But, I did not imagine it to break my heart into a gazillion pieces. I remember a friend mentioning that I must be so happy and that my life must be so perfect to want to torture my self reading this book. I also remember a friend warning me to not read at least the last 100 pages in public…
I read this book on the daily when commuting and over the weekends. I think emotions started to flood in when I was closer to a third of the book. That’s when I realised I really need to stop reading it in public because there were times on the train when I really had to stop my tears from falling. And so, I continued reading it at home in my own time…
I went through so many emotions reading this book - more sadness than happiness but strangely, some comfort too. There are some moments in this book that made me reflect and think deeply about the relationships in my life - with my partner, my family, and my friends. I also thought deeply about adulthood and how easy it is for us to get consumed by the idea of success and how fast we want to have it. I was comforted with the fact that when these characters were in their late twenties, they were just starting out… with careers, with friendships, with relationships - with life in general.
I finished reading this book just half an hour ago. I had prepared myself for the worst but never have I imagined that I would literally hang on to every single written word and bawled my eyes out to this book - I was inconsolable (I still am). I felt the comfort, the pain, the peace, the anger, the frustration - every single emotions known to me. I never think myself of someone that’s imaginative but this book has allowed me to depict and see clearly every single scene in every single page and chapter. It was as if I was running a movie in my head.
I know that this is the type of book that I’ll never read again - not that i don’t want to but I don’t think that I can ever again. I’m truly and genuinely heartbroken by this piece. How can something so painful be so beautiful? How can something so violent be so peaceful? How can something so chaotic be so comforting?
Anyways, highly recommend if you want to torture yourself and seep into the darkness of depression. Heavy read but easy to follow. Not suitable to be read in public.
My therapist is going to be thrilled with the amount of material this book has provided for our sessions.
I’m dead
Highlights
Just wanna see what the fuss is all about. Predicting I DNF
You don't visit the lost, you visit the people who search for the lost.
He wants to be normal, he has only ever wanted to be normal, and yet with each year, he moves further and further from normalcy.
The thing he hadn't realized about success was that success made people boring.
You understood that proof of your friendship lay in keeping your distance, in accepting what was told you, in turning and walking away when the door was shut in your face instead of trying to force it open again.
When did pursuing your ambitions cross the line from brave into foolhardy? How did you know when to stop?
He was never to know whether he only thought he remembered it, having grown up studying the photograph of his father that sat on his mother's bedside table, or whether he actually did.
“That he died so alone is more than I can think of; that he died thinking he owed us an apology is worse”
Heartbreak…
The renderings were realistic, but photo-realistic; he had never replaced Ali's camera with a better one, and he tried to make each painting capture that gently fuzzed quality the camera gave everything, as if someone had patted away the top layer of clarity and left behind something kinder than the eye alone would see.
[…] the only thing uniting them being their newness to America and their identical expressions of exhaustion, that blend of determination and resignation that only the immigrant possesses.
27/626
It is morals that help us make the laws, but morals do not help us apply them.
"Fair" is never an answer, I would tell them. But it is always a consideration.
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.
And so I try to be kind to everything I see, and in everything I see, I see him.
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."
What he knew, he knew from books, and books lied, they made things prettier.
Life is so sad, he would think in those moments. It’s so sad, and yet we all do it. We all cling to it; we all search for something to give us solace.
[...] 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.
Wasn’t friendship its own miracle, the finding of another person who made the entire lonely world seem somehow less lonely?
As you got older, you realized that really, there were very few people you truly wanted to be around for more than a few days at a time, and yet here you were with someone you wanted to be around for years, even when he was at his most opaque and confusing.
The person he thought he knew had turned out to be, in some ways, not the person before him, and it had taken him time to figure out how many facets he had yet to see: it was as if the shape he had all along thought was a pentagram was in reality a dodecahedron, many sided and many fractaled and much more complicated to measure. Despite this, he had never considered leaving: he stayed, unquestioningly, out of love, out of loyalty, out of curiosity, But it hadn't been easy. In truth, it had been at times aggressively difficult, and in some ways remained so. When he had promised himself that he wouldn't try to repair Jude, he had forgotten that to solve someone is to want to repair them: to diagnose a problem and then not try to fix that problem seemed not only neglectful but immoral.
If you love home — and even if you don't — there is nothing quite as cozy, as comfortable, as delightful, as that first week back. That week, even the things that would irritate you — the alarm waahing from some car at three in the morning; the pigeons who come to clutter and cluck on the windowsill behind your bed when you’re trying to sleep in — seem instead reminders of your own permanence, of how life, your life, will always graciously allow you to step back inside of it, no matter how far you have gone away from it or how long you have left it.