Another Post About A Little Life

I’m back with another A Little Life post. I can’t help myself - I adore this novel and I’ve been thinking about it continuously since I read it in September and there is so much to unpack. 

This post will contain some spoilers, so if you haven’t read this novel yet and don’t want to be spoiled, you may want to stop reading, but otherwise, please proceed!

One theme I haven’t seen many people (anyone?) talk about yet about this novel is the importance of having parents and this quote, to me, was one of the most impactful quotes in the entire novel. 

“Jude,” Harold says to him, quietly. “My poor Jude. My poor sweetheart.” And with that, he starts to cry, for no one has ever called him sweetheart, not since Brother Luke … the endearment was filthy to him, a word of debasement and depravity. “My sweetheart,” Harold says again, and he wants him to stop; he wants him to never stop. “My baby.” And he cries and cries, cries for everything he has been, for everything he might have been, for every old hurt, for every old happiness, cries for the shame and joy of finally getting to be a child, with all of a child’s whims and wants and insecurities, for the privilege of behaving badly and being forgiven … at last, of believing a parent’s reassurances, or believing that to someone he is special despite all his mistakes and hatefulness, because of all his mistakes and hatefulness.” 

A lot of commentary around the relationships in A Little Life center around Jude’s relationships with his friends, as well as those with his abusers. However, not many focus on Harold - Jude’s university professor who ended up adopting him as his son. There is just something about a parental figure that provides unconditional love, regardless of what the son or daughter does that can break through a lot of barriers. 

Harold never gives up on Jude, no matter what Jude does to try to push Harold to the brink. There’s just something that’s extremely poignant about this passage in the novel, because it really brings around full circle how much of an impact parental figures have on a young person and how it shapes the rest of their lives. Jude never finds out who his biological parents are - he was abandoned as an infant and then from there, it’s a timeline of male in positions of authority taking advantage of him. Harold is the antidote and I really appreciate how Yanagihara explores the theme of the father figure in this novel. Through friendships and attempted romantic relationships, Jude is ultimately seeking the type of unconditional love that a parent can provide, perhaps subconsciously, that was stripped away from him at birth. When he finally encounters this through Harold in his middle-age years, it becomes apparent what was missing - one is never too old to receive love from a parent. 

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