Name: A Little Life
ISBN: 9781447294849

Hanya Yanagihara

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2015. Shortlisted for the Baileys Prize for Women's Fiction 2016. Finalist for the National Book Awards 2015. The million copy bestseller, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, is an immensely powerful and heartbreaking novel of brotherly love and the limits of human endurance. When four graduates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their centre of gravity. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he'll not only be unable to overcome – but that will define his life forever.

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2015

A Little Life

cams

Stephanie 

Yoana Terzieva 

Maria M

Naïa

Georgia Wye

sina (she/her) 

hermes

Tija

He experienced the singular pleasure of watching people he loved fall in love with other people he loved. 

Alex Stelzhammer

Basil

Storm

Mariana Foster

Abigail Mills

He was frightened of everything, it sometimes seemed, and he hated that about himself. Fear and hatred, fear and hatred: often, it seemed that those were the only two qualities he possessed. 

Fear of everyone else; hatred of himself. 

Hasya Yazid

 is for happy people, for people who have been lucky enough to have lived a life defined more by certainties than by ambiguities. 

Right and wrong, however, are for — well, not unhappy people, maybe, but 

Srijita Sarkar 

When did pursuing your ambitions cross the line from brave into foolhardy? How did you know when to stop?

clara

Fasiha🌺🐧

Kenzie Newberry

Maisha Prather

Kaia Mann

Bianca Miller 

Somewhere, surrendering to what seemed to be your fate had changed from being dignified to being a sign of your own cowardice. There were times when the pressure to achieve happiness felt almost oppressive, as if happiness were something that everyone should and could attain, and that any sort of compro mise in its pursuit was somehow your fault. 

But what was happiness but an extravagance, an impossible state to maintain, partly because it was so difficult to articulate? 

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.

Nikola

tara  (she/her)

An Vu

Quando quatro amigos de uma pequena faculdade de Massachusetts se mudam para Nova York em busca de uma vida melhor, eles se veem falidos, sem rumo e amparados apenas por sua amizade e por suas ambições. Willem, lindo e generoso, é aspirante a ator; JB, nascido no Brooklyn, é um pintor perspicaz e às vezes cruel que busca de todas as formas ingressar no mundo das artes; Malcolm é um arquiteto frustrado que trabalha numa empresa de renome; e o solitário, brilhante e enigmático Jude funciona como o centro gravitacional do grupo. Com o tempo, o relacionamento deles se aprofunda e se anuvia, matizado pelo vício, pelo sucesso e pelo orgulho. No entanto, seu maior desafio, como cada um passa a perceber, é o próprio Jude, um litigante extremamente talentoso na meia-idade, porém, ao mesmo tempo, um homem cada vez mais atormentado, a mente e o corpo marcados pelas cicatrizes de uma infância misteriosa, e assombrado pelo que teme ser um trauma tão intenso que não só não será capaz de superar — mas que vai definir sua vida para sempre. Com uma prosa magnífica e genial, Hanya Yanagihara criou um hino trágico e transcendental do amor fraterno, uma representação magistral da dor física e psicológica, e uma análise da verdade nua e crua que permeia a tirania da memória e os limites da resistência humana.

Source: http://www.record.com.br/livro_sinopse.asp?id_livro=29186

Uma Vida Pequena

É um bom livro, bem escrito e com questionamentos pessoais e que instigam um raciocínio amplo em relação a tudo que vivemos e ainda será vivido. Gostei de acompanhar a vida dos personagens, um livro grande que te faz ser parte daquele grupo de pessoas e viver ao lado deles. Na minha humilde opinião, há um pouco de forçação em diversos sentidos, desnecessário, porém justificável.

Larissa Campos

too many thoughts but the most gorgeous piece of literature. sobbed for 3 hours 

Ralie Sutton

Not to open if u can’t handle strong emotions 🙏🏾✨

Aaron

I do not want to read this book again but I am glad that I read it. 

Lisa Ahlswede

Oliver Wyman

A Novel

A Little Life is the type of book you don't necessarily enjoy reading but will stay with you after you finish it.

Hanya Yanagihara wanted to create a character which could not be saved, and I think she definitely succeeded with that.

D⛦na

A Little Life is the type of book you don't necessarily enjoy reading but will stay with you after you finish it.

Hanya Yanagihara wanted to create a character which could not be saved, and I think she definitely succeeded with that.

i’m okay with sensitive and violent topics, and i’m also okay with unreliable narrator/main character, but the writer seems more interested in taunting the readers by injecting abusive issues as many and flashy as possible, instead of fleshing out the main character’s personal thoughta and development.

Thariq Fauzan

A Little Life has been on my TBR for a year. A month ago, I decided to pick it up and read it and oh boy, what a story! This book felt real. Jude felt real, and his story destroyed me. A work of art and surely one of the best novels I have ever read.

Contains mention of suicide attempts, child abuse, sexual abuse, violence, self-harm, grief, mental illness. READ WITH CAUTION!

Sherilyn Bourillon 

A Little Life has been on my TBR for a year. A month ago, I decided to pick it up and read it and oh boy, what a story! This book felt real. Jude felt real, and his story destroyed me. A work of art and surely one of the best novels I have ever read.

Contains mention of suicide attempts, child abuse, sexual abuse, violence, self-harm, grief, mental illness. READ WITH CAUTION!

This moved me to tears. Such a tender and sad novel, that shows what it is to love someone, to be a friend to someone. A harrowing portrayal of childhood abuse, friendship, betrayal hope and love.

Laura Dobie

I have not sobbed so many times during a book ever. Took me through a rollercoaster of emotions. Just incredible.

Nikki Nikkhoui

I’ve never cried so much while reading a book, I’ll need a while to process.

Robi

relentlessly and unrepentantly raw, seismically upsetting, but impossible to put down. the writing is sprawling and gorgeous, deftly weaving different timelines around and under each other in a way that mirrors the meander of one’s train of thought. it feels like a huge weight has been lifted off of my chest now that i’ve finished it.

caleb keller

This was one of the most heartbreaking books I have ever read. The way Jude struggles through his hole life just to be fucking alive, the way we slowly learn about his trauma through the book, the way he just wants to be part of the world but can’t let go, the way he barely had a happy day in his hole life and when he finally gained some semblance of peace willem dies😭. From that moment onwards it was obvious that he would unalive himself it was only a matter of time, but fuck how it hurt to hear from Harolds perspective😭. This book is living rent free in my head and i can’t stop thinking about it.

taci

It's the most hurtful book I've ever read in my life but I truly did love that book 

Shren Radwan Zaglol 

Sam Sontag

 a masterpiece. however, not anymore. traumatic book.. my tears really drained but this book gives a different perspective on grief, trauma and life, can't describe how amazing it is how Hanya Yanagihara describes each character and character so perfectly, love <3

𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆝⋆.˚ 𓇼o

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

Kalista Dickson

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?)

Margo Koss

A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves.

i took such a long time to review this, half grappling half trying to ignore how a book that made me so angry and revolted still had me looking back fondly at some passages and characters. so — this is going to be long.

does this book have redeeming qualities in my opinion? i've come to terms with the fact that yes, it does. i do enjoy Yanagihara's prose, even when she ends up repeating structures and similies throughout the span of 800+ pages. i especially admire the way she builds very long periods that still flow seamlessly, without falling into forced or clunky wording. and i do have love for some of the characters Yanagihara created in A Little Life, even if some of those she left undeveloped, uncared for, or even killed off uncerimoniously.

this is the first of many of my big, massive, grievances with a little life: its world is so ambitious and yet unfinished, characters lovable but anonymous, their attributes and lives so unparalleled and almost infallible that by the second act it feels like Yanagihara is abandoning any story building in favor of lavish successes and riches. we find the four friends that are (supposed to be) the core of the book struggling, unrecognized, unsure of their path, and about 200 pages later we find them at the top of their respective fields, so Jude becomes a revered litigator and by all counts a millionaire, JB’s paintings are unrivalled and pursued by collectors and the MoMa alike, Malcolm is a prized world-renowned architect, and Willem is the biggest movie star on the scene from his late 20s to his 50th, and last, birthday.

the first pages of the book come alive with the introduction of the quartet, their lives and dreams, fears and struggles so vivid. Even the dialogue, in retrospect, seems to flow smoother than it does in the rest of the book. I fell in love with them, but after the 80 page mark or so, after Jude's harrowing story hits us for the first time on New Year's Eve, the book shifts away from ever considering again the point of view of two of them, Malcom and JB, except for a short and agonizing passage when the latter is struggling with addiction and an abusive relationship. There are many opportunities for Yanagihara to delve into the evolution of Malcolm's life, but instead everything we learn from his adulthood is from Jude and Willem's pov, his struggles and successes condensed in a couple of lines, ticking off one by one the issues of the lists Malcolm made for himself in the first 30 pages of the book: “ his work (at a standstill), his love life (nonexistent), his sexuality (unresolved), his future (uncertain)". From excerpts in the stories of Willem and Jude, we sense that many of these decisions weighted heavy on Malcolm’s mind but we never get to witness his inner world again. When, in the end, he is killed in one of the most egregious decisions of the book, he remains as cast away as when he lived, with Jude even reflecting on how he is grateful that Willem died in the same accident as that immense loss offset the pain of Malcom.

To me, it is clear that the fulcrum of the book is not about the friendship of these four men, as it is implied and boasted in its praises, and i would argue that it is not even Jude and the people orbiting his adult life with an endless supply of love. The cardinal hinge on which the book is built is suffering. I do not want to echo the people who dismiss this book as trauma porn, even if Yanagihara surely seems to try her darnedest to prove them right. But I will say unequivocally that Yanagihara beliefs on therapy, depression, and trauma both distress and disgust me. I can understand how, to a deeply traumatized and depressed person, the love of others and their efforts to keep him alive might feel like unwanted palliative care; but seeing Yanagihara outright saying that suicide is a valid “cure” for mental illness is appalling. This belief seeps through every part of the book from the middle of the second act forwards. In fact, this statement and her refusal of doing any sort of research on the subject matters of the book, make me think that A Little Life is a whole apology of Yanagihara’s beliefs.

So I cannot help but read the horrific streak of heart-wrenching, stomach churning abuse that Jude receives as a way for Yanagihara to present the most extreme scenario she can conjure in order to support her thesis: wouldn't it have been better if Jude was to commit suicide? The childhood abuse development in this book is something that really drives me mad. Yanagihara takes very real, tragic circumstances that children experience throughout the globe and draws them out, builds and builds on them, to the point of rendering them cartoonish. That is mind boggling to me. God knows that situations like the one Jude was in the monastery exist out there, that children put through the system are put through cycles of abuse and abandonment, that Brother Lukes, Dr Traylors, the goddamn truck drivers, are roaming the streets. Yanagihara might have not done any research, but everything she wrote about Jude's time with his abuser are very real. The paragraph in which Jude, now an adult, looks back on how he opted to selling his teenage body to truck drivers even when he could have taken a bus, ring very true to the mental processes of a person that went through the same abuse as he did.

But Yanagihara builds Jude’s abuse the same way she builds her characters’ lives: with fairy tale-like grandeur. By the time Jude falls prey to Dr Traylor, the abuse is so relentless that it becomes a mockery. Jude’s injury could’ve been easily written into his time with Brother Luke or with the truck drivers. And then into his adulthood when Jude has achieved a family of his own, success, money, respect, a collection of friends who relentlessly love him; when he is safe and away from monsters then Caleb enters, and the evil has become despicably banal. Caleb’s abuse is so violent, so distressing, so pointed to breaking everything on the inside and the outside of Jude’s newfound safety that is is sickening. Jude’s abused is spaced out throughout the book, but is revisited seemingly endlessly, going from being implied (but nonetheless abundantly clear) to being nauseatingly described. His own self harm follows a similar trajectory, his methods getting increasingly graphic and detailed and gruesome. Why? Surely Yanagihara has a twisted fascination for making her characters go through the unimaginable. Notably, the one passage we get from the perspective of adult JB is when he is suffering and self-destructing. The character’s lives are never described in detail as much as they are when they are going through pain: Willem’s brother and family, Harold’s son, Willem’s struggling to love a Jude that doesnt want to be helped, JB’s addiction.

I am a person that can withstand a lot of graphic content, so besides being nauseated by the gratuitousness of the repetition of abuse I went through with the book. Again, I found in it things that I loved, passages that spoke to me, stories that moved me interspersed in this complicated and infuriating novel. But one part almost made me put the book away forever: when the title of the book makes its appearance. I cannot compute the fact that the cover in the hands of thousands, picturing Peter Hujar’s 

, bears the phrase of a pedophile and groomer instructing a 11yo boy how to act with the men that pay to rape him. Further, Yanagihara cannot resist soiling one of the only two truly pure relationships that Jude has, and, as an almost throw-away moment, she has him repeat what Brother Luke said to him when he is facing the reality of his sex life with Willem. Shameless. This might be the most disgusting thing that Yanagihara did with this book, the culmination of the twisted relationship she has with Jude, this character that she so clearly loves but that she only serves by crushing and humiliating, giving apparent solace only to beat him back down to a pulp, again and again until there is no Jude left, just the appearance of a man who is better off dead. There is no other conflict or theme that seems to interest Yanagihara, and for that this remains to me a complicated but ultimately sickening book.

louv

A Little Life

i took such a long time to review this, half grappling half trying to ignore how a book that made me so angry and revolted still had me looking back fondly at some passages and characters. so — this is going to be long.

does this book have redeeming qualities in my opinion? i've come to terms with the fact that yes, it does. i do enjoy Yanagihara's prose, even when she ends up repeating structures and similies throughout the span of 800+ pages. i especially admire the way she builds very long periods that still flow seamlessly, without falling into forced or clunky wording. and i do have love for some of the characters Yanagihara created in A Little Life, even if some of those she left undeveloped, uncared for, or even killed off uncerimoniously.

this is the first of many of my big, massive, grievances with a little life: its world is so ambitious and yet unfinished, characters lovable but anonymous, their attributes and lives so unparalleled and almost infallible that by the second act it feels like Yanagihara is abandoning any story building in favor of lavish successes and riches. we find the four friends that are (supposed to be) the core of the book struggling, unrecognized, unsure of their path, and about 200 pages later we find them at the top of their respective fields, so Jude becomes a revered litigator and by all counts a millionaire, JB’s paintings are unrivalled and pursued by collectors and the MoMa alike, Malcolm is a prized world-renowned architect, and Willem is the biggest movie star on the scene from his late 20s to his 50th, and last, birthday.

the first pages of the book come alive with the introduction of the quartet, their lives and dreams, fears and struggles so vivid. Even the dialogue, in retrospect, seems to flow smoother than it does in the rest of the book. I fell in love with them, but after the 80 page mark or so, after Jude's harrowing story hits us for the first time on New Year's Eve, the book shifts away from ever considering again the point of view of two of them, Malcom and JB, except for a short and agonizing passage when the latter is struggling with addiction and an abusive relationship. There are many opportunities for Yanagihara to delve into the evolution of Malcolm's life, but instead everything we learn from his adulthood is from Jude and Willem's pov, his struggles and successes condensed in a couple of lines, ticking off one by one the issues of the lists Malcolm made for himself in the first 30 pages of the book: “ his work (at a standstill), his love life (nonexistent), his sexuality (unresolved), his future (uncertain)". From excerpts in the stories of Willem and Jude, we sense that many of these decisions weighted heavy on Malcolm’s mind but we never get to witness his inner world again. When, in the end, he is killed in one of the most egregious decisions of the book, he remains as cast away as when he lived, with Jude even reflecting on how he is grateful that Willem died in the same accident as that immense loss offset the pain of Malcom.

To me, it is clear that the fulcrum of the book is not about the friendship of these four men, as it is implied and boasted in its praises, and i would argue that it is not even Jude and the people orbiting his adult life with an endless supply of love. The cardinal hinge on which the book is built is suffering. I do not want to echo the people who dismiss this book as trauma porn, even if Yanagihara surely seems to try her darnedest to prove them right. But I will say unequivocally that Yanagihara beliefs on therapy, depression, and trauma both distress and disgust me. I can understand how, to a deeply traumatized and depressed person, the love of others and their efforts to keep him alive might feel like unwanted palliative care; but seeing Yanagihara outright saying that suicide is a valid “cure” for mental illness is appalling. This belief seeps through every part of the book from the middle of the second act forwards. In fact, this statement and her refusal of doing any sort of research on the subject matters of the book, make me think that A Little Life is a whole apology of Yanagihara’s beliefs.

So I cannot help but read the horrific streak of heart-wrenching, stomach churning abuse that Jude receives as a way for Yanagihara to present the most extreme scenario she can conjure in order to support her thesis: wouldn't it have been better if Jude was to commit suicide? The childhood abuse development in this book is something that really drives me mad. Yanagihara takes very real, tragic circumstances that children experience throughout the globe and draws them out, builds and builds on them, to the point of rendering them cartoonish. That is mind boggling to me. God knows that situations like the one Jude was in the monastery exist out there, that children put through the system are put through cycles of abuse and abandonment, that Brother Lukes, Dr Traylors, the goddamn truck drivers, are roaming the streets. Yanagihara might have not done any research, but everything she wrote about Jude's time with his abuser are very real. The paragraph in which Jude, now an adult, looks back on how he opted to selling his teenage body to truck drivers even when he could have taken a bus, ring very true to the mental processes of a person that went through the same abuse as he did.

But Yanagihara builds Jude’s abuse the same way she builds her characters’ lives: with fairy tale-like grandeur. By the time Jude falls prey to Dr Traylor, the abuse is so relentless that it becomes a mockery. Jude’s injury could’ve been easily written into his time with Brother Luke or with the truck drivers. And then into his adulthood when Jude has achieved a family of his own, success, money, respect, a collection of friends who relentlessly love him; when he is safe and away from monsters then Caleb enters, and the evil has become despicably banal. Caleb’s abuse is so violent, so distressing, so pointed to breaking everything on the inside and the outside of Jude’s newfound safety that is is sickening. Jude’s abused is spaced out throughout the book, but is revisited seemingly endlessly, going from being implied (but nonetheless abundantly clear) to being nauseatingly described. His own self harm follows a similar trajectory, his methods getting increasingly graphic and detailed and gruesome. Why? Surely Yanagihara has a twisted fascination for making her characters go through the unimaginable. Notably, the one passage we get from the perspective of adult JB is when he is suffering and self-destructing. The character’s lives are never described in detail as much as they are when they are going through pain: Willem’s brother and family, Harold’s son, Willem’s struggling to love a Jude that doesnt want to be helped, JB’s addiction.

I am a person that can withstand a lot of graphic content, so besides being nauseated by the gratuitousness of the repetition of abuse I went through with the book. Again, I found in it things that I loved, passages that spoke to me, stories that moved me interspersed in this complicated and infuriating novel. But one part almost made me put the book away forever: when the title of the book makes its appearance. I cannot compute the fact that the cover in the hands of thousands, picturing Peter Hujar’s Orgasmic Man, bears the phrase of a pedophile and groomer instructing a 11yo boy how to act with the men that pay to rape him. Further, Yanagihara cannot resist soiling one of the only two truly pure relationships that Jude has, and, as an almost throw-away moment, she has him repeat what Brother Luke said to him when he is facing the reality of his sex life with Willem. Shameless. This might be the most disgusting thing that Yanagihara did with this book, the culmination of the twisted relationship she has with Jude, this character that she so clearly loves but that she only serves by crushing and humiliating, giving apparent solace only to beat him back down to a pulp, again and again until there is no Jude left, just the appearance of a man who is better off dead. There is no other conflict or theme that seems to interest Yanagihara, and for that this remains to me a complicated but ultimately sickening book.

It was a very hard book to read, only got invested at page 300.. I also had to switch to audiobook to get through/hooked. Parts of Jude’s history are just too unrealistic with the amount of men he bumped into being evil. The fact he couldn’t believe those around him really care/loved him who were there for decades. I loved Willem, it’s a shame he couldn’t help Jude fully after what he went through but the platonic bond I felt they had was written beautifully. I feel like more could’ve been said about Malcom, he was the only one in the group that didn’t really have a whole chunk about him which is a shame for the inevitable that occurs. Overall it was very good in how it is a slow burn to be obsessed with the characters but felt unnecessarily long in some parts.

Rose Donovan

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. 

Macy M

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.

Dora Tominic

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.

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.

A Little Life Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2015