{"id":841,"date":"2015-09-19T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-21T03:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/?p=841"},"modified":"2025-01-01T15:14:24","modified_gmt":"2025-01-01T02:14:24","slug":"a-little-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/2015\/09\/19\/a-little-life\/","title":{"rendered":"A Little Life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hanya Yanagihara<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Picador\/Macmillan<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Otago Daily Times , September 19th 2015<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Contrary to the brevity suggested by its title, Hanya Yanagihara\u2019s second novel, A Little Life,<\/em> is a physically and emotionally formidable read. It is also one of those rare and precious books in which it is possible to completely lose oneself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The opening section introduces us to four college friends whose relationship will, despite their differences, endure a lifetime. Egotistical, hedonistic artist JB is the group\u2019s social centre, and is certain that the arrival of fame and fortune is just a matter of time. The cautious Malcolm, who still lives with his mixed-race parents and is the only one of the quartet with money, despairs of ever being imaginative enough to be anything more than architectural draughtsman. Willem, son of immigrant northwestern ranch hands, is an aspiring actor whose kindness and charisma make him the natural peacekeeper. And then there is Jude St. Francis, whose life before college is a mystery and who guards his privacy with an intensity that everybody, even the self-centred JB, has learned to respect.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first the narrative is split relatively equally between each of them as they find their feet in New York and establish themselves in their chosen professions. But as the novel progresses the focus shifts more and more towards Jude, slowly revealing a childhood that has left him so physically and psychologically damaged that the scars will never heal, and his ongoing struggle to escape that past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite becoming a highly successful lawyer and surrounded by a steadfast group of friends who do everything they can to hold him together, Jude will always see himself as a thing of horror, a Frankenstein\u2019s monster whose entire life is a camouflage that will one day be stripped from him along with everybody and everything he holds dear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not a book for the faint-hearted; although the author spares us details of Jude\u2019s sexual abuse, her graphic descriptions of the physical damage he endures, particularly the self-inflicted harm that is his only emotional outlet, are profoundly disturbing. I also struggled with other aspects of his self-destructiveness, particularly his constant attempts to sabotage his closest relationships before something else can, an instinct I identify with only too closely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it is also a profoundly touching story of friendship and the endurance of the human spirit that kept me enthralled throughout. And the brief interludes where Harold, Jude\u2019s adoptive father, addresses the reader directly as one of the story\u2019s own characters, actually moved me to tears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Little Life<\/em> is competing with Anna Smaill\u2019s marvellous The Chimes<\/em> on the Mann-Booker long list and my loyalties are now split. In some ways, Yanagihara\u2019s creation is summarised in Willard\u2019s description of Jude: \u201cBeing with you is like being in this fantastic landscape\u2026you think it\u2019s one thing, a forest, and then suddenly it changes, and it\u2019s a meadow, or a jungle, or cliffs of ice. And they\u2019re all beautiful, but they\u2019re strange as well, and you don\u2019t have a map\u201d\u2026 \u201cSo basically\u201d, says Jude at last, \u201cbasically, you\u2019re saying I\u2019m New Zealand\u201d.<\/em> How could I not be seduced?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.odt.co.nz\/entertainment\/books\/touching-story-friendship-spirit<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hanya Yanagihara
\n
\nOtago Daily Times review September 19th 2015<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[221,370,244,18],"class_list":["post-841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-221","tag-fiction","tag-hana-yanagihara","tag-odt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=841"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1788,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841\/revisions\/1788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}