This is a comment on “A Little Life” by Hanya Yanagihara, which I read in Picador’s 2022 edition. 

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I came to this book via a recommendation. Although hesitantly, the million copies sold and its hype among the youth pushed me to it. Granted, reading under such motives is no outstanding advice. Regardless, if a book is a bestseller and a sensation, there must be something of value in it. 

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“A Little Life”, at its core, is about crude, violent, and vulgar pain. On its surface, it’s about family, friendship, love, and endurance. Add one plus the other, and you get a book about romanticised pain. 

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The orphan, the dead–child parent, the black, the Asian, the gay, the poor, the ignored rich kid, the suicidal, the successful but depressed, the jealous, the addict, the raped, the invalid; you name it. Any and all forms of social tags commonly paired with suffering are present in the story. 

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The book offers a realistic, straightforward, impactful approach to suffering that is not psychologically, sociologically, or philosophically rich. It is a depiction of human depravity, not a study of the human condition. It is a book that entertains out of morbid curiosity with a touch of hope, like a movie or a series, but not a literary work that lingers in the mind and pushes one to intellectual engagement. 

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“A Little Life” is well written, no doubt. The language and style are light and accessible. The world in which the novel unfolds is extraordinarily built—in no time, you are in it. However, while the author lets you see, she doesn’t let you speak. Despite your wanting to tell the characters that everything shall be okay and that, in the end, love will prevail, you can’t. You’re left to painfully witness how everything goes wrong, which is masterfully done. 

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The way the underlying story is always held, despite how farfetched the superficial narrative becomes, is surprisingly good. You get to know the main character by what he doesn’t say, which is remarkable. And the way it served as Hanya’s gravitational centre, pulling everything together, is also admirable. 

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You can quickly identify the hard work invested in this book, meticulously built, piece by piece, which is what makes it good. Nonetheless, it fails to be great. It lacks refined writing. Its strength is derived from vulgarity. There is a constant and unfortunate use of exaggeration and grotesqueness. The extremity denotes an absence of talent. 

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The downside of meticulousness is that it typically leads to paying a high price; the book ends up longer than it should. This is the case for A Little Life, which could’ve been shorter by at least 200 pages, much of which was unnecessary digression.

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I want to answer two questions: 

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Is the book good? Yes, but not great. 

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Should you read it? Yes, under two circumstances: 1) you are looking for entertainment and nothing else, and 2) you are a writer or in the process of becoming one—the book is an extraordinary case study. If you don’t fall into either of these, you can move on to a better, more interesting literary work. 

 

My Rating of this book is: 3 out of 5.