Title: A Little Life
Author: Hanya Yanagihara
Rating: 5 / 5 stars
Favorite Quote: “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. Friendship was witnessing another’s slow drip of miseries, and long bouts of boredom, and occasional triumphs. It was feeling honored by the privilege of getting to be present for another person’s most dismal moments, and knowing that you could be dismal around him in return.” Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life, Doubleday, 2015, p. 225.
Review:
If you’ve seen the Little Literary Moments Instagram page, there’s a chance you may have noticed that my original plan for today’s post was to review a book that was recently featured on a #littleliterarylunchbreak post that I received through NetGalley. I ended up (at least temporarily) DNF’ing that book (for reasons completely unrelated to whether it’s a good book), and therefore had to scramble a bit to figure out what I wanted to review today instead.
And then it hit me - why not take a look at a read that is simultaneously one of my favorites and one of the most controversial books I’ve ever read? And so, without further ado, A Little Life.
I’m going to preface this review by saying that while this is one of my favorite books of all time (since I can never actually pick a favorite, I’ll say it’s consistently in my top 5), it’s also a book that I rarely recommend, and even when I do, I do so with the suggestion that whoever I’m recommending it to should look at a list of triggers in the book before they read it. Because as you might know, if you’ve heard anything about this book, A Little Life is known for a no-holds-barred look at trauma. Critics of A Little Life have sometimes referred to it as “trauma porn,” and while I disagree with that assessment, I can definitely see why it would be described in that way. At its core, A Little Life is a study in the worst of humanity, told through graphic, devastating, and somehow still beautiful, prose.
So let me tell you why I like it…
I love books about friendship. And we’ll get more into this when we talk about that quote from earlier, but much of A Little Life is, at least on the surface, a character study of four friends. It opens with Jude (ultimately the main character) and three of his friends. And throughout the book, the narrative returns to the ups and downs faced by those friends. There’s more - of course there’s more - but regardless of Jude’s past, and regardless of the myriad of people in his life both past and present to the story arc, it almost always returns, in one way or another to those friends.
Beyond that aspect, there are countless reasons I adore this book, but two of those reasons really stand out. The first is Yanagahara’s use of language. Never have I read a book where the prose can evoke so much emotion, so much revulsion, and so much dread. Because if you read this book, you know it can’t have a traditionally happy ending. And yet, the language is a significant part in what keeps readers (at least me) barreling towards the end, unable to put it down or look away even as trauma after trauma whittles away at Jude. I wanted to submerge myself in Yanagihara’s writing and never leave. I would read anything written by Yanagihara and I would savor it. There are so many examples I could point to, but these ones in particular have stuck with me:
“Fairness is for happy people, for people who have been lucky enough to have lived a life defined more by certainties than by ambiguities. [paragraph break] Right and wrong, however, are for -- well, not unhappy people, maybe, but scarred people; scared people.” (Yanagihara 167).
“[H]e admired anyone who could live for year after year on only their fast-burning hopes, even as they grew older and more obscure with every day.” (Yanagihara 244).
The other aspect of this book I want to discuss is Yanagihara’s use of perspective and point of view. This book is told primarily from a third-person perspective that largely, but not exclusively, focuses on Judge. But there are moments - small pockets of text - that shift to a first person perspective - the identity of whom is not clear right away, but does become clear as the novel goes on. This was done in such a creative and artistic way - it was never jarring, and there are clear narrative reasons by the end for why more than one perspective is chosen.
About that Quote: This quote pretty much every single thing I’ve just discussed about why I love this book. The focus on friendship? Impeccable. The prose - “slow drip of miseries”? - I mean, come on. I would read this woman’s grocery list. You might not quite see the perspective here, but if you read the book, you’ll definitely see how this voice is necessarily different than the other voice that is used throughout the novel.
TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR THIS BOOK (NOTE - I probably have not listed all of them - please always prioritize your mental health - feel free to DM me on Instagram or leave a comment here if you have specific questions about certain aspects. It’s been a while since I read it, so I would also encourage you to look at other reviewers for a more comprehensive list of triggers) - SA (including actions against minors), SH, s*icide, ableism, racism, fatal car accidents.
Have you read A Little Life? Share your thoughts below!
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