Alana Estelle

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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The main reason I initially set out to read A Little Life by, Hanya Yanagihara was to have this conversation about realistic trauma in fiction. Most conversations surrounding A Little Life are about how it’s just “trauma p*rn,” the content is actually “unrealistic” and it’s there for the sake of shock value. 

I want push back on this idea; just because content is graphic, hard to stomach, etc. (for some - people have differing tolerance levels: ) doesn’t mean that it’s unrealistic. So here are the questions I’m posing: What role does realistic trauma and realistic graphic content have in fiction? If A Little Life was a non-fiction memoir, would people still be calling it “trauma p*rn?” Do we expect fiction to “soften” reality, even though it’s framework is often mirrors life?

I also have two other books here, that I read this year that I think nicely fit into this category of realistic content in fiction that may make some readers…. squirm - Lolita by, Vladimir Nabokov and the recently published The Wolf Den by, Elodie Harper. The plot of Lolita is generally known, and though it’s definitely disturbing to say the least, and I totally understand why many people choose not to read Lolita, I found it to be quite realistic. We can’t deny that there is a subgroup of individuals that think this way about children and it’s actually more common than most people would like to acknowledge. The Wolf Den focuses on the life of prostitutes in Ancient Rome. Harper does not hold back with the realities of what they have to face. A Little Life, Lolita and The Wolf Den are extremely similar, sometimes so similar that it’s almost eerie, to the countless interviews I’m listened to of people sharing their trauma and abuse stories. In the majority of these interviews, the abuse began when the individual was a child and how they attribute that abuse to the continued abuse that they experienced in adulthood and the psychological and emotional impact it’s had on them. 

So, with Jude in A Little Life, nothing about the background that Yanagihara created for this character, was shocking to me. Jude’s childhood is far more common than people realize and in fact, I’ve heard of real stories even more insane than Jude’s - stories that in no way seem like they could be real; stories that took me months to process. There was one story in particular that was so “out there” that I had to stop listening to it, do research on what the person was talking about and then revisit the person’s story a year later to connect some dots.

So let’s circle back around to the questions that are floating around in my brain that I presented in the beginning of this post. Why is it that when we come across this type of content, especially when it’s in fiction, we write it off as voyeurism? “Oh, this is sensationalism.” Why does fiction, that is uncomfortably realistic, get categorized as “trauma p*rn” when it blatantly shoves real life in our faces? What does this mean about how we view fiction? Have we become gatekeepers of what we think should and should not be fictionalized?

These are open-ended questions, though I lean on the side of, yes, I think that to some extent, we begin to gate-keep what is fictionalized because most readers turn to fiction as a means of escapism. And lets make this distinction: Just because content in a book personally makes a reader uncomfortable or a reader decides that’s not the content they want to engage with, or a reader perceives something to be sensationalized or unrealistic, doesn’t mean that the content is sensationalized. There is also a distinction between what personally makes a reader uncomfortable and whether or not the content should be out there for people to choose to consume. I’m a big fan of, if you don’t want to read XYZ, the don’t read XYZ, but saying other people shouldn’t read something because of its content, makes no sense to me. Nothing in life is one size fits all… And not everyone reads fiction as a means of escapism. People will often turn to fiction to see how certain topics or historical events are portrayed and then fit it into broader themes and studies of specific time periods and topics. 

This post was perhaps a bit of a ramble, but it’s something that I think about a lot. I personally, have a very high tolerance for this type of content. I personally had no visceral reaction to A Little Life - yes, there are sections of it that are graphic, but there is also so much other content in that book. People have focused so much on how shocked they were, that I often see them neglect everything else in the book. 

Again, don’t get me wrong - not every book is for every person. I completely understand why many people don’t want to read this type of content. The more you read, the more you discover what you do and do not like to read. 

What do you think about this? How do you feel about realistic trauma in fiction? Why do you think, when this type of content is in fiction and readers become hyper focused on it?

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A concept that I noticed throughout this novel is this idea of privacy, specifically in one’s mind, and how one’s mind can serve as a sanctuary; an untouchable place when the rest of one’s body has been subject to everyone else’s whims. Jude stubbornly and obsessively refuses to disclose what happened to him as a child, even to his closest friends. They have some vague inklings, but they have no clue how deep is the depravity that Jude endured. This is Jude’s attempt to protect himself in the last way he knows how because, what happens to a person once they reveal everything? What will they have left and at what point should others allow someone to not speak? At what point does being transparent actually become detrimental?

There came a point in the novel, right around the halfway mark, in which I was greatly reminded of Lolita by, Vladimir Nabokov. I’m so glad I read Lolita earlier this year, or else I wouldn’t have picked up on some of the things in this novel. I’m curious to know if Yanagihara drew an inkling of inspiration from Lolita - she even uses a form of the word “nymphet” (if you know, you know). Jude, like Lolita, is a victim of child abuse. These abusers play on the innocence and vulnerability of children, while simultaneously blaming the child, thus allowing them to groom these children. Look at some of the similarities in the two quotes from these texts. 

A Little Life: “What a great smile you have Jude.” “What a lovely person you are.” … it was as if the greenhouse was someplace bewitched, somewhere that transformed him into … someone funny and bright, someone people wanted to be around, someone better and different than he actually was.”

Lolita: “Now I wish to introduce the following idea. Between the age limits of nine and fourteen there occur maidens who, to certain bewitched travelers, twice as many times older than they, reveal their true nature which is not human, but nymph (that is demoniac); and these chosen creatures I propose to designate as “nymphets.”

Also, while reading Lolita, I ironically thought that, as uncomfortable as most of the content is, especially since it’s from the perspective of the abuser, how much more uncomfortable it would be from the perspective of Lolita?  Ah, and then comes A Little Life that, in a sense can be analyzed as a text that answers this question. Oh, it’s more uncomfortable, but even more dynamic and profound. In Lolita, we get very few glimpses of how Lolita is coping and we have no idea what is going on in her head. In A Little Life, we get everything. 

In my Halfway Review of A Little Life, I discuss how poignantly Yanagihara portrays friendships, especially male friendships. This is a central element of the novel, because Jude’s friendships and relationships, for the most part, are stark contrasts to the relations of his childhood. Jude’s post-childhood friendships are nuanced and there is so much “grey” to them. The relationships in this novel are not just platonic or romantic; they vary. While reading this novel, I kept thinking about how the Ancient Greeks have five words to describe different types of love, which led me to ask some questions - what happens to relationships when we try to only make them platonic or romantic? When our platonic love seems deeper and more complex, why do we always assume that our option is romantic? What about how the Ancient Greeks described love? 

“But his friendship with Jude made him feel that there was something real and immutable about who he was, that despite his life of guises, there was something elemental about him, something that Jude saw even when he could not, as if Jude’s very witness of him made him real.”

I’m a huge fan of existential novels and A Little Life is dream for those of us who love a good existential crisis in our narratives. Jude is constantly asking himself, “Who am I?” “Am I the person who I see, or am I the person that other people see?” How does one reconcile and coexist with the various versions of one’s self that are floating out there, depending on who is defining that person?

There is a stunning passage of Willem, Jude’s best friend” describing Jude as he sees him and it’s just … gorgeous. 

“You’re Jude St. Francis. You are my oldest, dearest friend. … You’re a New Yorker. … You’re a swimmer. You’re a baker. You’re a cook. You’re a reader. You have a beautiful voice, though you never sing anymore. … You’re patient. You’re generous. You’re the best listener I know. You’re the smartest person I know, in every way. You’re the bravest person I know, in every way.” 

I want to very briefly touch on the theme of fictional realism; briefly, because I’m going to devote a whole post to this concept in the near future. Some readers of this book have claimed that A Little Life is traumatic for the sake of being traumatic - they call it “trauma p*rn.”  I whole heartedly disagree. Jude’s childhood is far more common than people realize. Nothing about the content shocked me. I’ve heard real life stories of this type of abuse countless times, in fact I’ve heard of real stories even more insane than Jude’s. Why is it that when we come across this type of content, especially when it’s in fiction, we write it off as voyeurism and sensationalism? Why does fiction that is uncomfortably realistic get categorized as “trauma p*rn,” when it blatantly shoves real life in our faces? What does this mean about how we view fiction? Have we become gatekeepers of what can and cannot be fictionalized? There is one quote in A Little Life that strongly reminded me of my favorite quote in Fahrenheit 451. 

A Little Life: “What he knew, he knew from books, and books lied, they made things prettier.”

Farenheit 451: “Do you know why books such as this are so important? Because they have quality. And what does the word quality mean? To me it means texture. This book has pores. It has features. This book can go under the microscope. You’d find life under the glass, streaming past in infinite profusion. The more pores, the more truthful recorded details of life per square inch you can get on a sheet of paper, the more ‘literary’ you are. … Telling detail. Fresh detail. The good writers touch life often.” 

Lastly, I want to discuss the cover art for this particular edition, as well as the title of this novel. The cover of this book is a photograph by Peter Hujar titled “Orgasmic Man.” This is such an appropriate and ironic selection. This photograph, without knowing the title, would initially make one think that this person is in pain. But isn’t that Jude’s life? His life has been a life of pain and pleasure. He has experienced the worst and the best of life, and life straddles the fine line between pain and pleasure and this cannot be avoided. The title “A Little Life” is a play on words - this novel examines life at the micro level. Yes, Jude is the focus, but it brings in those that orbit around Jude and their lives as well. Jude also struggles with feeling that his life is “little” and insignificant. He battles with the idea of a legacy. What has his life, full of so much pain, but also so much success, contributed to the world?

Honestly, I could go on and on about A Little Life. I adore this novel. I love this novel. People often say they cannot recommend this novel to anyone because of the content. Is this novel for everyone? No. No novel is “one size fits all.” I completely understand why some people don’t want to read this book, or why they start and decide not to finish. You have to make the personal decision to take what has been presented and hinted to you about the content of this novel (and any novel for that matter) and autonomously decide if this is something you want to read or not. I cannot tell you how you’ll react, because I don’t know. I actually think Lolita is a good gauge - if you couldn’t get through that, or would never read it, then you may not be able to get through this. Again, we are adults here. Make your own choice. You know yourself better than anyone else, so make that decision for yourself. But if you are on the fence and leaning towards it, go for it. Take your time with it. It deserves space and time to breathe. I do believe this is a novel that has been shrouded in so much emotional hype, that it’s actually doing this novel a disservice. This book is so much more than it's challenging content, which is why I made the attempt to dive into the many facets of this novel. This is a 800+ page book. There is a lot of other content here, people!

A Little Life took me by surprise and I’m rarely ever surprised. This novel got into my skin and it’s imprinted itself on my thoughts. I’m going to make a bold statement: The Brothers Karamazov was going to be the top read of 2021. It’s been bumped to second place and I highly doubt anything else is taking A Little Life’s place for the remainder of the year. A Little Life is also now in my top three reads of all time. I can’t rave about this book enough. This is a novel that I will reread this over and over again. Absolutely breathtaking. 

Rating: 5/5

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A Little Life by, Hanya Yanagihara is one of those novels that has developed an aura around it - for many it’s too graphic and traumatic to read, it’s the book that makes people cry (even for non-criers), and for some it’s a holy grail novel. Since I announced that I began reading A Little Life, I’ve received several messages asking if it’s “worth it”, How am I handling the content, Has it made me cry yet?”

This post will just be reviewing the first half of the book, because this is an 800+ page novel and it deserves more than one post. And for the record: Yes, this book is worth it, I’m handling the content well (I’m rarely ever squeamish, so take that with a grain of salt. I’m rarely disturbed enough to turn away from content as I’m rarely caught off guard. I have an extremely high and perhaps abnormal tolerance for this type of content), and no, I have not even come close to shedding one tear (again, I rarely cry, so there’s that…). I may not be the best person to gauge your own response to this novel - I’m pretty… stoic, and clinical when it comes to graphic content. That’s not to say that the content is not difficult, I just don’t have a visceral reaction to it. I see a lot of emotional reviews on this book, and my goal is to be a bit more… pragmatic. There are some really interesting themes that I haven’t seen anyone talk about because they tend to be hyper focused on the trauma and abuse, and I feel that’s actually doing this novel a disservice. 

Ok, now that that’s out of the way and you can see how weird I am, let’s get into the “meat and potatoes” of the first half of the book, because I have quite a bit of content that I want to cover. Brace yourselves for an obnoxiously long halfway review.

 A Little Life centers on the friendships between four men - JB, Malcolm, Willem and Jude. Their friendship begins in undergrad and the book covers their friendships through to their middle-aged years. The novel orbits specifically around Jude (can I just say that I adore Jude?) and his vague background. As the novel progresses, more unfolds about Jude’s traumatic and abusive childhood. Yanagihara does not just throw it all out there at once and make the reader absorb and process graphic content in one sitting - it’s peeled back slowly and in layers, in a way that’s really rather elegantly constructed. Jude does not reveal what has happened to him, even though his friends are aware that Jude has had a less than ideal childhood. His friends suffer from guilt, for not pressing the issue further.

“But although he was a man who kept his promises, there was a part of him that always wondered why he never raised the issue with Jude…” 

The concept of happiness appears quite frequently in this novel. What is happiness? How is it obtained? Are we entitled to happiness? Jude particularly strives for happiness in an effort to make up for and mask what’s happened to him, as well as to ensure that his current and future life is nothing like his childhood. 

“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 compromise in its pursuit was somehow your fault.”

My favorite theme of the novel, thus far, is the idea of morality and law. I haven’t quite formulated all of my thoughts on this element, it’s still percolating. Jude becomes an attorney and he uses his profession as a way to control his life. He hasn’t received justice in his own life for what’s happened to him, but his command of the court room, his ability to apply the law and achieve justice for others (even for those who may not deserve it), not only challenges him intellectually, but is his way of projecting his own lack of justice, especially since what’s happened to him was highly immoral, unethical, illegal, and downright disgusting. It also gives rise to the question: Just how many grievances go unpunished, leaving the victim left to deal with the damage?

“…what happens when we forsake morality in law for social governance? What is the point at which a country, and its people, should start valuing social control over its sense of morality? Is there such a point?

“It is morals that help us make the laws but morals do not help us apply them.”

Lastly, for this half of the review, we can’t talk about A Little Life without talking about the gorgeous portrayals of friendship. Even though there is a lot of challenging content in this novel, Yanagihara balances this out with illustrating unconditional love. Jude is surrounded by people who care for him deeply and will do anything for him, though he feels he can never repay this kindness, or that he wholly deserves it. These illustrations are in stark contrast to the segments that are heartbreaking, but this dichotomy represents how life is a blend of light and dark.

“The only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people who are better than you are - not smarter, not cooler, but kinder, and more generous, and more forgiving…” 

By the point of this Halfway Review going live, I’m definitely past the halfway point. In the second review, I plan to draw some comparisons between this novel and Lolita, along with whatever else I pick up on. 

About 100 pages into A Little Life, I knew this would be one of my top reads of the year. Before I got to the halfway point, I knew this would be one of my top reads of all time. This book is gorgeously written. The style of writing has a cadence to it and once I get into it’s rhythm, it flows and reads quickly, putting me into a lucid-like trance. People have claimed that its traumatic for the sake of being traumatic, but I disagree and find it to be rather realistic (a point I’ll get into in the second review). This is one of those novels that I don’t want to put down. 

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• A Little Life - this will be my main focus this month and I plan to do at least two posts about it, meaning at least a halfway review and then a final review. This is one of those books that needs to be discussed is segments.
• The Silence of Scheherazade - a family saga during the fall of the Ottoman empire. I’ve seen excellent reviews on it this far, but I’ve heard it’s quite intense and rather sad - which it actually right up my alley.
• Crime & Punishment - My friend and I are still making our way through this. Perhaps I’ll be able to finish this month. I’m enjoying this one, but I’m still favoring The Brothers Karamazov.

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I usually create a list of the specific books I want to read each year and then read strictly from that list; I will then add to the list as “spaces” open up. However, this year, I’m going to switch things up a bit and not read from a set list. I do have some books, authors, and genres I definitely want to get to this year, but again, I’m just going to “wing it” a bit more and see where I’m naturally led as the year develops. I’m also not going to set a specific number of books I want to read; I’ll just read what I’m able to and see what the total is at the end. 

I have seven books here, all of which I definitely want to read this year, but they also represent the various categories I’ll be gravitating towards. 

• The Brother’s Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky - This is the book that’s at the top of my list this year; it also represents continuing to read as many Classics as possible. 

• Outline, Rachel Cusk - I’ve been on the fence about reading the Outline Trilogy, as I’ve come across mixed reviews. I decided to just go for it! This also represents my goal to read more contemporary literary fiction. I have my eyes on Hamnet and ducks, Newburyport (if I can squeeze in another 1000 pager).

• Bleak House, Charles Dickens - Victorian Classics are my jam and I will continue reading them in 2021. Also, Bleak House is one of those massive novels I find intimidating, so I’ll be tackling it this year. 

• Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel - I love historical fiction and Wolf Hall is a must read for me in 2021. I’ll also be reading more historical fiction from Anya Seton and Rachel Weir.

• Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf - I’ve stayed away from Woolf in the past, thinking I wouldn’t “get her.” However, I’m very intrigued, so I’m starting with Mrs. Dalloway. This also represents reading more modern classics this year. I specifically have my eyes on Iris Murdoch, Evelyn Waugh, and more Barbara Pym and Elizabeth Taylor. 

• A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara - Ahhh, books that you’re mildly terrified to read because of the content. I don’t shy away from the tough/traumatic stuff so, here we are... This book also represents a discussion I want to have about realism in fiction, because people actually have experienced life to this degree. 

• The Secret History, Donna Tartt - I’ve had this book on my TBR for years (before I even knew it was a cult classic), but wasn’t sure if I wanted to really read it or not. I also want to read more dark academia/campus novels. 

Have you read, or do you plan to read any of these novels? What books are on your 2021 TBR?

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