Book Review : Hanya Yanagihara's Injurious Novel of Romance and Friendship.
It's a great novel but I wouldn't suggest this for those weak hearted people and I believe that this book should come with numerous trigger warnings. There are certain things that are so beautiful that you can't stop gushing over them and then there are some things that are so beautiful that you never want to mention them. This novel will live on my memory forever.
Synopsis ( spoilers ahead )
Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life, which was published in 2015 examines the tragic lives of four college classmates. Jude St. Francis, the protagonist of the book is a driven and accomplished lawyer who is plagued by a complicated and enigmatic background. The person who became Jude's life companion and closest friend was Willem Ragnarsson even though he first faces obstacles in his path to success, he finally rises to fame and success as a screen actor. Malcolm Irvine is a successful architect who hails from an affluent family yet he is constrained by his insecurity and his indecisiveness. The last friend is the painter Jean Baptiste "JB" Marion who is maybe the most gifted of the four. He is gregarious and at first finds it difficult to get the recognition he feels he deserves. They were broken, lost and only their friendship, love and ambition kept them afloat. The Novel begins as they move to New York in search of fame and money. The men's dedication to the bright, mysterious Jude, a man damaged by an awful childhood experience keeps them together as their relationships which are tainted with addiction, success and pride develop through the years. A beautiful representation of love in the twenty-first century and a tribute to brotherly ties.
Trigger Warnings
Ableism
Child abandonment
Child abuse
Child death
Child molestation
Drug addiction
Domestic violence/abuse
Eating disorder
Emotional abuse
Kidnapping
Gaslighting
Grooming
Psychological Manipulation
Pedophilia
Physical abuse
Verbal abuse
Prostitution
Racism
Rape
Self harm
Sexual abuse
Sexual assault
Suicide
Transphobia (misgendering)
During my quest for a book with the most heartbreaking plot, I came upon this one. I was feeling emotionless at the moment and needed anything to take my mind off things because I had been wanting it for a very long time. I needed anything that could make me cry and feel emotions. I never would have thought that this book would end up being one of my all-time favorites. I experience a wide range of emotions as I read this. It's brilliantly written, an eye-opener helps you understand the value of friendship, love and it demonstrates just how complex humanity can be.
Seven chapters make up the book. Chapter 1 is titled Lispernard Street, Chapter 2 is titled The Postman, Chapter 3 is titled Vanities, Chapter 4 is titled The Axiom of Equality, Chapter 5 is titled The Happy Years, Chapter 6 is titled Dear Comrade and Chapter 7 is Going Back to Lispernard Street. Each chapter has three sections. The first three chapters move slowly, in this section their friendship will be described as fantastic, as committed, as well as what they want and hope for in life. It provides information on Willem, Malcolm and JB's early lives. I initially thought that this would be a dull story but as I read the subsequent chapters, I saw how certain passages make sense. As a result, the plot and characters will be easier to follow. When chapters four and five were revealed, I couldn't help but feel angry and sorry for how much Jude had endure given his young age. Brother Luke, in whom he had placed his complete trust makes him a prostitute, used him cruelly, sexually assaulted him, abandoned him and misled him the definition of love, he was groomed.
When Jude and Willem made love for each other. I felt a sense of happiness. I just love how much Willem love Jude, his ways, his sacrifices, his understanding. The things he is willing to go through in the sake of their love. Even though they do not momentarily admit that they're gay there's still a part that explains that love is beyond any gender. It's about how you see someone, how willing you are to be with them despite of their challenges as a person. Jude is undoubtedly a very private and secretive guy because as a child he felt so uncertain about himself and his life. He appears to be living a double life since during the day he is a reputable attorney and at night he fight his own demons. I completely understand him because the traumas he experiences are not something that can be easily discussed. Traumas are sometimes disregarded by individuals but this book demonstrates that they should never be and that occasionally those who suffer them are unable to cope with or recover from their unpleasant experiences. It's not easy.
Andy is absolutely my favorite character in the story. He has been Jude's doctor and friend for a long time. Jude only trusts him to examine him and he is the only one who have ever seen Jude's naked body following the sexual assaults when he was a child. He and Jude have an extremely tight friendship and whenever Jude hurts himself, he constantly attempts to help him. Despite the fact that Jude is incredibly stubborn, he never declines to assist. He has a lot of patience which enables him to help Jude continue living. There are no exact words to describe how much he loves Jude. It's not that it's his job as doctor but his personal well being is sometimes on a verge of stress because of Jude but he never mind that. He is truly a great friend in the story. Likewise Harold, who adopted Jude even when he's in thirties. The backstory of Harold is quite painful. He was a father but felt like a failure when his kid passed away from a disease so he wanted to transmit another love and he repeatedly chose Jude. He is an outstanding father. His generosity and affection for others are constant and I am confident that his biological son is proud of him and Jude is grateful for him.
“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.”
It was their friendship that bounds them together. It's not perfect they experiences conflicts. They once abandoned JB and JB once abandoned them as well, for the love he believed he deserved, for the fame and fortune he believed might make him happy but ultimately what he needs are his friends. Malcolm, Willem and Jude are his constants. His personal miracle. I adore how they make time to spend Thanksgiving together each year. It's a typical friendship in adulthood where it was hard to set meet ups to catch ups but they did. The four of them are bound to make their world's feels less lonely. As they only have each other and no parents or siblings around. It's real that friendships are the mutual dedication to a union and its them. As the story goes by I feel like I was also watching them grow. It began in their twenties and finished in their sixties. Elijah passed away from a stroke, Richard from brain cancer and Andy from a heart attack. Malcolm and Willem were killed in a vehicle accident while Jude committed suicide. After they all passed away. JB held onto his home by himself and formed new friendships without all of his friends that knew him since he was a child. His artworks shows had been so successful without his friends witnessing it and by this time they left JB without coming back. I was crying when I learned that his most recent exhibition, "Jude, Alone," consisted of a collection of paintings that he had imagined to be the events from the years that his friends had passed away, he is there alone imagining his friends being alive and painting things they still could have done together. He manage to hang on in life without his friends and soon he died too alone.
“Who am I? Who am I?”
“You’re Jude St. Francis. You are my oldest, dearest friend. You’re the son of Harold Stein and Julia Altman. You’re the friend of Malcolm Irvine, of Jean-Baptiste Marion, of Richard Goldfarb, of Andy Contractor, of Lucien Voigt, of Citizen van Straaten, of Rhodes Arrowsmith, of Elijah Kozma, of Phaedra de los Santos, of the Henry Youngs. You’re a New Yorker. You live in SoHo. You volunteer for an arts organization; you volunteer for a food kitchen. 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 an excellent pianist. You’re an art collector. You write me lovely messages when I’m away. 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. You’re a lawyer. You’re the chair of the litigation department at Rosen Pritchard and Klein. You love your job; you work hard at it. You’re a mathematician. You’re a logician. You’ve tried to teach me, again and again. You were treated horribly. You came out on the other end. You were always you.”
"And who are you?"
"I'm Willem Ragnarsson. And I will never let you go.”
A sad and heartbreaking novel. Jude is showered with love from those who care about him. He is struggling to deal with his trauma, pain, self-hatred and emotions while Willem tries their best to help him the best they can. What broke my heart the most were the words "I will never let you go" because I know for sure that even in Willem's final moments, he thought of Jude and never let go of him. He wishes he could see him one more time. It's such a bittersweet moment of love. Willem did not go in a way where Jude can still see him, he left without notice, without coming back again he forever dissapears. After Willems death, all of Jude's progress and happiness dies with Willem too. He becomes resentful, furious, unyielding and brutal. He work day and night to keep himself distracted from the reality that there's no Willem anymore waiting for him in his apartment with a beautiful smile, to hug and kiss him. Jude resolves to take his own life after three grueling years of attempting to hang on in life. He just can't take to live anymore without the love of his life, without the person who taught him what real love is. He just can't handle the constant grind of choosing to be alive every day for other people. He made several unsuccessful attempts to engage in therapy in accordance with his promises to Willem and Andy. Throughout the narrative, it is made abundantly evident how much Jude has endured since Willem's passing and it is such a devastating scene. He was mistreated as a child and has spent his life shielding himself from harm. However, when he opens his heart, he let's down his guard, opens the door to vulnerability and displays love. He eventually lost the person who taught him and gave him hope that kindness existed in the world. Even though Jude committed himself, I felt partly liberated by his capacity to finally let go of his pain. I experienced mixed emotions, both happy and sad. He is now at last free.
Undoubtedly depressing, this book will affect you in some manner, as it did for me. The ending is sad as Harold in his 80's tells what happened. He outlived each of them and yet he never forgets all the moments they have together. I sob so hard when Harold tells he always long for Jude after he died that maybe he is that new puppy in the neighborhood, the toddler he saw from jogging, the flowers that just bloomed, the cloud, the waves and the rain. He look at everything and "I try to be to kind to everything I see, in everything I see, I see him" . A Father's love it never ends, even without a blood that connects them. It was their memories, their laughter's, their experiences that collide them. It's clear that this is not a light read yet I thoroughly enjoyed it. This novel portrays every character, emotion and relationship with such intensity and imperfectly perfect beauty. They all have flaws and weaknesses that truly makes sense as it is the reality of life, everything is natural that makes you question am I reading a real life event ? Every moment of the characters intense suffering or unadulterated delight was flawlessly convincing and resonated with my very core. Some character's love is genuinely an ideal to aspire to since it is pure, genuine and true. You'll think a lot about the book as you read it because it will be on your mind constantly. You cannot just put it down as you will be curious onto what could happen next.
The book is challenging to read it almost seems tempting how the text draws you in and then rips you apart word by word and piece by piece. You noticed yourself becoming enraged as you watched the main character descend farther into his own suffering with nothing you could do to stop it. I couldn't help but to scream and talk to myself in every annoying scenes as I want to help but I couldn't because they're fictional. It makes me question life, am I being thankful enough for all the luck I have received ? for all the people who are constantly being with me with such joy and purity ?. I enjoy reading this book, it truly achieve its goal to make me cry as to what I plan when I first bought it. I thank the author Hanya Yanagihara for breaking my heart and for making this wonderful novel of love, parenthood and friendship.
Reading the book will make you understand all the words I say. Be careful.
cr ; photos via pinterest
