A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Genre: Adult, Contemporary and Literary Fiction  

Publisher: Picador  

Publication Date: 10th March 2015  

Rating: 4.5/5
Goodreads Blurb: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22822858-a-little-life

Friendship starts when four students become roommates during their first year of college. Jude is the reserved law student/mathematician, Willem is the aspiring actor, JB, the painter and Malcom, the architect. They are a diverse bunch who are drawn to each other as friends as well as their ambitions to make it in the big city: New York. The story spans decades, the highs and lows of careers, friendships, life, and addresses what it means to be adults in modern day society. The beating pulse of the story is Jude himself whose life before college has scarred him for the years to come and his efforts to move on from it while trying to maintain relationships with those that matter. 

Thoughts: 

This is an outpour of my feelings after reading ‘A Little Life’: one monumental book. Freshly finished, nostalgic of the characters already; it’s just been two days since I closed the book. I will start this off with a criticism as I felt that the last 100 or so pages were difficult to read because the plot and one of the protagonists were dragging the story. Although this may have been a realistic depiction of what might come to pass, I, as a reader, was not satisfied. This is just a personal opinion which should not occlude the breadth of the story that unfolded. I also wanted to give a trigger warning for anyone planning to read this book as it contains graphic descriptions of sexual abuse, self-harm and depressive episodes.

Other than what I previously mentioned, I cannot praise this book enough for being so harrowing yet gracefully addressing the intricacies of life pertaining to a group of people. Yanagihara was able to elegantly put into paper the very essence of people’s fears, longings and inclinations in a way no one did. The writing was so poignant and expressive and the characters made me feel less alone in a sense because of the way she articulated certain ideas I have, which I find difficult to communicate because of how personal they are. Seeing reflections of myself through a character was thus reassuring because someone out there was able to conjure a likeminded person so that I could comfort myself with the idea that I am not alone in this.

At the core of the story is friendship that spans years. The nature of the relationships evolve and a reader is allowed to witness remarkable things. Another interesting and important aspect of the book is the exploration of diverse careers which gave more meaning to their daily struggles as well as being a source of satisfaction. I chose not to address about any other particulars in this commentary because I have already given away too much and I think it is best to dive into the book with little prior information and immerse yourself amongst the characters.

I have to say that I have never wept as I did reading this book. Overall, being a character driven story, Yanagihara brought to life people that are both singular and universal, keeping me tethered to the 720 pages I read.

P.S. I loved the references made to Sri Lanka and Italy in the book – both places that are dear to me.

Favourite quotes:

❝When did pursuing your ambitions cross the line from brave into foolhardy? How did you know when to stop?❞

❝Novelists, poets, and artists don't often do well in law school, but neither, necessarily, do mathematicians, logicians and scientists. The first group fails because their logic is their own; the second fails because logic is all they own.❞

❝He dreamed of the day he’d have someplace of his own, with things that were absolutely his.❞

❝As he gets older, he is given, increasingly, to thinking of his life as a series of retrospectives, assessing each season as it passes as if it’s a vintage of wine, dividing years he’s just lived into historical eras: The Ambitious Years. The Insecure Years. The Glory Years. The Delusional Years. The Hopeful Years.❞

❝He was pleasantly exhausted, but then he was always exhausted those days: it was as if the daily effort it took to appear normal was so great that it left energy for little else.❞

❝Children are a kind of cartography, and all one had to do is obey the map they present to you on the day they are born.❞

❝What a flimsy thing the law was, so dependent on contingencies, a system with so little comfort, of so little use to those who needed its protection the most.❞

❝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.❞

❝He was worried because to be alive was to worry. Life was scary; it was unknowable.❞