NOUN
a sensational dramatic piece with exaggerated characters and exciting events intended to appeal to the emotions.
see also, A Little Life.
I met someone who had recently finished her Ph.D. in English and I asked if she had read this. I told her I was going to write a positive review, but tear it apart, because there was so much in it that annoyed me. I told her it was a melodrama. She said she eventually found it funny, because she began to look at it as an experimental novel, in which the author was doing everything she possibly could to pile it on and write the most depressing book of all time. But she also liked it.
Oeuvre rule: I haven't read anything else by Yanagihara. This book references The People in the Trees prominently on its front cover, but she has a new novel out, To Paradise, published this year. She also edited anthologies of stories about roommates, bridesmaids, and first jobs.
"Why I read it rule": I first became aware of this book when my younger sister received it from Santa Claus on Christmas morning, either 2015 or 2016. We did not discuss it in any detail. Later, I saw a friend on Facebook reference it in a re-post of something off Tumblr, to make some other joke about depression (i.e. self-deprecating). Then finally, two friends recommended it during a discussion about soliciting reviews from other contributors for Flying Houses. I promised to read A Little Life if they promised to contribute a review. So now it is their turn.
The plot? Well, this is going to be one of those reviews with an asterisked section for spoilers. And the part above the asterisks will be short.
The novel concerns four friends and their evolving friendship over the course of five decades. These are Jude, Willem, Malcolm, and J.B. Except it's not really about the four of them. It's about the four of them for about the first 100 pages. (I'll set the spoiler cut-off point around page 400).
There are not very many chapters or even sub-chapters or page breaks in this book, and for 720 pages, it's pretty easy to describe.
Except the first 100 pages are more interesting, because it charts how the novel could have gone in a different direction. That is, it begins as a dovetailing narrative, with sections from the perspective of each of the four characters. They go through this cycle once or twice, and then focus almost exclusively two of the characters, along with other ancillary characters at random points.
We know a fair amount about J.B. and Malcolm, but not nearly as much as we do about Willem and Jude. And while it seemed at first the novel would be equally split between the four of them, it then effectively does away with J.B. and Malcolm and relegates them to supporting cast. This may be because they are not as interesting, but by the end of this novel, you will wish that there had been more "breathers" of chapter/section breaks returning to J.B. or Malcolm. It does this once, memorably, when J.B. is in an abusive drug-fueled relationship and suffers a breakdown, and then makes fun of Jude in a grotesque way from a hospital bed.
Jude does not ever want to forgive J.B. for doing this, and Willem certainly never would forgive him, either. I forgot how Malcolm felt about it, maybe he recognized that J.B. wasn't in the best state of mind and immediately deeply regretted what he had said and apologized, so it was OK to stay friends with him. Anyway, it is at this point where the group of four breaks off into a group of three, and really, a group of two. It was also at this point that I thought the novel became too sensitive for its own good. (Or perhaps that became clear in pages 200-300, when we hear so much about how so many people care so much about Jude and all of their inspirational speeches on the subject.)
Now I did not know anything about this book, really, going into it. Just the basic idea and that a few people recommended it. Around the time I reached the chapter "The Axiom of Equality," I met with one of the three friends that recommended it, and asked if it got any better from that point. She said it did not.
Question: what does "better" mean in the context of this novel? More entertaining? Less extreme? (The extremity is purposeful, that much is clear.) A nice story about nice characters? Well, yes, and the chapter of "The Happy Years" is effectively that (but not really). At a certain point for a certain sort of novel, how quickly you finish it in a relatively satisfied state becomes the criterion by which "better" is measured. It's already an engaging book, it's something of a page-turner, but then again, it really is just a parade of horribles. You will want to be finished with this book by the time it ends, I think.
J.B. is black and an artist who takes photographs and makes paintings out of them, among other mediums. Malcolm is black (half-black? I forget because there's barely anything about him in here comparatively) and his family is rich and he will never need to worry about money but he wants to be an architect and he builds little models of houses for his friends. Both of them have families in or around New York City, and so they are able to stay there to avoid paying the ridiculous rent. J.B.'s family is not as rich as Malcolm's, but they are not living in poverty.
The other two characters are white (basically). One of them seems relatively empty-headed and is ridiculously good looking and is a struggling actor for a while but eventually starts seeing his star rise. The other one is disabled, but not really, just maimed and utterly traumatized/broken, enters college early, goes to law school, (does he get a PhD in Math, too?), excels at everything, and has a great gig at the U.S. Attorney's Office after doing a clerkship (I think).
These are Willem and Jude and 90% of the novel is probably devoted to them. But the four of them are super close and love each other. They meet in college at a school in Massachusetts, which I eventually began to code as Harvard. I'm pretty sure Willem goes to Yale with J.B. for graduate school, too. Pretty sure Jude stays and goes to Harvard Law School. And yet they are struggling at the beginning of the novel, comparatively, in their mid-20's. Jude will always be struggling despite his professional achievements. But none of the other three have especially achieved anything at that point.
And so, the novel at this point (maybe page 200) has an amusing quality about it with occasional flashes of intrigue. It could have kept going like this and potentially done something much more interesting. I mean, you still could have made it all about Willem and Jude (and really, let's be honest, if 90% of the novel is about the two of them, 85% of the novel is about Jude, and it seems clear from the beginning that he is the real protagonist). But you could have kept the dovetailing narratives going, you could even make them shorter. You wouldn't even have to be super consistent; you could just do it a few times to break up the relative monotony that the novel then becomes.
Willem had a younger brother that was disabled and eventually died at a very young age and he has a very icy relationship with his parents perhaps due in part to their extreme religious views, so we know that he has a certain instinct to want to take care of someone. He is basically perfect. He never does anything wrong. Never. Maybe he cheats on a girlfriend, I forget, but I don't think so. This is another "extreme" quality of the book. Yanagihara may be making some sort of statement with the book, the extremity of it lends it an air unreality, turning it almost into satire or parody, and this has to be intentional.
Because we wouldn't really want to get into the complexity of Willem's feelings. It is easier to have him be simple-minded. We certainly get the full panoply and range of Jude's emotions and thoughts. And in fact, these three people that recommended the book to me, I am not sure, perhaps they did not know at all that I once wrote a [second] novel [not available as a link on this blog] about self-harm, self-mutilation, and you know what, the parallels are a little unsettling, but I also could not write about self-harm quite like Yanagihara does here. Say you what you will about this novel but her description of the various bloody scenes of cutting as well as the mentality that drives one towards that kind of compulsive behavior is expert.
Technically, this is a very good novel. However, one sees several ways it could have been much better. And yet, taking it to full fruition may have taken several hundred more pages. And so it ends in a place that feels a bit premature, still, but as noted earlier, not too soon.
***SPOILERS BELOW****
I recently read a piece from The New Yorker that seemed to confirm a lot of my impressions about this novel, and also give me new ways of thinking about it. That being said, I tend to side with Daniel Mendelsohn's interpretation rather than Garth Greenwell's. This is not the Great Gay American Novel. No, there are a few of them, probably, and the newest one is The Great Believers (even though it's "basic" because its narrative is framed around the AIDS crisis). I am not here to tell you how gay people are, or that they are all different, and Yanagihara is not trying to write a realistic novel, but the temporal aspect of the novel confused me.
It seems to take place in no time or space. There are no references to the world as we know it. Nothing about 9/11 in NYC. All of the movies that Willem does and all of the other artists he meets do not reference any works that influenced them or previous actors. Everything is coated in a vague patina. I get this. This is intentional. This is a novel about interior lives.
And also, sometimes you do not want to say the thing explicitly so the reader can sense for themselves what you meant, or they can do the research and figure it out and have the easter egg "solved" on their own. Because sometimes if you just say what the thing is explictly, it minimizes it, it makes it more quotidian and less meaningful. To pin something down is to complete the analysis and define it, negating any further mystery or meaning to be harvested from the expression.
Then again maybe it's not fair for me to say that people who had cell phones and texted during college would not have any sort of sexual identity crisis because social mores dictated relatively widespread acceptance of same-sex desire in the same era (even though this novel isn't realistic, it has to take place at least partly in the future). Then again none of these characters has a sexual identity crisis (except Malcolm, the only "straight" friend in the group, who briefly thinks he might be bi). Greenwell thought it was the great gay novel because of the very reason noted at the top of this review: it is a melodrama par excellence, which is a classic queer expression. Mendelsohn felt it was regressive because it showed that gay people deserved to be punished for having good lives (yes, The Great Believers could be seen as regressive for a similar reason--or at least mining the tense relationship between sex and death in that community--but that book was kinder to its characters, and realistic). I don't agree with either of them. I just think it's the straightest gay novel there is, or the gayest straight novel there is. And really, I don't think it needs to be viewed through this lens at all.
Would I have identified with the novel as much as a woman? I think I would. Even though it is tied to rather specific forms of abuse and trauma, they cut across all genders, identities and orientations. There is no tension about "coming out," except briefly after Willem and Jude become an item, and he has to come to terms with being known as a "gay actor" and fears of being pigeonholed. Over the first 100 or 200 pages, I felt there was something "off" about the way male friendship was depicted. These four friends are obsessed with one another and don't seem to have much interest in hooking up or dating anyone. I could say I had a few friendships like this in high school or college, but I don't think any of us wouldn't have balked at spending like, 100% of our time together. But the novel isn't meant to be realistic. This group of friends is more like a family.
A good example is how Willem and Jude live together in Lispenard Street. Certainly, there are situations where two people share a one-bedroom apartment, but there is usually the barrier of a living room arrangement for one of them. This does eventually become the case for them, but they seem to have no problem sleeping together in separate beds for years, there is no existential panic that they are getting older and settling into this pseudo-gay arrangement as if it is the only future they wish to have.
And so, when the "big reveal" happens, it was a bit of a relief for me. Okay. They were not all too precious with one another. It made more sense. Still, it doesn't make as much sense for Willem. Casual reference is made to his sleeping with both men and women, but nothing in the entire novel up to that point had suggested that was the case. It feels a bit like the relationship is shoe-horned into the narrative.
Because what is the difference between friendship and a relationship? This is one of the Big Questions that the novel is actually very good at examining (though as noted it doesn't play into these existential, time-running-out concerns--except when Harold points out that Willem is almost 30, and questions what he is waiting for). How important is sex to a relationship? Obviously, if it is sexless, an arrangement can be made, and here, it is an easy and simple arrangement that doesn't lead to any sort of jealousies. How does sex complicate a friendship? Obviously, it can lead to ambiguities as to status, conflicting views on it, and it can potentially derail that friendship and test its limits. This isn't an FWB situation between Willem and Jude. This is different. And I guess, even though I found it completely ridiculous, I accept it. It makes sense in the context of the novel. Willem needs to take care of someone, and Jude needs someone to take care of him (several people, actually).
That's the main spoiler, I think. Of course, Jude's whole story is something that gets spoiled by basically anything written about this book, so I have tried to avoid that above, though I said the cutting made better sense. What happened to him is about as horrible as anything anyone could ever have possibly experienced growing up. (In that New Yorker article linked above, Yanagihara acknowledges that she wanted the novel to feel like a "piling on," and she certainly achieved that.) It does devolve into "torture porn," and yet how could it not, once a writer decides to go there. Does it say something about me if I say these were the most gripping sections of the book? They are obviously the hardest to read, but they are also the fastest to read. Maybe it's because the rest of the book feels somewhat "antiseptic," and that works, too, because Jude's entire life after age 15 is an exercise in attempted antisepsis. Anyone that has been ravaged by early childhood trauma will undoubtedly find comfort in its exhortations on the nature of memory-repression and the impossibility of wiping certain memories from the mind (though doesn't electroshock therapy accomplish that goal?). The descriptive power of these scenes is unmistakable.
We have no excerpts in this review, but we will bring back the 420 Test. Spoiler alert: it fails, and page 420 happens to be one of the more disturbing pages:
"The brother still talked of their being together, although now he talked of a house on the sea, somewhere in central California, and would describe the stony beaches, the noisy birds, the storm-colored water. They would be together, the two of them, like a married couple. No longer were they father and son; now they were equals. When he turned sixteen, they would get married. They would go on a honeymoon to France and Germany, where he could finally use his languages around French and Germans, and to Italy and Spain, where Brother Luke had lived for two years: once as a student, once the year after he graduated college. They would buy him a piano so he could play and sing. 'Other people won't want you if they knew how many clients you'd been with,' the Brother said. 'And they'd be silly to not want you. But I'll always want you, even if you've been with ten thousand clients.' He would retire when he was sixteen, Brother Luke said, and he had cried then, quietly, because he had been counting up the days until he was twelve, when Brother Luke had promised he could stop." (420)
There's the other major spoiler, which comes around page 600, I think. That's probably the True Spoiler. And of course, it is another blatant instance of emotional manipulation. There is some unease concerning the nature of the "happy ending," because that is not always realistic. In this case, the "unhappy" ending does seem to fit into the themes of the novel, but I would not have complained one bit if this novel had a more conventional happy ending. You could still have the emotionally manipulative death trope, but you could also depict emotional growth. As it is, it seems to stand for the proposition that people do not change. Whether you agree that people change or that people do not change, it is depressing to think that people do not change. I prefer to think the opposite. And for all of the veritable metaphorical mountains that Jude has to scale--which he does, at an incredibly high level of success--it's a little unbelievable that he never is able to conquer his trauma, that with dozens of characters shouting at him that he is not a bad person, that he is not completely damaged goods (though only a couple know the specifics), he can never believe that for himself. I'm sorry, but eventually, after enough time, it feels incredible that one cannot forgive oneself for what was done to them, when there is zero question on the assignment of victimhood. A lot of people really love this character but by the end of the novel I just wanted to slap him and say, "snap out of it!" and did not feel much sadness at the very end.
This is a complicated part of the novel, too, because it seems to permit suicide under appropriate circumstances. That makes it all feel rather hopeless. Truly, if Jude had nothing to offer the world, no money, felt horribly disfigured and suffered chronic (physical) pain, then it would be more palatable. But I simply cannot accept that he would not live on and try to do good in the world, work against some of the evils that had destroyed his early life. But this is the easier way to end the novel. It's already too long as it is.
And for something as long as it is, we could do a little bit better on character development. Asian Henry Young is maybe explained once, and he becomes a lifelong friend, one of the "acquaintances" that are included in the bigger circle of friends beyond the four. So is someone named Phaedra. A couple of the other random people (Citizen, Rhodes) are co-workers of Jude's at the U.S. Attorney's Office, so they aren't as superficially defined. There are a few other friends that get included in this roll call for certain parties and gatherings and celebrations, but they add nothing to the novel whatsoever except to show that they have other friends, too.
Again, as I said at the start of this review, I could tear it apart. And yet with everything I've read from Yanagihara on the reception of this book, she understands that, she anticipates that, she wants people to tear it apart. There's no question that it provides an indelible emotional experience (even the lack of "white space" in the novel is intentional--she did not want to provide the "breather" that I suggested near the beginning of this review) so we can consider her choices well-made. The book has certainly been successful enough to bear that out. Yet this "messy" quality, with so many absurd elements, feels slapdash, as if the enormity of the text itself justifies any weaknesses in it. It may be nearly as long as The Magic Mountain, but it does not suggest alternative dimensions: we have a sad human story here, an examination of the contours of friendship, but we have no greater statement on History or Philosophy. Perhaps we do have a statement on Art, and perhaps that should be enough.
It's a page turner, and a significant accomplishment that deserves recognition. It's not the definitive Great Gay American Novel, but despite all my above-listed complaints, it belongs in the Top 10. Probably.
