Thursday, January 21, 2016

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Emotionally harrowing yet full of rather implausible sources of comfort, A Little Life some how throws readers between the most unlikely extremes of horror and joy that life holds, making for a compulsively readable if artistically flawed sophomore effort.
At the center of A Little Life, which follows four tight-knit college friends from their mid-twenties to their fifties, is Jude St. Francis, a reserved, enigmatic genius. Jude’s intelligence, generosity and quiet charisma keeps his friends close, even as he remains inaccessible to them; he has never told them about his childhood or how he acquired the severe leg injuries that increasingly limit his mobility as he grows older. Willem, J.B., and Malcolm, the people closest to him, protect him by allowing him to hide himself, even as they wonder if they should [....]
It can be deeply exhausting to read, over and over again, such unvarnished negativity, and to see a character we grow to care for mired in self-hatred. Bluntly, repeatedly, we hear of Jude’s relapses into self-harm and read his chorus of hateful inner voices. But this granular portrayal of depression and, eventually, grief, is the greatest strength of the novel.

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