By Ayesha Begum, Senior Editor
Written in 2015, Hanya Yanagihara’s second novel A Little Life follows four male friends on their journey through aging and change.
Written in 2015, Hanya Yanagihara’s second novel A Little Life follows four male friends on their journey through aging and change. Despite its long length and the sensitivity of topics covered, this novel has become renowned for the intense, harrowing way it has made its readers feel and I was not any different.
Before reading further, I should warn that there are some spoilers ahead, but I have tried to censor and distort them as much as I could without revealing too much.
Similarities with other novels and authors
Immediately, I drew similarities between Yanagihara’s and Donna Tartt’s style of writing, particularly the style seen in Tartt’s first novel The Secret History. Both authors use a very descriptive style of writing that is decadent and almost infinite through the number of clauses used and further details added with every comma; I don’t think that it is a coincidence that the ‘Readers also enjoyed’ section on Goodreads includes The Secret History.
Another similarity I found between Tartt and Yanagihara are the features of some of their characters. Jean-Baptiste “JB” Marion (one of the four friends in A Little Life) and Julian Morrow (the Classics professor in The Secret History) are both hedonistic to some degree and are rather romantic in their imaginings of the tragedies of life, whether it be their own or those of close acquaintances. These characters are somewhat superficial in their state of mind which is shown through their attachments to solely aesthetics, disregarding what may have led to their idyllic tragedies and the impacts. Instead of urging us as readers to follow them and become blinded by an obsession with beauty, I believe the authors have these characters in place to act as a warning and as the moral message found at the end of a cautionary tale.
Ethnicity
The main character of the novel, Jude St. Francis is a parentless character that does not know anything about his background, whether it be where he is from, who his parents were or why he had to lead the life he did as a result. In this line of questioning from both himself and others around him, his ethnicity is something that is brought up, surprisingly, a lot. In the ‘real world’, people don’t appear to be as bold and merely assume what a person’s ethnic background is or appear to not pay much attention to this factor. The constant mention of Jude’s ethnicity made me realise that ethnicity is a, somewhat, driving factor in society in the creation of one’s identity and anchors an individual to something bigger than they could ever comprehend, helping them make sense of their social reality; perhaps this is why Jude himself can be seen to be desperate in discovering his ethnicity - he wants to find something about his ‘other’ hypothetical life and attempt to reform these connections so he can go back to a better, different time.
Despite this, my surprise could also be drawn from the fact that this story takes place in the USA where people are assumed to be more forward although, perhaps, the actual relevancy and entrenchment of ethnicity in society is something many, including myself, have overlooked.
Jude St. Francis
Jude St. Francis is a broken-beyond-repair kind of character. Due to this, he is constantly asking for reassurance and is always apologising for crimes he has not even committed. Some readers developed a distaste for Jude as a result, however, for me, it highlights that his friends are those of saints as the majority of them stay by him throughout the novel despite a few minor blips. I know that I would eventually grow tired of his constant need for reassurance. It certainly would be difficult to control your temper if you have to tell someone who is beautiful, worthy, deserving of love, and deserving of a good life all those things all the time only for them to rebuke these and continue to be self-deprecating.
This is why it somewhat upsets me when I see readers describe Jude’s friends as enablers as he does continue to self-harm and he does end up deceased of his own volition while his friends supposedly did not attempt to do anything. Clearly, these readers seem to overlook the countless times Andy (Jude’s long-time friend and doctor) has reminded Jude of psychiatrists and counselling services that can help him better and the number of times it has been Andy that has helped Jude get back on his feet - both in the literal sense and metaphorical. Jude’s support system was doing as much as they could and were only trying to help him in the ways they knew how, rather than purposefully increasing the ferocity of his destructive habits. Despite being a medical professional and being expected to know how to overcome any problem, Andy himself was at a loss at multiple points of the novel. At the end of the day, if Jude himself didn’t accept the help and didn’t admit his problem, Jude was his own enabler.
Jude St. Francis and author intentions
I believe this is also the message that Yanagihara may have been trying to get across. As mentioned previously, Jude is not a character that can be ‘fixed’ like some sort of satisfying jigsaw puzzle. To be honest, I am glad this is not the case and that the author didn’t decide to make everything ‘right’ again in the end because it reflects the true course of life - people do not change and years of engrained trauma and abuse are not going to disappear. The lack of triumph from the protagonist in overcoming their years of anguish is refreshing to see. As cruel as it may seem, I did not cry during Jude’s first suicide attempt in the novel, nor at the expected revelation at the end as, unlike Harold (Jude’s adopted dad who adopted him while Jude was in his 30s), I believe that, in certain circumstances, it is better to be dead than alive and suffering. It was almost a relief when the novel ended the way it did because I felt as though I had been holding my breath, waiting for Jude to do what he did as it seemed, unfortunately, inevitable.
Yanagihara foreshadows this lack of ‘misery lit’ simply through the names of the parts of the novel. Part IV is called ‘Axiom of Equality’ which is described as a phenomenon where
“x always equals x: it assumes that if you have a conceptual thing named x, that it must always be equivalent to itself...that its very elementalness can never be altered”
This perfectly sums up the life that Jude had led and was destined to lead. He was irreversible and no matter how much anyone attempted to help him, his very own elementalness could not have been altered either. Yanagihara appears to emphasise this through naming both the first and last part of the novel ‘Lispenard Street’ - Jude’s life is an endless cycle of pain and anguish, with all of his experiences in adulthood and childhood reflecting each other in fervor. His life will end the same way it began, just in a different context.
Final thoughts
Although reading this novel became a bit sluggish and tiresome at times due to the slow place and I would have enjoyed seeing a tale of true friendship and platonic soulmates between Jude and Willem (one of the four main friends who eventually became Jude’s romantic partner) rather than it being turned into a cliched, amorous partnership, I nevertheless found myself immersed in this world and found myself aching over Jude’s wounded legs in one of my Spanish lessons.
Of course, if I included everything all of my thoughts about the novel, this article would turn into more of an essay however, I cannot stress enough how much of an impact this novel has had on me. I don’t think I have ever cried with my whole diaphragm over a fictional story that, arguably, is merely a small reflection of reality that too many individuals have experienced.
I could not recommend this enough to everyone and anyone. Even with my own ‘phobia’ of reading books that are more than 500 pages, I was still able to complete the novel somewhat contently. However, there are mentions and descriptions of self-harm, suicide, verbal and sexual abuse, and rape so it may not be suited for all audiences.
Rather than being an adventure of friendship, I believe that this novel is more of a course of discovery and realisation as
“The person I was will always be the person I am”
READ MORE LIKE THIS...
READ MORE BY...
Comments