This is, by far, my favorite work of fiction ever.
Now, bear with me, I know that's quite a controversial statement. I learned from my fugue-state post-book depression scrolling through A Little Life reddit threads that people quite vehemently despise this book and Hanya Yanagihara. They say it's trauma porn, they say it sends the message that some people are too broken to save, they say it's too long, they say it's fetishization, they say that there is no real theme or take away message, and they say it's unrealistic.
(TW for discussions of SH, SA, & suicide. Obv, spoilers ahead)
I agree with none of these critiques. First of all, when we start critiquing fiction through the lens of what's necessarily realistic or not, we have already lost the plot. It's a melodrama, it's meant to be dramatic.
For those that say it's trauma porn, I ask you what amount of trauma in a book is acceptable without it becoming trauma porn. Not every book that has sad and realistic topics and scenes is fetishization or trauma porn.
There is a popular critique that this book sends a bad message to those who are mentally ill. Yes, Hanya's intention when creating Jude was a personal thesis in writing a character who is too damaged to ever recover, and to explore when suicide becomes an ethical option. HOWEVER, just because this was Hanya's goal in writing Jude, doesn't mean that she's telling every person who struggles with self-harm or mental illness to off themselves. It also doesn't mean that her goal of writing this character translates to her message of the book. These are important distinctions. And, not every book necessarily needs a happy message, I would argue, sometimes a book is meant to simply be a reflection on life, which I think A Little Life is. I would also argue there are more important messages in this book than "all is hopeless".
People say this book is too long. Honestly, looking back, I don't think there is a single sentence in this entire book that can be cut out. Hanya's prose is beautiful and deep, and there is a meaningful quote on every page. She does a fantastic job of leaving little breadcrumbs throughout the story that relate to and precede later events. Also, this book, I think, is a perfect representation of what it means to live and be human. This book is so long because it's following Jude (and others) throughout their whole lives, spanning decades. If it were shorter, I don't think it would necessarily have the emotional impact that it does. The only reason people form such a deep attachment to the characters is because we spend so much time reading them and their deepest inner thoughts. By the end of the book, you thoroughly understand every characters' motivations and values and feelings. This book gives you the good, the bad, and the mundane moments of living, which really resonated with me and is why it's my favorite. Never have I ever felt so reflected on a page.
Speaking about characterization, Hanya does an incredible job with this as well (for the most part). She has a unique ability that I think many authors lack to create deeply complex and realistic characters. Especially JB, I think JB may just be her most complex character in the book. He's arrogant, selfish, emotional, and a shit friend at times, but he also has the rarest ability to see and accept his loved ones for who they are. He is so so human. This is why his paintings evoke such a poignant response from other characters in the book, especially Jude who is his main muse.
Willem is also a beautifully complex and relatable character. His character development in his relationship with Jude was top notch. I love how their relationship wasn't perfect, especially at the beginning. It dove into the realities of loving someone who hasn't healed from their trauma; the fear, hope, and helplessness of it all. Willem made plenty of mistakes in the beginning of their relationship, including (but not limited to) pressuring Jude into the shower with him, continuing sex when he sensed that Jude was hiding his true feelings about it, cutting himself in front of Jude, and repeatedly trying to fix him. I thought Willem's self-harm scene was brutally raw and great at illustrating the helplessness one feels when their loved one is self-harming. Was he wrong for doing this? Yes. But, Willem wanted to show Jude the pain that he feels whenever Jude self harms, and this was the only thing he could think of since Jude refused to speak to him about it. Willem projecting his unresolved issues over Hemming's death onto Jude was also a fantastic and realistic touch. Everyone has trauma and personal baggage that they carry through life and bring into relationships, and no relationship with someone with mental health issues is perfect at first, but the most important part is learning how to adjust and meet them where they are, which Willem learned during The Happy Years arc. They had a significantly more healthy relationship after Willem accepted he can't fix Jude, and it's not his job to.
Elaborating more about Jude and Willem's relationship, and this is more of a personal opinion, but I don't think it was necessarily romantic. They had so much love for each other, that is clear, but it never read as romantic to me. They are life partners, 100%, but it reads more as a platonic love, the depth of their relationship coming from three decades of mutual respect and understanding, not any sexual chemistry. I don't think Jude ever expressed any romantic feelings or thoughts towards Willem that can't be explained as deep platonic love. Maybe Willem was genuinely romantically attracted to Jude, but I think Willem's sexual attraction towards him may have resulted from thinking that's what is supposed to be done in a romantic relationship. I think Willem getting with Jude in the first place was equal parts the misinterpretation of deep platonic love as romantic, and the fear that Jude would end up dying alone, which is how he thought Hemming died, (and we all know that Willem projected a lot of his fears and love for Hemming onto Jude), and so he subconsciously stepped in to save him from that fate. Now, this doesn't negate the love that they have for each other, and I don't think the point of their relationship is to ponder whether it's romantic or platonic, their relationship straddles the line between both and I think that's beautiful. I loved this book's emphasis on platonic bonds, especially Willem's views on them. As someone who deeply adores her friends and values those bonds just as much as romantic ones, this quote from Willem really resonated.
"Why wasn’t friendship as good as a relationship? Why wasn’t it even better? It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified." – This summarizes my feelings about my bonds better that I ever could. Thanks Hanya.
What I will critique about Hanya, is that she kind of misrepresents what this book is going to be about. First of all, where in the world are the trigger warnings? I luckily knew what topics this book explored before going in, but I can't imagine someone in a poor mental state stumbling upon this book and then reading the sheer amount of sexual assault and graphic self-harm scenes. To any future readers, whatever trigger warnings you can think of, they apply to this book. From the summary in the back of the book, you can gather it's about 4 friends with an emphasis on Jude, and in the beginning this is true. We get POVs from all 4 friends, plus my dear sweet Harold. However, around 200 pages in, it becomes the Jude and Willem show, with very minor POV appearances from JB and Harold, forgetting Malcom entirely. Now, I enjoy Jude and Willem and Harold, so I'm not necessarily too upset about this, but it wasn't what I was expecting when I started the book. Plus, there is no character development or elaboration on either Malcom nor Julia, which I find disappointing. I would have loved to learn more about Julia and get her inner thoughts about Jude & Company. She was a female character whose only role was to be a supportive wife to her husband, which is boring and trite.
People say that Jude's character is entirely unrealistic to the extent that it turned them off from connecting with his character and that his sole purpose of existing is to be Hanya's punching bag. This is semi-true; he was intended to be Hanya's punching bag, however I don't think he's necessarily unrealistic. Yes, his trauma is quite extensive, but the things that happen to him can happen to anyone, and they do. Many people deal with SA, grooming, trafficking, SH, and suicidal ideation. Just because it's dark, just because it feels excessive, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. As someone who works in an ER, some of my patient's stories would be seen as unrealistic by these standards just from the sheer amount of trauma they've been through. People also have a hard time believing that a character who is so mentally ill could ever become this hot-shot successful lawyer with an insanely loving support system who also excels in many hobbies. Hanya explains his collection of hobbies as things he picked up from the monastery and his stay with Brother Luke. This part is perfectly plausible, especially with being taught by Brother Luke since he was being groomed and he of course needed something to do in the mornings before his nightly g*ng r*pe. Trauma is a tricky thing, it impacts everyone differently, some people are higher functioning than others, it doesn't make them any less ill. I personally think Jude's time with Ana and Leslie, and his compartmentalization and dissociation from his trauma, made it plausible he was able to succeed in higher education and go on to his successes in law school and his career. Also, he firmly believed everything that happened to him was deserved, and him viewing his trauma like this, instead of viewing it as horrible, undeserved things that happened to him made it easier to function. Of course, this is not a healthy mindset, but I think it was his mind's way of protecting him and allowing him to survive and persevere through life (until it catches up to him. rip baby boy you are deeply missed).
Hanya's writing style throughout the book focuses more on telling, not showing, which is why I understand people's disbelief that Jude has all this unending support. We are told, repeatedly, through other people's POVs that Jude is beautiful, sweet, perfect, worthy, an amazing friend and person, yet nothing in the writing shows us WHY he is all these things and why people love him. We are just told that this is how it is. I think this part is lazy writing, but it could also be explained in the sense that Jude himself is unable to see how beautiful and lovable he is, and that is contrasted with everyone else's view of him to enhance the tragedy of him being unable to see his own worth.
What I also think is lazy writing is Willem's sudden death. Yes, I understand this book being a melodrama and to critique it for being too dramatic would be like critiquing a soap opera for being too dramatic. However, if she wanted to write about a character bound to commit suicide for being too broken, she could have done it in a better way. Jude was healing when he was with Willem, and would have stayed alive if Willem hadn't died. This goes against her point, I think, of Jude being unable to heal at all, and it was a lazy excuse for Jude to kill himself. If she really wanted to make her case that some people are irredeemably fucked up, she should have had Willem stay alive and have Jude actually try at therapy. Him having his soulmate, a huge support system, a successful job, and therapy and still end up killing himself because his pain was too great despite these things would have proven her thesis more. But, she would have had to rewrite some of Willem and Jude's relationship to do this, and so I see why she didn't.
I don't understand how people can read this book and not take anything from it. Yes, there is a lot of trauma, but there is also love and happiness too. The theme of this book is friendship and the importance of radical kindness and support. Yes, Jude ended up committing at the end, and sometimes that's just life, but he wouldn't have lasted nearly as long if he didn't have the unwavering love and support from JB, Willem, Malcolm, Harold, Julia, Richard, Andy and everyone else he knows. The emphasis on the importance of love and platonic bonds throughout the book is my favorite thing about it. Yes, as Willem says, life is so sad, however the bonds we have can make our little lives a little lighter. You never know what anyone is going through, and you never know if your support is going to be the reason someone stays alive another day, so go through life with forgiveness and radical kindness to everyone you meet.
The final chapter, Lispenard Street VII, which I have tattooed on me, was the chapter that cemented this book as my favorite. Harold's enduring love for Jude had me crying hysterically, after all, grief is just love with no one to give it to. It hurts my heart to know that Jude died thinking his parents would have hated the real him, and it hurts my heart to know that Harold views himself as a failure for not being able to save Jude. Grief was written so well this chapter. But, I find solace that Jude is happier in the afterlife than he ever could have been on earth. Also, the contrast between Jude viewing himself as dirty and impure, and Harold then comparing him to cats, puppies, flowers, and toddlers, all the pure things on Earth, is so devastating.
Harold's quote on the last page summarizes what I think the message of this book is.
"It isn't that he died, or even how he died; it is what he died believing. And so, I try to be kind to everything, and in everything I see him."
by dcgirl3000
1 Comment
I liked it too.