“The book forces you to endure the pain in order to get back to the pleasure.” Where was that pleasure? As you point out, the first pages tricked me into thinking I was getting a story about 4 friends and instead I endured hundreds of pages of monotonous, repetitive descriptions of self-harm and mental illness—not bad as subject matter but only used in this book as some kind of hook. That was the trick. The best I can say is I hated the story and the writing wasn’t great and I couldn’t stop reading it and would recommend to no one.
Also: nothing in this book is reminiscent of Lolita: she was not pimped out, but more importantly, Yanagihara’s writing lacks any of the subtly, cleverness or humor that suffuses Nabokov. You are right the ‘evocations’ in this novel are its hallmarks and the author adeptly mimics the stereotypical interest of gay men in food, art, travel, cloths. But how many times do we have to hear about a new meal, a new trip, a new encounter that does absolutely nothing to advance the narrative and is delivered in prose that belongs in Bon Appetit or an in-flight magazine? Why the hell I finished this book I still have no idea.
Haha I inaugurated the old 'Stack with this one! I spent *counts* ten thousand words on how much I disliked A Little Life, and I tried to take some care to distinguish between my aesthetic criticisms of the book and whether or not it is ProblematicTM (which doesn't interest me). Absolutely agree with ALL as a return to the sentimental novel (I think I drew on Little Nell) in the Pamela vein. I might push back against the Jane Eyre comparison if only because I do think Bronte takes some trouble to articulate Jane and Rochester's characters, whereas Jude is nothing but a list of excellences and a vehicle for suffering (this is the fanfic 'torture the cinnamon roll' thing). I also think there is something very succulent about the juxtaposition of Jude's perfection and the extremity of his suffering - the suffering makes it morally okay to indulge in the fantasy of his beauty, brilliance, movie star boyfriend etc etc, because the suffering makes it okay to centre him in a way you might feel a little guilty about doing for a more straightforward Mary Sue.
I wonder, to be fair, if a novel is the wrong medium for this story. It really belongs as an opera or an ErlKonig-style musical fable.
(also, there is fanfiction of equivalent or superior quality, sensicality and sentimentality available right now for the princely sum of zero point zero zero dollars)
Okay but what is it? How do I find it? I’ve tried browsing AO3 a few times, but you have to be really embedded in this culture to get the good stuff, and I’m not. A Little Life is something my friend can text me about—nobody has ever texted me telling me to read an excellent fanfiction. If they had, I probably would’ve!
Jumping in with an assist for my pal Ash of of Leave It Unread...
I'll second her rec to check out Marauders fic. I am a big big fan of fluorescentgrey's work, which frequently involves lots of drug abuse and violence and get very McCarthy at times.
And my personal favorite, a very long story about wizards playing wizard rock music and doing hard wizard drugs in the 70s with barely any actual Harry Potter characters in it at all (~61k, part of a 250k+ series): https://archiveofourown.org/works/8537956/chapters/19573942
Someone started a rumor on Twitter a while back that Hanya Yanagihara was the author of "Twist And Shout," a very well-known hurt/comfort fanfic from the Supernatural fandom (https://archiveofourown.org/works/537876/chapters/955188).
And I know for a fact it's not true and that fic was actually written by a whump-loving Midwestern teenager, but the fact that the rumor got traction at all shows that there's definitely some resonance there. I haven't read the fic myself, and I've heard it's not really that good, but it's one of the more better known Dean/Cas hurt/comfort epics (~100k) words, and here's a rec list for more fics along those lines: https://www.reddit.com/r/fandomnatural/comments/oe3whv/fanfics_thatll_make_me_feel_the_same_way_twist/
I’m afraid I don’t have specific recs, because the fanfiction tropes ALL trucks in are not my preference. BUT i do have some ways of navigating AO3 that might get you somewhere close. Look for the term ‘whump’ and sort by bookmarks or kudos. If i might make a further suggestion, i might recommend Harry Potter fanfiction, specifically the subset known as ‘Marauders’ (Harry Potter’s dad and his friends). Again, that was never my fandom, but if there’s something in the dynamic of the friends that appeals to you, I believe the ‘Marauders’ fandom has lots of stories with a protective dude and a traumatised outsider really going through it. I am not even saying this in a sneering way, I believe there’s a lot of really terrific catharsis there.
Ooh, could you recommend sentimentalist fanfics you liked?
Also, how familiar does a reader have to be with the source material to appreciate these kinds of fanfictions?
+1 to the idea of an opera version of ALL.
I keep thinking, it won't be a good TV show. But it could be great in a medium where the heightened drama and juxtapositions are celebrated, and where psychologically realistic characters aren't expected.
Opera could work, potentially ballet? I never got to see the stage play, but I wonder if it works better than the novel.
Haha as I said above I don't have specific recommendations because ALL's fanfiction tropes are not my personal preference. BUT if you go to a fanfiction hosting site (AO3 is my preference) and look for 'whump' and/or 'hurt/comfort', then sort by kudos or bookmarks, that should get you close to the mood and flavour. I might also suggest looking in the Harry Potter fandom. I speculated that ALL might have started out as fanfiction for Harry Potter and Cedric Diggory (nice, hot, dim). There is also a subfandom for Harry Potter's dad's friends, and the largest ship in this subfandom, I believe (this was never my fandom) involves torturing a sweet character for really extended catharsis.
And i think ballet is also an intriguing idea! ALL isn't realist, and I think it's unfair to engage with it on that basis.
IMO it’s kind of crazy to mention this novel in the same breath as Dickens novels. This is an extreme trauma novel about an horrific case of child sexual abuse and life long suffering. Yes, Dickens wrote about people in tough circumstances. But his characters represented not uncommon hardships, and he aimed to expose social ills. I don’t buy the idea the idea that these two writers drew from the same well.
Interesting. I really hated this book. I think because it felt emotionally dishonest. I couldn’t suspend my disbelief enough to roll with it all. In fact, when things got particularly bad for Jude at one point, I burst out laughing. So I think I disagree with the idea that it succeeds on its own terms. But I find the book an interesting phenomenon for sure.
want to think a bit before writing a longer reply, but I think it’s kind of interesting that people haven’t brought it up at all in the wake of how popular Heated Rivalry is. Very different tonally, but I think there’s a shared emotional intensity to both.
Yes! Similar fanfiction register where the goal is emotional catharsis rather than creating characters for the reader to invest in. Similar feeling in the way it instrumentalises queerness. Not in a 'problematic' way or whatever, but where it feels like a safe space for women to explore heightened emotionality by taking women out of the equation altogether.
I've seen lots of comments in bookish blogs which rate "A Little Life" very highly and quite a few which report that it's one of, if not, the best book they've ever read. I kept a copy on my bookshelf for several years, thinking I might read it. But each time I read anything about it, they all said the same things as you about the content, full of very detailed descriptions of abuse. I was more convinced each time that I could never read this book. In the end I gave it to a charity shop.
When people are so vehemently against something, it reveals so much more about themselves than it does the object of their discomfort. I think our culture today is so desensitized to violence that people flinch when they're made to engage with it so intimately. To me, that's what makes it so surprising. Whether the story is far-fetched or not doesn't matter; it's rendered so tangibly that you have no choice other than to experience what's written firsthand. As a gay man, I feel like A Little Life is one of our great 21st-century novels, because Hanya so effectively gives her readers a masterclass in what it looks like to have empathy for others in a time where we feel we know everything about everyone via social media, but really only ever scratch the surface. I don't think the politics of her identity is relevant, and is just another trap people fall into these days, distracting us from the actual work. I, too, am interested to see if it stands the test of time, and comes out on top, or is reevaluated as gratuitous. But, as you said, when enough people come to its defense, it's earned its place on the shelf, and it has to be accepted for what it is. If you don't like it, read something else.
I’m coming from a POV that scrolling through IG and being exposed to an overwhelming amount of violence (an ICE abduction for example) sandwiched between Labubus and movies stars at award shows has a very desensitizing effect on our overall response to real world violence of all forms.
I guess if you look at research like Stephen Pinker that violence in society has declined significantly, and also think anecdotally about how much casual violence there used to be especially among young men and with alcohol, in institutions with corporal punishment, and domestic violence towards women, then the average person today in a developed country is far less exposed to violence in their daily life.
I *was* going to ask "is he crying or is that his O-face?" but then was like... what if this turns out to be a crop of a photo called "Steve Wojnarowicz-Gonzalez-Torres Cries Over His Dead Lover's Body Which Is Also Wrapped In The AIDS Quilt" ??? I can't afford to get cancelled now!!
To be honest I haven't read 'A Little Life' yet but here's an interesting fact about it. Would you believe it if I said this book was a success in Turkish as well, with almost no marketing? It went through many reprints, and as far as I'm concerned sales reached nearly 100,000 copies, which is huge for translated literary fiction in Turkiye. I guess the essence really wasn’t lost in translation.
"How could both things exist in the same universe? How could this be a universe where good things effortlessly flow into Jude’s lap, and, in this same universe, he’s constantly being beaten and sexually traumatized..."
Totally thought the answer to these questions were going to be, "Because that is what life is like," because that was my answer reading this. Thanks for putting this on my radar, though with its length it may be awhile before I approach it.
Damn I’m so happy to finally see a positive review (on Substack) of this book. As someone who could also (very easily & accurately) be described as a notoriously harsh critic & immense hater, I loved it. I read it a while ago, I think back in 2017, but I still remember how much it moved me. I read it at the same time as my best friend and she felt the exact same way. I actually recommended it to my mom afterwards who’s a big reader and she felt towards it more like many do, at least on here, that it was beautifully written but ultimately too intense & over-the-top.
This is gonna sound like such an odd & random comparison, but I’m currently rewatching Succession for probably the 4th or 5th time (lol) and I actually feel like there’s a bit of a similarity between them in the sense that they each encapsulate & portray (though harshly but, in my opinion, brilliantly) the ugly/intense/perverse aspects of life/human nature while still doing the other/good parts justice. And I feel like each of their abilities to do both is why they’ve each resonated so much with people, but, specifically with A Little Life, why it’s been hard for many people to stomach and/or appreciate.
I’m intrigued to read this but, as others have pointed out, it could be difficult. I’ve been trying to get through The Wild Boy of Waubamik by Thom Ernst for years (a memoir with a central theme of abuse) for a while now. I will give it a go and if I can manage that, will give “A Little Life” a try.
I've read a lot of hurt/comfort (unhappily. It's a Romance trope I dislike) and what makes it so different from books like Jane Eyre is that in Jane Eyre a major part of the story is that she *doesn't* get comfort. When she experiences any comfort at all it is not until the end, and the ending is more about her happy ending, not the process of hurting and the Rochester comforting. In fact she is comforting him. I haven't read it in awhile, maybe I am forgetting. But hurt/comfort feels like a very 21st c. thing. We are preoccupied with trauma and recovery.
You don’t think her interlude w the cousins is kinda like comfort?
I would say that in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, he definitely gets comfort, when he is hanging out with Eva and Augustine St Croix. He has a good life with them, and then that gets torn away too.
This is a really thoughtful review. A Little Life completely gripped me when I read it, and similarly I finished it in a very short amount of time. The similarities to fanfic are definitely there, I remember reading things with incredibly similar themes and plot points - I think something about trauma after trauma happening to a character that you care about (either because the author is talented at making you sympathise or you already like them from the source media) makes for a really addictive reading experience. On having finished reading, however, I could never find myself recommending it to anyone, or being able to think about it positively. The reading experience is so gripping and compelling but in hindsight (so maybe all critical reflection) the torrent of abuses seem over the top and unnecessary. It is certainly an interesting book that will continue to be talked about.
Re the cousins in Jane Eyre - superficially to look like a comfort, but actually not, the male cousin in particular is extremely controlling and she is rightly afraid of such control and wants to get away. The artistic device of contrast - she returns to Rochester who superficially looks frightening and controlling but actually she controls him.
“The book forces you to endure the pain in order to get back to the pleasure.” Where was that pleasure? As you point out, the first pages tricked me into thinking I was getting a story about 4 friends and instead I endured hundreds of pages of monotonous, repetitive descriptions of self-harm and mental illness—not bad as subject matter but only used in this book as some kind of hook. That was the trick. The best I can say is I hated the story and the writing wasn’t great and I couldn’t stop reading it and would recommend to no one.
Also: nothing in this book is reminiscent of Lolita: she was not pimped out, but more importantly, Yanagihara’s writing lacks any of the subtly, cleverness or humor that suffuses Nabokov. You are right the ‘evocations’ in this novel are its hallmarks and the author adeptly mimics the stereotypical interest of gay men in food, art, travel, cloths. But how many times do we have to hear about a new meal, a new trip, a new encounter that does absolutely nothing to advance the narrative and is delivered in prose that belongs in Bon Appetit or an in-flight magazine? Why the hell I finished this book I still have no idea.
Thank you. Read this book for MA curriculum and never understood the hype.
Haha I inaugurated the old 'Stack with this one! I spent *counts* ten thousand words on how much I disliked A Little Life, and I tried to take some care to distinguish between my aesthetic criticisms of the book and whether or not it is ProblematicTM (which doesn't interest me). Absolutely agree with ALL as a return to the sentimental novel (I think I drew on Little Nell) in the Pamela vein. I might push back against the Jane Eyre comparison if only because I do think Bronte takes some trouble to articulate Jane and Rochester's characters, whereas Jude is nothing but a list of excellences and a vehicle for suffering (this is the fanfic 'torture the cinnamon roll' thing). I also think there is something very succulent about the juxtaposition of Jude's perfection and the extremity of his suffering - the suffering makes it morally okay to indulge in the fantasy of his beauty, brilliance, movie star boyfriend etc etc, because the suffering makes it okay to centre him in a way you might feel a little guilty about doing for a more straightforward Mary Sue.
I wonder, to be fair, if a novel is the wrong medium for this story. It really belongs as an opera or an ErlKonig-style musical fable.
Ivo van Hove directed a 4 hour stage version at BAM a few years ago
He did indeed! I didn’t watch it, but I’ve liked other van Howe productions so may well have dug it.
(also, there is fanfiction of equivalent or superior quality, sensicality and sentimentality available right now for the princely sum of zero point zero zero dollars)
Okay but what is it? How do I find it? I’ve tried browsing AO3 a few times, but you have to be really embedded in this culture to get the good stuff, and I’m not. A Little Life is something my friend can text me about—nobody has ever texted me telling me to read an excellent fanfiction. If they had, I probably would’ve!
Jumping in with an assist for my pal Ash of of Leave It Unread...
I'll second her rec to check out Marauders fic. I am a big big fan of fluorescentgrey's work, which frequently involves lots of drug abuse and violence and get very McCarthy at times.
Here's a Wild West one (~75k): https://archiveofourown.org/works/4144170/chapters/9347559
One about escaping from Azkaban (~167k): https://archiveofourown.org/series/491341
And my personal favorite, a very long story about wizards playing wizard rock music and doing hard wizard drugs in the 70s with barely any actual Harry Potter characters in it at all (~61k, part of a 250k+ series): https://archiveofourown.org/works/8537956/chapters/19573942
Someone started a rumor on Twitter a while back that Hanya Yanagihara was the author of "Twist And Shout," a very well-known hurt/comfort fanfic from the Supernatural fandom (https://archiveofourown.org/works/537876/chapters/955188).
And I know for a fact it's not true and that fic was actually written by a whump-loving Midwestern teenager, but the fact that the rumor got traction at all shows that there's definitely some resonance there. I haven't read the fic myself, and I've heard it's not really that good, but it's one of the more better known Dean/Cas hurt/comfort epics (~100k) words, and here's a rec list for more fics along those lines: https://www.reddit.com/r/fandomnatural/comments/oe3whv/fanfics_thatll_make_me_feel_the_same_way_twist/
I’m afraid I don’t have specific recs, because the fanfiction tropes ALL trucks in are not my preference. BUT i do have some ways of navigating AO3 that might get you somewhere close. Look for the term ‘whump’ and sort by bookmarks or kudos. If i might make a further suggestion, i might recommend Harry Potter fanfiction, specifically the subset known as ‘Marauders’ (Harry Potter’s dad and his friends). Again, that was never my fandom, but if there’s something in the dynamic of the friends that appeals to you, I believe the ‘Marauders’ fandom has lots of stories with a protective dude and a traumatised outsider really going through it. I am not even saying this in a sneering way, I believe there’s a lot of really terrific catharsis there.
Ooh, could you recommend sentimentalist fanfics you liked?
Also, how familiar does a reader have to be with the source material to appreciate these kinds of fanfictions?
+1 to the idea of an opera version of ALL.
I keep thinking, it won't be a good TV show. But it could be great in a medium where the heightened drama and juxtapositions are celebrated, and where psychologically realistic characters aren't expected.
Opera could work, potentially ballet? I never got to see the stage play, but I wonder if it works better than the novel.
I don’t know if anyone wants to watch all these motel rapes, in any medium
Haha as I said above I don't have specific recommendations because ALL's fanfiction tropes are not my personal preference. BUT if you go to a fanfiction hosting site (AO3 is my preference) and look for 'whump' and/or 'hurt/comfort', then sort by kudos or bookmarks, that should get you close to the mood and flavour. I might also suggest looking in the Harry Potter fandom. I speculated that ALL might have started out as fanfiction for Harry Potter and Cedric Diggory (nice, hot, dim). There is also a subfandom for Harry Potter's dad's friends, and the largest ship in this subfandom, I believe (this was never my fandom) involves torturing a sweet character for really extended catharsis.
And i think ballet is also an intriguing idea! ALL isn't realist, and I think it's unfair to engage with it on that basis.
IMO it’s kind of crazy to mention this novel in the same breath as Dickens novels. This is an extreme trauma novel about an horrific case of child sexual abuse and life long suffering. Yes, Dickens wrote about people in tough circumstances. But his characters represented not uncommon hardships, and he aimed to expose social ills. I don’t buy the idea the idea that these two writers drew from the same well.
Interesting. I really hated this book. I think because it felt emotionally dishonest. I couldn’t suspend my disbelief enough to roll with it all. In fact, when things got particularly bad for Jude at one point, I burst out laughing. So I think I disagree with the idea that it succeeds on its own terms. But I find the book an interesting phenomenon for sure.
want to think a bit before writing a longer reply, but I think it’s kind of interesting that people haven’t brought it up at all in the wake of how popular Heated Rivalry is. Very different tonally, but I think there’s a shared emotional intensity to both.
Yes! Similar fanfiction register where the goal is emotional catharsis rather than creating characters for the reader to invest in. Similar feeling in the way it instrumentalises queerness. Not in a 'problematic' way or whatever, but where it feels like a safe space for women to explore heightened emotionality by taking women out of the equation altogether.
I've seen lots of comments in bookish blogs which rate "A Little Life" very highly and quite a few which report that it's one of, if not, the best book they've ever read. I kept a copy on my bookshelf for several years, thinking I might read it. But each time I read anything about it, they all said the same things as you about the content, full of very detailed descriptions of abuse. I was more convinced each time that I could never read this book. In the end I gave it to a charity shop.
When people are so vehemently against something, it reveals so much more about themselves than it does the object of their discomfort. I think our culture today is so desensitized to violence that people flinch when they're made to engage with it so intimately. To me, that's what makes it so surprising. Whether the story is far-fetched or not doesn't matter; it's rendered so tangibly that you have no choice other than to experience what's written firsthand. As a gay man, I feel like A Little Life is one of our great 21st-century novels, because Hanya so effectively gives her readers a masterclass in what it looks like to have empathy for others in a time where we feel we know everything about everyone via social media, but really only ever scratch the surface. I don't think the politics of her identity is relevant, and is just another trap people fall into these days, distracting us from the actual work. I, too, am interested to see if it stands the test of time, and comes out on top, or is reevaluated as gratuitous. But, as you said, when enough people come to its defense, it's earned its place on the shelf, and it has to be accepted for what it is. If you don't like it, read something else.
I don't think we are desensitised to violence. You could argue the opposite.
I’m coming from a POV that scrolling through IG and being exposed to an overwhelming amount of violence (an ICE abduction for example) sandwiched between Labubus and movies stars at award shows has a very desensitizing effect on our overall response to real world violence of all forms.
I mean this in a loving way—might be good to get off social media and stop scrolling for a while—go pure human to human—actual life—
I guess if you look at research like Stephen Pinker that violence in society has declined significantly, and also think anecdotally about how much casual violence there used to be especially among young men and with alcohol, in institutions with corporal punishment, and domestic violence towards women, then the average person today in a developed country is far less exposed to violence in their daily life.
Important, unanswered question: What's the deal with the guy on the cover? Who is he? Is that *his* hand? Why are his eyes doing *that*?
It’s a 1969 Peter Hujar photograph titled Orgasmic Man
I *was* going to ask "is he crying or is that his O-face?" but then was like... what if this turns out to be a crop of a photo called "Steve Wojnarowicz-Gonzalez-Torres Cries Over His Dead Lover's Body Which Is Also Wrapped In The AIDS Quilt" ??? I can't afford to get cancelled now!!
But... literal O-face on the cover! What a world.
To be honest I haven't read 'A Little Life' yet but here's an interesting fact about it. Would you believe it if I said this book was a success in Turkish as well, with almost no marketing? It went through many reprints, and as far as I'm concerned sales reached nearly 100,000 copies, which is huge for translated literary fiction in Turkiye. I guess the essence really wasn’t lost in translation.
That is wild! That is so many copies!
"How could both things exist in the same universe? How could this be a universe where good things effortlessly flow into Jude’s lap, and, in this same universe, he’s constantly being beaten and sexually traumatized..."
Totally thought the answer to these questions were going to be, "Because that is what life is like," because that was my answer reading this. Thanks for putting this on my radar, though with its length it may be awhile before I approach it.
Damn I’m so happy to finally see a positive review (on Substack) of this book. As someone who could also (very easily & accurately) be described as a notoriously harsh critic & immense hater, I loved it. I read it a while ago, I think back in 2017, but I still remember how much it moved me. I read it at the same time as my best friend and she felt the exact same way. I actually recommended it to my mom afterwards who’s a big reader and she felt towards it more like many do, at least on here, that it was beautifully written but ultimately too intense & over-the-top.
This is gonna sound like such an odd & random comparison, but I’m currently rewatching Succession for probably the 4th or 5th time (lol) and I actually feel like there’s a bit of a similarity between them in the sense that they each encapsulate & portray (though harshly but, in my opinion, brilliantly) the ugly/intense/perverse aspects of life/human nature while still doing the other/good parts justice. And I feel like each of their abilities to do both is why they’ve each resonated so much with people, but, specifically with A Little Life, why it’s been hard for many people to stomach and/or appreciate.
I’m intrigued to read this but, as others have pointed out, it could be difficult. I’ve been trying to get through The Wild Boy of Waubamik by Thom Ernst for years (a memoir with a central theme of abuse) for a while now. I will give it a go and if I can manage that, will give “A Little Life” a try.
I've read a lot of hurt/comfort (unhappily. It's a Romance trope I dislike) and what makes it so different from books like Jane Eyre is that in Jane Eyre a major part of the story is that she *doesn't* get comfort. When she experiences any comfort at all it is not until the end, and the ending is more about her happy ending, not the process of hurting and the Rochester comforting. In fact she is comforting him. I haven't read it in awhile, maybe I am forgetting. But hurt/comfort feels like a very 21st c. thing. We are preoccupied with trauma and recovery.
You don’t think her interlude w the cousins is kinda like comfort?
I would say that in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, he definitely gets comfort, when he is hanging out with Eva and Augustine St Croix. He has a good life with them, and then that gets torn away too.
This is a really thoughtful review. A Little Life completely gripped me when I read it, and similarly I finished it in a very short amount of time. The similarities to fanfic are definitely there, I remember reading things with incredibly similar themes and plot points - I think something about trauma after trauma happening to a character that you care about (either because the author is talented at making you sympathise or you already like them from the source media) makes for a really addictive reading experience. On having finished reading, however, I could never find myself recommending it to anyone, or being able to think about it positively. The reading experience is so gripping and compelling but in hindsight (so maybe all critical reflection) the torrent of abuses seem over the top and unnecessary. It is certainly an interesting book that will continue to be talked about.
Re the cousins in Jane Eyre - superficially to look like a comfort, but actually not, the male cousin in particular is extremely controlling and she is rightly afraid of such control and wants to get away. The artistic device of contrast - she returns to Rochester who superficially looks frightening and controlling but actually she controls him.
Jude and Willem will always be. Therein the power of this book.