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Why is the internet obsessed with "A Little Life"?
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- Опубликовано: 15 авг 2024
- The first 1,000 people to use the link will get a 1 month free trial of Skillshare: skl.sh/mancarr...
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara has made a huge impact on our culture, especially online book review culture. I've spent plenty of time watching my favorite booktubers reading this book and sobbing for my own entertainment. After reading the book myself, I wanted to figure out why.
A great video breaking down some stuff I wasn't able to cover in this video. I highly recommend watching this if you've read the book: • A Little Life || Rant ...
0:00 the video
8:25 spoilers
#alittlelife #booktube
The first 1,000 people to use the link will get a 1 month free trial of Skillshare: skl.sh/mancarryingthing08221
But I already have 99 in everything!
Wish i could help man... but a sub, like and watching every last second of this excellent video will have to do as thanks
Ayyy got mine, tyvm :)
To be honest I don't understand what's wrong with Hanya Yanagihara's views on suicide. She's not telling mentally ill people to give up and kill themselves. She's critiquing the sanctity of life doctrine in medicine and psychology that cruelly forces absolutely broken and traumatized people to continue living and suffering. Nobody but patients themselves should have the authority to decide whether their pain and suffering is bearable. Nobody but patients themselves should have the authority to decide whether their lives are worth living or not. The world isn't fair to everyone and it's sometimes more humane to let people rest.
I think a lot of people have this deep seeded belief that the more miserable a work is, the more tortured the protagonist is, the more bleak and terrible the actual message, the more intelligent and meaningful the work is and you are by extension by enjoying it. The melancholy is so severe and so so exaggerated that anyone who feels suffering = meaningful writing will of course feel like it's deeply important and meaningful.
I definitely agree with you (Berserk, I'm looking at you)
@@annegiii3446 I feel like Berserk at least has the consistent throughline of the love between Guts and Casca that holds it together and gives it enough hope to keep it from sinking into pure misery porn. Berserk is dark as hell, don't get me wrong, but there is light shining through the cracks.
Definitely agree. It feels like there's a big trend of "Realism = The Best Art, and Miserable = Realism, therefore Miserable = The Best Art" and it's intensely frustrating because every step of that is wrong. I think people have just so romanticized the idea of the "tortured but brilliant artist" that anything that expresses depression or misery is automatically treated as if it's inherently better than things that evoke joy or happiness.
I will die on the hill that The Little Prince is the one of the most important books ever written. A children's book about not becoming a grown up even if you become old. And you don't need a lit degree or clinical depressed to read it
@@annegiii3446 I’m halfway through Berserk and while it is absolutely one of the darkest things I’ve read, there are many many moments of hope, hilarity, and happiness throughout. The characters have to go through a lot of crap to get it but it feels earned and genuine and you actually care about them because of it.
I hear many people on bootube/booktok say, "if you're not in the right headspace or going through something, don't read this book." I think it also has a lot to do with how mentally draining it is just listening to others talk about it
tbh these kinds of books are the best when you are going through a rough phase of your life. You feel as though someone finally understands what you have gone through, as if the author is right beside you comforting you with his harsh, yet tender words; words of comprehension, even if accompanied by suffering and despair. Plus, the moments of extreme sensibility are when we feel life in a more immediate way, leading to spiritual and/or existential experiences that shape us for the rest of our lives. It is a rebirth process that can only come with previous destruction, be it through critical or artistic means. Heck, a depressing book basically saved my life by impeding me of committing suicide (that work being The Sorrows of Young Werther, by Goethe). By the end of the reading, I felt as though I had understood myself on a more meaningful level, as well as if someone - Goethe - had hugged me and told me I ain't the only one suffering. But yeah, it's probably not a good idea to recommend such titles to everyone; this should be analyzed case by case (I mean, The Sorrows of Young Werther literally led multiple european adolescents to off themselves, so it's definitely something that should be treated with a little bit more caution).
btw, I haven't read A Little Life so I'm just talking about miserable books in general.
Finally it’s here…
ruclips.net/video/T2JhSoRm-uk/видео.html
not into... uh, _booktube or booktok_ much, but this sounds a lot like what people say about bojack horseman. which.. fits, lol.
@@SpiderMan-gf1lc naaaa. I started reading because I wasn’t feeling well and I basically sucked up the story, got through the book in 8 days. But when I was done, I had a full on depression for 2 weeks
This book is basically the equivalent of that one SpongeBob episode where that one guy was like "I have glass bones and paper skin. Every morning I break my legs and every evening I break my arms." I've read quite a few books in my 24 years of life and not once have I felt angry with the author's literary decisions. This book made me legitimately angry with Hanya Yanagihara and the way she goes about handling her characters.
is it bad or good?
rate it on a scale of 5
0
@@ssdo9030
@@shoeboxphotos I trust you 100% cuz I saw some videos and it's just girls crying over it and how sad it is even when they red like 50 pages
thank you
as a gay man, i must admit that i hate how often people, who are not gay men, make huge amounts of content about gay men suffering (especially fan fiction, like what the hell is up with the obsession with suffering gay men) and the thing that appalled me most about a little life even though i did get quite invested in it was how, even outwith the main characters, how so many predatory men existed in the book. The scenes where Jude suffers most, it's just written like every single human male he came across was a violent p*do and it was disturbing.
She also admitted she didn't research anything for the actual content of the book, and honestly it shows.
A harmful book that unfortunately managed to get people emotionally attached, and so people get to the end and cry and that makes it recommendable, despite the disappointingly shallow and hurtful depictions of trauma and suffering and the voyeuristic depiction of harm to gay men
@@goblinoide Liber Al VEL Legis, 1: 40-44. "Who calls us Thelemites will do no wrong, if he look but close into the word. For there are therein Three Grades, the Hermit, and the Lover, and the man of Earth. DO WHAT THOU WILT SHALL BE THE WHOLE OF THE LAW. The word of Sin is Restriction. O man! refuse not thy wife, if she will! O lover, if thou wilt, depart! THERE IS NO BOND THAT CAN UNITE THE DIVIDED BUT LOVE: ALL ELSE IS A CURSE. Accursed! Accursed be it to the aeons! Hell. Let it be that state of manyhood bound and loathing. So with thy all; thou hast no right but to do thy will. Do that, and no other shall say nay. For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect."
I like my version better.
@@tjenadonn6158 Good for you. You can take it to hell with you.
As a gay man, I'm glad someone shares this sentiment.
AGREED!!!!!!
Sounds like she was getting her rocks off then published it.
I've lost someone to suicide and I cannot stomach Hanya's comments about therapy. Mental illness is illness, yes, but while I can't teach a tumour to cope differently and become benign, I can teach my mind new pathways to make different choices and see different options. Palliative care is not a thing with mental illness, because we can learn! It's difficult and painful to do, but that ability to learn is a gift. To say therapists are immoral because they encourage people to use that gift and have a chance at life is both ignorant and plain stupid.
Unfortunately, therapy, is not effective for everyone. You're absolutely right, the human brain is capable of learning new coping skills. Sometimes, though, when you're really really sick, you can't learn stuff... there's evidence of hippocampal volume loss and changes to areas involved in emotions and learning.
@@AvanToor I'm sorry for your pain. I won't share my whole life here, but I think it's easy to assume I'm an outsider to this because I'm talking about losing someone else to suicide, but please understand I live with my own troubles and am speaking from a more varied experience than you may assume. I'm in extensive treatment myself for CPTSD. I live with chronic pain and insomnia. I'm familiar with the edge and the places where you become psychologically unreachable to yourself. Too familiar. I'm sorry for your pain and I don't take your experience lightly.
I think there's a difference between sober hope and toxic positivity. I am not even advocating for positivity. I'm also not saying anything about everyone's chances. Wish I could, but it's not that simple. I'm not saying it's a lack of positivity that makes treatment fail or take too long. All I'm advocating for is seeing the difference between physical and mental illness when it comes to treatment, and not declaring a false parity. I've made my own choice to be here and keep trying and I'm often pained by it. It often feels too much, but I'm here and trying. It's not everyone's choice, and I accept that. Who can know your personal hell and tell you how to think about it. But don't tell me that possibilities for healing don't exist or that mental health professionals are immoral when they offer them.
@@amivanzyl8876 I've yet to come across one who's actively invested in solving anything, instead of maintaining a status quo. I'm figuring, the probability of me being that "unlucky" is so low that it almost certainly is a systematic problem. And I think all the labels in general and DSM V specifically are only interested in promoting that system.
@@AvanToor I'm sorry the help you've received has missed the mark. It's unfair and frustrating, and shouldn't have happened and the systems do have huge awful gaps. I think we're speaking past each other so I'll just wish you whatever comfort and peace you want and can find and leave it here.
This is really insight way to see mental illness of how we don’t take it seriously unless it’s a tumor
I work with traumatized people and a lot of my friends were telling me about A Little Life and its depiction of a deeply traumatized man who won't get better. That sparked my curiosity and I knew what I was getting into. Or so I thought. I read the book and I was disgusted by the superficial, manipulative, and exploitative way in which the author handles abuse and trauma. There was so much research done into every field each one of the friend group touches, from the film industry to art to law but nothing, absolutely nothing about the central theme of the book: trauma. I didn't know about Yanagihara's toxic views on psychotherapy but this explains a lot. Therapy does help. Maybe not every therapist (it is a deeply personal experience and one has to have a good feeling about and a good connection to the therapist) but saying therapy isn't trustworthy because therapists don't want you to kill yourself is probably the most ignorant, cynical, and privileged position I've ever heard. I hate this book with a passion.
Edit: Spelling
I want to offer a counterpoint to your thoughts on the author’s views on therapy. Obviously I don’t know the author or what their experiences are, but their views on therapy read to me as coming from not a privileged or ignorant person, but from a deeply depressed, hurt, and hopeless person. When I was in the throes of depression, I had much the same thought. I had the misfortune of encountering mental health “professionals” who were incompetent at best, and downright abusive at worst. They held life in such high regard, without any consideration for QUALITY of life- that’s how I ended up with PTSD from my stay in a ward. When you are repeatedly hurt by the people who are supposed to help you, it is easy to grow weary of being helped at all. Better to wallow in your own misery than risk making it worse by reaching out, no?
That’s what this sounds like to me. Like this author has been hurt so repeatedly and so deeply by people who value life, that they have grown to resent life itself. And this book is a way to prove to people just how awful life can be- to share their hatred of it with others.
Again, I don’t know much about this author, or their backstory. It’s entirely possible I’m completely off mark. But I think learning why someone holds the beliefs they do is an important part of having empathy for them, and possibly changing their mind.
Edit to add: Regardless of their reasoning behind it, though, I want to be clear that their demonizing of therapy is not okay. Nor is their lack of research into trauma when it’s a major part of their book. That’s still shitty, no matter the reasoning behind it.
Good comment and reply. I haven't read the book, so I can't comment on it directly, but I share the concerns about the authors views on therapy. I understand why she equivocates on the value of treatment for physical and psychological symptoms, since at first glance it seems unfair or inconsistent, but I think it's really an unfair comparison. Not because one is less severe than the other, but because one is much more responsive to treatment than the other. Doctors may have a different perspective if patients could physical therapy their way out of permanent and intractable pain, or quadriplegia, or any number of debilitating physical conditions for which there is no lasting treatment. Psych symptoms can be awful and debilitating as well, but in most cases they can also be substantially controlled, if not resolved, from psychotropics and/or therapy. They may have to put in a lot of work to get there, but the chances are quite high that they will get to a place where their life is liveable. I think it would be highly unethical for practitioners to convince patients that they should give up and kill themselves when viable treatment options remain on the table.
I'm really thankful for this comment. I have severe trauma and I've had friends recommend me the book. I then asked another more trusted friend what her thoughts were, and she basically said, "Be careful, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. It's a lot of misery porn." That seems to reflect a lot of the sentiments here and I think the book should come with a series of warnings for people with actual PTSD- author's views on warnings be damned, it can cause actual real-world harm, especially when it's not researched.
Also: to equate therapy with religion is just kind of a teen-philosophical take…
While I agree with Yanagihara's views on therapy, it's hard to understand why she would openly flaunt her lack of research into the topics of the book.
The thing that really struck me about this book is the total unwillingness to find meaning in community. Malcolm can't just be black, he's 'post-black.' Willem is in a relationship with a man, but explicitly refuses labels like gay or bi. Jude is basically asexual, but the term never comes up. He's disabled, a victim of abuse, but his work as a lawyer never relates to that, even when he's doing charity. At first I thought it was a choice, but it honestly seems like the author doesn't see the possibility of help through or from community. That's why his suffering has to be exceptional, to make him less representative of a group, and instead an exceptional individual. Like, artistically I can't find fault with this book, I think it's just a case of a worldview I can't get behind.
If you view people as atomized alienated individuals that exist seperat from each other then you are incapable of seeing meaning in community. You can't gat behind that worldview because that worldview is fundamentally anti-human.
There's only one thing that sees humans as atomized creatures with no bonds between them and we call that thing capital.
@@KarimElHayawan Oh my god, it's like Thatcherism but more woke. No society, just individuals and found families.
I’m so glad you mentioned this because as a bi and ace person, it was driving me crazy in the book. People don’t need to label themselves but, just how it seems technology doesn’t change and time is at an almost stand still in the world of A Little Life, it also seems like bisexuality just straight up doesn’t exist. When Willem has a hookup with a woman she’s surprised someone who is with a man could be with a woman too, when Willem gets into a relationship with a man everyone just decided all the many relationships with women never happened and he’s gay. I remember during Malcoms portion of the book he speaks about having a crush on both Jude and Willem and coming out as gay but then deciding no, he’s actually straight and marry a woman. Could he not have just been bi? Why was the book so insistent of acting as if gay and straight identities are all that exist.
This isolation is definitely an extension of the author's ideas about therapy and refusing help. Community is possibly the most helpful thing for anyone struggling, especially those with marginalized identities. We could not survive that struggle without it and each other, it's a lot easier to feel like there's no other option except ******* when trying to take on trauma alone
YES! its also amazing to me that jude actually has a great support net around him yet the author will willfully ignore that to drive into her point of how sad and miserable he must be
Hey man just want to say I really love how your video essays are so short and concise. I feel like most video essayists want to make hour long videos when they don’t have to, but you condense everything down to a short enjoyable video. That’s a skill that other people should envy you for having. Keep up the good work!
Yo 🔥ruclips.net/video/rdJ9bsN7JAw/видео.html
Yeah, I think all his experience making 15 second videos really pays off when cutting down longer videos. I could have used a little more context, but I appreciated the conciseness.
Finally it’s here…
ruclips.net/video/T2JhSoRm-uk/видео.html
I didn't cry reading this book. I was just angry.
Same same same
YES!
I was annoyed (and maybe laughed out of incredulity a couple of times.)
EXACTLY
Thank god i thought i was the only one
I think there’s something to be said for the way the internet treats this book too. I was thinking of reading it for a while because it seemed like it had become this internet challenge (or maybe a right of passage in a way) to “survive” the experience more than actually reading it for any actual value the book might have as a piece of art. I remember Hannah from A Clockwork Reader making the same mistake I would have made by picking this up as like a “lol look guys its the Sad Book” thing and coming away from it feeling genuinely traumatised from how graphic it was and furious that people were talking about it like it was some sort of trendy achievement to get through it instead of adequately warning people that it could be a potentially deeply distressing book to try to read. Without watching that video I would have definitely gone into it expecting to “memeify” the experience with no idea what I was getting myself into and I’m sure I would have also ended up deeply disturbed by it. I can’t really blame the book itself for that but it’s worth noting since its “sad factor” is the only reason I’ve ever heard anyone talk about it online. Anyway, great video, love the bookish content!
This is a really good point. People seem to want to be able to boast about having read certain books more than they want to have had the experience of reading then. This happens a lot with classics, but also sad books like A Little Life and books arguably leaning more toward the pretentious end of the spectrum like Gravity's Rainbow, which is very difficult to read, and that is the reason so many people want to, not because they want to understand the book or enjoy it.
You're point links well with what Man Carrying Thing was saying in a recent video about capitalism making us want to have books more than read them.
I don't understand why you would ever pin the blame on anything but the readers for not being able to treat a work of fiction as it is - a work of fiction. One would need just a sliver of critical thinking to be able to analyse a story, come up to a conclusion and move on to the next. You spiel about "adequately warning" people is pretentious and unnecessary, and it shows when you assume the popularity of the book is due to its online presence which you deem problematic.
All that matters at the end of the day is that people read stories, analyse those stories and move on with their lives. It isn't more complicated than that.
@@jcon2060 And one would just need a sliver of critical thinking to realize some people might be more affected by that kind of depiction if it's something that is particularly close to them or something they went through. In your defense, if you have lived a very easy life it might be hard to understand the concept of some things being unpleasant, however. Or... the fact that stories are meant to evoke feelings and thoughts, which is the whole point, and some people might not be interested in going through that emotion at the moment. So I don't hold it against you if you just have a lack of experience with any actually difficult, taxing situation.
@@jcon2060 I feel you may have interpreted my comment in bad faith - I never suggested that the book itself was at fault for the way readers have treated it, in fact I directly said the opposite. I also definitely don't believe that a book's popularity being bolstered by the internet is anywhere near a bad thing, I wouldn't engage with bookish content if I didn't like people talking about books on the internet.
The point I was bringing up wasn't really anything to do with the content of the book itself, but the way the internet has somewhat commodified the experience of having read it, as another commenter has put so well. Even just typing "A Little Life" into RUclips, you'll run into a bunch of reading vlogs where the whole premise is "i'm FINALLY reading the sad book (because it will make me cry and I can show you footage of it for content)". Many people online seem to be engaging with this book not because they're interested in the premise or anything the book might have to say, but because it's infamous for being sad and reading it has become this "brave undertaking" - "it's the crying book that makes everybody cry, let's see if it gets me too!" It's not necessarily an entirely good or bad thing, but the view I was offering was that for those uninitiated with what the book is actually about, who only hear about it as the sad book that makes everyone cry, the "challenge" that this book has come to pose through the internet's treatment of it, or maybe just intrigue because of it's portrayal on the internet, might lead people to pick it up without being fully aware of the graphic content they're about to consume, as in the case of Hannah from A Clockwork Reader, who I mentioned before.
Again, it's not the fault of the book that the internet has decided to engage with it in such a specific way, but given how many graphic and disturbing themes appear to be included in the novel, it's reasonable that someone going into it with the sole intention of joining a fun internet trend might find themselves unprepared and distressed by just how dark the book gets. I wasn't necessarily advocating for any sort of solution to a situation like this, just offering an observation.
I'm sorry but how does a book that's culturally known as really sad not implicitly indicate it might be 'potentially deeply distressing'. Seems like this is a really inane accusation to make of the faceless horde by a very dumb reader who doesn't research the books she's too fragile to read
hearing what the author said about therapy made me really sad. i’ve never read this book so i don’t really care what this random person has to say but i have heard other people say things like this. my auntie said something to the same extent on how sometimes someone is beyond saving and should just give up. this was during a period of time where my cousin attempted multiple times. years later she is alive and happily living with her son. i have also attempted and i am so so glad to be alive. many times i’ve wanted to give up on myself but i’ve found so much joy and beauty and wonder that makes all the days i can’t get out of bed less bleak, because i know it will pass. therapy helps but it’s also up to you. and you need to believe that you are not beyond saving, that you have value and you have so many more things to experience. i make it a point to go through life with childlike wonder. sing when you need to sing. dance when you want to dance. smile when you’re happy. investigate and create and learn and love. it will hurt, but it will be worth it.
idk why i’m even saying anything but i just wanted to add my thoughts. this author is very wrong and creating a book just to prove the point that you should just give up is really dangerous. i hope you don’t give up. i hope maybe this helped someone? i know how hard it is. but if you really try and you learn new ways to think about yourself and see the world it can and will get better
As someone who teeters between contentment and suicidal ideation on a daily basis, I appreciate you being so honest about the expereince of reading this book and getting into the themes and author's intent. I've considered reading this book, but knowing that it is a pathos-driven argument for suicide I don't think I should I ever read it. Sounds like it'd be really wreckless for me to invite this into my head.
You're really strong for still being here. I hope that you will have more happiness in life soon
you have BPD
I deeply felt your comment. The book has been on my want to read -list and I I got it from the library once, but now I'm definitely not reading it. I do not want a book feeding those kind of thoughts in my head. All the best to you, you're not alone.
im bipolar and i don’t necessarily stray away from reading books with dark subject matter either pertaining to mento illness or trauma. I often can derive meaning from them and find them to be cathartic or even depending on the outcome, comforting. *But what I will not do* is engage in sanist punishment and generally shit ideology.
@@kukachoo42 Same. I just read No Longer Human and it was dark and explored a tortured and cruel psychology, but it in no way tried to push a pro-suicide ideology. Highly recommend that book, but I don't think I'll touch A Little Life.
Honestly this book reminds me of creepypastas in a way. Kids go into writing them knowing they want to make the ‘scariest story ever’ but, because they are inexperienced and don’t grasp the subtlety of horror, they try to compensate by escalating and going so over the top that it stops being scary and instead becomes funny. A Little Life reminded me of that but with the intent being to write the saddest story possible. By the end- Jude’s kidnapping, Willem’s death, the fact that practically everyone dies in the last Harold section- it’s just so over the top that it feels insincere and a little amateurish. At least a poorly executed creepypasta doesn’t carry the risk of being the reason someone quits mental health treatment.
This is what happens in a lot of poorly structured amateur writing. I always think a sign of maturity in a writer (or artist) is knowing when to hold back and play your cards carefully.
And then a skeleton jumped out!
@@GenreChowderStudiosAAAAAHHHH!!!!!
Yikes. Therapy can cause a LOT of trauma. Believe you me. And treatment is a wrong word for it. But the toxic people who disregard those of us with decades of trauma as a direct result of therapy and push it on us.....not good
@@anne-zh2kd I’m gonna be honest but I can’t possibly fathom how you read my comment and understood that I was… blaming people who have had a traumatic therapy experience?
Mental health is tricky to say the least, especially dealing with it in the wake of trauma. I’m sure there are therapists out there who have done more harm than good, just as I know there are doctors out there who have done more harm than good. HOWEVER, if the alternative is to tell people to cease going to treatment altogether and give up, there is a problem there. Jude does NOT have a traumatic therapy experience, Jude dies because the author thinks he is ‘too broken to fix’ and is better off dead. I’m sure you can see how this might be harmful to someone in the midst of struggling.
On the whole, therapy is generally helpful and is a key component of treatment for most people, just as chemo is often a recommended treatment for cancer. That is a statement of fact which in no way “disregards” or is at odds with the experiences of individuals with therapy/doctor trauma. If someone wanted to write a book about the complications or effects of therapy done poorly, I think that’d be an interesting point of view to read/consider. God knows I went through plenty of bad therapy experiences before finding my current therapist. But, as I said, that is not the book Yanigahara wrote. She has never been to therapy nor even recounts research she’s done into therapy done poorly. In fact, she’s quite proudly stated in interviews that she didn’t do ANY research into trauma/csa/any of the stuff Jude goes through cause she figured she’d be able to guess at it. Her whole premise is that, according to her own unresearched opinions, some people with trauma/mental health issues/disabilities should just go ahead and kill themselves. Speaking as someone with trauma, someone who loves people in their life with trauma/severe mental health issues, I can tell you it is positively vile.
Thank you for adressing the whole issue with the author never even doing any proper research into child abuse and living with a dissability.
I've seen so many well adjusted able bodied people rave about this book and just add "dont read this if youre not in the right headspace"
As a person on the spectrum it just makes me sad seeing such things kinda being exploided for other peoples enjoyment.
I do love a book with complex characters but this just felt like everything was happening for the readers enjoyment if you want to call it that
and I gues if you havent experienced similar it maybe easier to read such a book and put away and thats that
Most of the people on youtube that I've seen rave about it fits into the 'basic-white-girl' stereotype - they say stuff like "this book broke me" - as someone with very bad social anxiety that I'm actively trying to work on , this book offended me and I'm not easily offended
It's hard to explain but its like they feel good for feeling sad/bad about all the tragedy in the book? Like they just want to feel something since their real life is so far removed from any real tragedy
It's ostensibly trying to take the subject matters seriously but it comes out hollow and exploitative - and I can't understand how anyone with any experience with trauma or know someone going through things could think this book is at all realistic
I've read fantasy books more grounded in how people behave than this book
Finally it’s here…
ruclips.net/video/T2JhSoRm-uk/видео.html
as a survivor of the type of childhood abuse depicted in the book, when ever i see these "i read a little life" videos, i feel sad and unseen. because, it is, as you said, always well adjusted able bodies people who "challenge" themselves to read this book ultimately for entertainment and content. there are so many of us who don't "get" to be entertained or challenged by this book, because we lived and keep living with what this book tries to depict. and then it does it so poorly and manipulatively. and it makes me feel so unseen when people who have not experienced severe trauma then talk how this makes them understand it better. to have people base their understanding of trauma on this book feels insulting.
and i know no one means any harm with the videos they make, and many youtubers i love have done those, but when ever one pops on my feed i just get a little sad.
Good thing about books, is that no one forced you to read it, or finish it.
@@boatsagainst i‘ve just finished the book and I haven’t felt the way you felt. Could you explain to me so I understand what‘s the issue with disabilities in her story?
I read this book because I also saw those videos, and I'd heard good things. I thought it was a well-written, well-designed, work with lovely prose and an absolutely fetishistic portrayal of mental illness and abuse, and as someone who is working through trauma, I found Yanagihara's specific interest in an unfixable, unredeemable character who will never get better to be fucking awful because even though she seems to think that the prevailing mental health narratives are that people magically get better, the actual mental health narrative is that you have to accept that you are inherently broken, unfixable and that you can only eke out a meaningful existence by accepting your inherent brokenness.
And as someone who doesn't believe himself to be fundamentally broken, unfixable, or incapable of leading a fulfilling life, trauma and mental illness notwithstanding, I think that's hot fucking bullshit, and I want the narrative to die.
It wasn't about mental health, though. Please tell me why you would assess the book by projecting your feelings onto it. It was never meant to be your self help guide.
@@jcon2060 Respectfully, trauma is a mental health issue. If you're going to portray someone who suffers severe emotional, physical, and sexual abuse to the point where they have no clearly defined sexuality and engages in explicit aggressive self-harm - Jude is never established as explicitly gay - then you are also, shocker, commenting on what you believe about that class.
But more to the point, Hanya Yanagihara has been explicit about her intentions with the book and its goals since she wrote it. One of them was that she had an interest in a person who was irreparably broken, for which no kind of treatment would actually fix them. They don't get better in the end because she doesn't believe talk therapy is valuable. A narrative she thinks is prevalent enough to comment on it by making her character broken past the point of saving.
And, finally, I can't believe I have to say this, everyone projects themselves into what they read. Books contain an inherent subjective element because they require the reader to put themselves in the place of a character and live in their shoes in a way no other narrative medium offers.
So if I get aggravated because someone is writing about people like me to make a point about me, I'll get aggravated about it.
Jesus.
Thanks for saying what I wanted to say. Sounds like she's fetishizing trauma big time.
@@jcon2060 what a stupid comment you have made.
@@Nemo37K Wow, color me surprised. Imagine not being able to differentiate between fiction and non-fiction. A book always tells a tale and it would also be best to separate the artist from his work. Criticisms about narrative structure and characters would be valuable, but the points made in the comment section are all completely invalid, and full of people just projecting their feelings onto a piece of work.
Maybe this is why Metallica is getting cancelled by 12 year olds -- with their rose-tinted ideas of what the 80s were like -- because of events that happened three decades ago, when the atmosphere was radically different based on questionable sources and brain-dead interpretation of said events.
one thought that was circling around in my mind while I was reading this book (esp towards the end) - "this feels like a very well written fanfiction"
like all the tropes and cliches used, all those emotionally charged scenes between willem and jude, all of the internal monologues of both characters - it's like witnessing fanfiction at its peak and most polished form
not to use fanfiction here derogatory. it's more about author's seeming refusal to go beyond a very narrow and superficial understanding of her own characters (cause you can kind of see how all of them had the potential). it really came across like she was just using them to prove a point that she felt strongly about
You'd think Fan Fiction would be more popular when books like this and 50 Shades of Gray blow up while using the same tropes.
@@NigelMelanisticSmith I mean 50 shades of gray was actually a fanfiction of twilight that got picked up by a publisher
@@Me-io3wg that's why I mentioned it. It seems like some people will only read fanfiction if it's published
It really does feel like a fanfiction or at least an OC fic. The focus on only putting the characters through suffering in lieu of exploring and developing them (and acting like making characters suffer automatically leads to an interesting or fleshed out character) is a pretty big sign. (also the focus on all the characters being gay despite the author being from what I can tell a straight woman but that’s another matter). Makes me wonder if it started off as maybe a Marauders or K-pop fanfiction or something. I feel it got such a reaction from the literary world because people from that side of things aren’t used to the tropes and don’t recognise the similarities to the average AO3 work and as such it comes off as very new to them
(whereas for me I could only really appreciate the fact that the writing was polished because everything else to me seemed like it’d been done to death already, and better in many cases, so I didn’t feel the book had anything new to say or add. I also had many other problems with the book’s structure and some prose nitpicks so it really didn’t do it for me).
characters dont need to be well developed for art to be good art. literature is not script writing or showmaking or storytelling. literature is art. Not saying this sad attempt at passing sadism as a life lesson is good tho, just saying that characters dont need to fulfill "potential" they serve the art.
This book was absurdly cruel. Judes story is one of crawling through a pit of despair hoping to find a way out and right when the clouds are breaking BAM. Just a lightning bolt of agony and then he dies. Genuinely feels like a middle finger from the author a 'sometimes you should lay down and die lmao'
I’m around page 230 and idk if I should finish it or not. I want to because I spent like $30 on it, but it’s been probably over a month since I read it because it’s such a slow burner and now hearing all of these thoughts Idek if I want to continue with it lol.
I want to finish it to complete my own opinion, but I also just don’t know if I can be bothered atp lol
@@Sophie_Pea
Could just read the wiki on it, or listen to someone else break down the story like this dude almost did. I honestly think this book is rubbish and uses cheap tricks while blundering through delicate topics.
@@Sophie_Pea please don’t just return the damn book because it gets so fucking bad eventually judas trauma becomes hilarious as a trauma survivor there’s nothing funny about trauma yet somehow yanigihara made the book and Judas trauma so exaggerated you cant take it seriously anymore
@@ugsubliminals man i’m glad I wasn’t the only person who found it funny. the first few bits of trauma were pretty horrifying but by the tenth angsty thing to happen it was just too much and it became unintentionally funny. (Obligatory disclaimer that real trauma and actual victims in real life are nothing to laugh at). I think the book did a serious disservice to actual trauma survivors everywhere, honestly
I found an interesting reply to this type of point you are making. Namely, that as readers we are put on the spot: at what point do we stop believing Jude‘s narrative? At what point are we mistreating Jude because we don’t believe him and how suffers? I genuinely believe that people can have a life similar to Jude‘s in respect to how bad it is. Not necessarily how it played out from the plot exactly, but I firmly believe there are people who have lives worse than Jude, but we don’t get to see them because not every life is documented and not every victim speaks out. So, not accusing you of this, I find these charges that I hear that the book is unrealistically cruel pretty stupid. That‘s exactly what‘s wrong with us: we find it ridiculous what victims tell us and don’t believe them.
I really enjoyed this book for the first 600 pages. After that, all I could think was, "Yeah, Yeah, we get it. It's sad.”
I couldn’t tell if this was a skit or a serious talk and spent the whole video laughing awkwardly
yes
Yo 🔥ruclips.net/video/rdJ9bsN7JAw/видео.html
Is this conditioning ?
A little life is a very traumatising book. I’m not saying you have to love it, you don’t; but engaging with it does require some emotional honesty, like it’s very difficult to satirise the book intentionally.
I personally thought the book was well written but also agree with man carrying things criticisms and I didn’t think this review was a skit. I thought this is genuinely how he felt about it.
@@ManCarryingThing i no
I have zero interest in reading this book and I've read plenty of heartbreaking books. I've read so many interviews of the author where she discusses her motivations with the book and it's...pretty disturbing. She basically just wanted to create a character that suffered endlessly for the sake of suffering. She specifically stated she wanted there to be no hope for this character and wanted to show that even seeking help (eg. therapy) would go nowhere. Why would I engage in such a disgusting aim? This is just the ice berg of the things the author has said about this book. Given that this is her SECOND book about men becoming gay because of pedo gay predators, I honestly see her as highly suspect.
most gays become gay after being groomed by predatora. Also, I don't think Jude was gay and Willem was also a predator.
What was the other one?
@@Cuyt24 Where did you find this figure?
@@twokindsofovenfries32 The People in the Trees
@@Cuyt24 bruh
Thank you! Ever since I read that quote about "the limits of therapy" I've been dying to see someone call this author out on her bullshit. I disliked the book on its own merits for lots of reasons, but reading about Hanya Yanagihara's uninformed views on mental health and psychiatry and how those views influenced the story turned my dislike into hatred. The lack of research that went into this book really shows. I agree with almost everything you said but the part about how the reality leaves after a certain point and the author takes on the role of God is SO spot-on and it sums up one of the things that bothers me most about A Little Life. I feel like Yanagihara basically created a fictional character just to put him through every misfortune imaginable and then used him to illustrate the point "maybe some people should just kill themselves, actually" and she seems to have no appreciation for how harmful and fucked up that is. Also, hearing that she has "strong opinions" about trigger warnings does not surprise me.
"the limits of therapy"
If the author is more knowledgeable, she would realize that therapy is constantly evolving and challenging its limits.
Because that's how science works.
Moreover, there are many forms of psychotherapy you could choose from. CBT, DBT, Rational emotive (?), etc.
And why would she compare therapy with religion? Usually, you cannot question religion. With psychology, you have to question things so that you'll have research papers....
And why would she not research the main topic without taking account other aspects, perspectives, experiments, of the main topic of trauma?
Sound like her point of view IS a religion.
@@Andy-gg4xw Yeah. When Jude finally decides to see a therapist at the end and then he's dead in the next chapter I think we're supposed to see that as an indication that therapy couldn't help him and his suicide was inevitable. Instead I was like "hmm, he could maybe have benefited from DBT or antidepressants or something but I guess that doesn't make for good misery porn." The Simpsons quote "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!" comes to mind.
I was introduced to your channel through your skits and meme vids, but I've also recently gotten around to your book tube videos and got to really love that as well. Please, never stop doing both
Finally it’s here…
ruclips.net/video/T2JhSoRm-uk/видео.html
It sounds like this book goes from being about sad vibes to being a book that tries to convince you of the bleakness of life. Yes, I'm talking about green eggs and ham.
Sidenote: The editing in this video is 🔥
thanks dude :)
The finality of accepting defeat and submitting to the Green Eggs and Ham and subsequently dying a slow death of radiation induced cancer
Finally it’s here…
ruclips.net/video/T2JhSoRm-uk/видео.html
At least when Thomas Ligotti did that he devoted an entire separate philosophical treatise to it outside of his fictional works.
Seriously though read The Conspiracy Against The Human Race. For multiple reasons it's easily the scariest thing he's ever written, not the least of which is how convincing and thoroughly he lays out his case.
I found you through skits but began watching your book content.
Within a few days after binging everything, I read my first book in years.
I was a huge bookworm as a kid but as I aged I just got worn out.
Thanks to watching you, I’ve gained my love of reading back. I always look forward to when you upload one of these reviews or essays.
You get straight to the point and you have a great take without fail.
I’m sorry if the English isn’t great, it’s my second language.
This is so lovely to hear, thank you so much
@@ManCarryingThing Thank you for helping me entertain myself again.
I have felt much more whole by reading, before I did not have many hobbies.
Thank you so very much for your response.
Misery porn books, movies or tv shows for that matter are for people that live protected safe lives and find it exotic to experience these feelings in their own life, but in a safe way. As someone that is not so privileged to live such a protected life because I have enough shit to deal with on a daily basis I find zero fascination in this kind of shit.
I’ve never considered this, and now I’m going to ponder on it for days to come. I’m so glad I read your comment
I think the inverse of this just explained why I can't stop watching Succession, a show about awful billionaires being awful to each other in incredibly funny ways (it's the sort of show where both the fandom and the awards shows can't agree whether it's a dark comedy or serious drama with comedic elements.)(The phrase "Gobbldey-go fuck yourself is uttered at one point, and the most healthy relationship in the entire show includes lines like "I would castrate you and marry you in a heartbeat" and "What was I going to use a soul for anyway?") I want to believe that those people are just as fucked as I am.
All human beings suffer.
@@bananachocopie this and sometimes I think people seeing other people suffer in possibly a worse way than them makes them feel better about themselves/makes them hopeful about their situation/distracts them from what they’re dealing with
thank you for putting this into words
This novel is on my “Anti-TBR.” Now knowing more from the author with their own words just makes me double down on that.
Same.
Me tooo
So so brave
What's tbr?
@@lolwtfbbq111to be read, it's a list of books you want to read in the future
to answer your question Jake "Man Carrying" Thing, it's because people really love reading things which make them miserable, but the problem is A Little Life is just a genuinely terrible gimmicky book in my opinion.
the story is so all over the place as if the writer was just going along with it with no planning or idea (especially jumping to just Jude). it becomes almost comical of how much bad stuff happens to the character, as she seems to just throw in "and he was sexually abused. and he was again. and then everyone he loves dies".
there's some really good miserable art out there. heck, my favourite band are the smiths. I love films like Happiness and Mysterious Skin. but the problem with A Little Life is there's nothing genuine about it. Yanagihara admitted to doing no research of trauma and seemingly despises the reader and characters of the book, wanting them to both suffer for absolutely no reason.
it could've been good, especially if the story was more just, grounded and focused instead of trying to make it as seemingly depressing as possible for the sake of tricking people into thinking it's good because it creates a reaction.
that's just my analysis of the book.
also some of those videos are so forced and laughable I swear. it's normal to get emotional over art, but some of those videos are like high school drama performances.
agreed 100%, it's just misery porn 😐
I never finished the book it was so much misery for misery sake and made no sense, it just made me uncomfortable and I've never felt that with a book before - with all the terrible things happening to Jude specifically I don't understand how he could function let alone become some top lawyer when hes described as someone whose always cowering in the corner alone
I think the reason i felt so uncomfortable was because the author obviously was missing something and I felt bad for the characters as if they were real people being forced to go through trauma by some evil puppet master
I just couldn't suspend my disbelief and at the same time the issues tackled are real but butchered by the author
I feel like a lot of the young people who just LOVE this book has a very naive view of the world and have never gone through real trauma and can't spot the ridiculousness of it all
i hate trauma porn. I think it's really manipulative and cynical
Wow! Amazing comment
Upvoted just for 'Jake "Man Carrying" Thing'.
I actually dnf'd the book at that exact moment you mentioned. by the end of the happy years it really settled into my mind that yanagihara just wanted...idk? to cause a reaction? I think you phrased it well when you said she wanted to play at god. by that point it felt like she hated me the reader, her own characters, and maybe even herself if I'm being honest. it sort of struck me as the kind of behavior I would elicit as an angry child-playing with my dolls, causing them pain because _I_ was in pain; a childish kind of self-soothing.
I have many mixed feelings about the book. I know how it ends even though I quit 90% of the way, and I don't know how I feel about the overall message of the book: _some people are so traumatized that they never get better_
I have mixed feelings because while I think it can certainly be true, there are definitely people who never get over their trauma, a) it's enabling an ideology that after crossing a nebulous line of trauma there is just no point in seeking help, and b) it pervades this idea that progress must be total, a complete recovery, for it to count.
I understand why the author believes what she believes, I understand she thinks she is saying, “there is no difference between physical illness and mental illness. some people are in so much pain and they have a right to die if they choose to.” this, in my opinion, lacks a certain nuance. it's a false equivalent, and as you said, it feels malicious and irresponsible.
I actually didn't cry with any of the horrifying (and unnecessarily graphic) abuse scenes. it was actually the scene where Jude's adoptive father tries-and fails-to get through to Jude by telling him just how beautiful he is as a person that made me genuinely emotional. it was the moment I realized the author had no intention of giving Jude any amount of respite.
also I will say, I hate those videos of people sobbing over this book. they feel both cheap and insulting for some reason, but that's just me. I really did like this analysis, it put into words a lot of opinions I couldn't quite put my finger on
The best takedown of this novel (well, all of Yanagihara's novels really) is called "Hanya's boys" by Andrea Long Chu.
An elegant bloodbath.
Omg I just read it. “The first time he [Jude] cuts himself, you are horrified; the 600th time, you wish he would aim.” Chu literally put what I felt reading this book into the most savage phrase possible.
@@dasssass6227 I knoow! So simple, so awe-inspiring.
This was an absolutely fascinating video! I haven't read the book and definitely never planned on it lol so you best believe I'm watching the spoilers section
Keep with you plan. The book is ridiculous. The best thing about this book is this video essay.
I am so glad I found your video. I read this book in 2018 I think. My mother got it for me for Christmas based on her friend's recommending it to her. Oh my god. I googled it at the time and I could not find a bad review of it. Everyone was universally praising it. I thought I was going insane because everyone loved it when it was the single bleakest thing I have ever read. Every bad thing that can happen to a person happens to Jude. It is very obvious that Yanagihara had never researched anything she described from physical disability to mental illness. The only character who felt like a real person was JB. They are doing a stage play of it in London now and there is literally nothing I could imagine that would be more bleak than watching that as a play or a movie. Booktok is a very weird place.
I started reading this book right before you posted on Instagram that you were reading it, and I actually enjoyed the first 200 or so pages (I teared up at the letter Harold wrote Jude after the incident with the broken mug). But then... it seemed like Yanagihara started writing fanfic of her own characters she'd introduced. It felt like things got worse and worse, far beyond the tone of realism that was established at the beginning of the book. What's more, it felt incredibly repetitive in the routine of Jude undergoing something traumatic, shutting out all the people around him who try to help, and suffering more from it. It just got exhausting; I can understand why Willem got extremely frustrated with Jude for never telling him anything, but yet the narrative frames Willem like the bad guy for wanting his friend of 20+ years to be open with him.
I next to never read more than one book at a time, I like to devote my attention fully to whatever I'm reading, but I needed to intersperse this read with other books that didn't have me feeling so gross and depressed throughout.
Love your content, Man Carrying Thing! Thank you for your comedy and your thought-provoking analyses!
We live in an age where people have so annihilated their emotions through mass consumption of media that both authors and readers think there is some kind of salvation in extremes, when they miss the point. True artistry is always about the balance, and just like real balance it is exceptionally rare. Yhis book is a key example of someone mistaking a little bit of courage to be extreme for having actual talent, and why the writer is a hack.
Well said and incisive.
THANK U . Agree
I'm not going to lie but near the end of the book I laughed. The way the author was trying to traumatise jude to the max was so obvious and it became so predictable that when willem died my body had this knee jerk reaction of a laugh and the statement 'well jude's going to die and that's the end of that'. The book was disconnected, I felt the friendships to be weird and very superficial. The trauma was so excessive to the point that I lost interest very quickly because it didn't feel realistic that so much was happening. Like the book didn't leave you time to breathe before something else was happening. The way in which the time period of all this happens was so poorly written, like the author stating their ages shouldn't be the only marker to show that the characters have gotten older. The entire book felt like it happened over the space of 3 years not 20ish years. Most characters were so annoying. Willem was bland. The writing style was doing too much at times, like I don't need a six page list. The author gave the most unnecessary information. I read this book in 3 days - literally sat in my lectures reading this instead of doing my physics work. But it was honestly the biggest waste of my time. Genuinely for fun I should just write an essay to myself about why I cannot stand this book. This is just the summary of why I hate this book. I've commented somewhere before why I hate this book and people have attacked me saying you obviously don't know trauma and all that bs, but this book felt like the torture was written in as a sick kind of fetish way. The author tends to write books that seem (i've only read summaries of her other work) to torture gay men without really saying anything, in this sick twisted way.
YES ANOTHER VIDEO ESSAY. These are rea)y well crafted. My favorite is the Lolita video and the Wheel of Time hour long video essay. Keep the goodwork up 👍
thanks doctor!
With all the skits he makes, sometimes I forget that Man Carrying Thing is a legit book review RUclips channel.
It just kind of speaks to the weakness of this book and its message for me that Yanagihara had to contort reality into this super over the top suffer fest to make her point. So, the point is (or at least the underlying views of the author are) that therapy doesn't work and sometimes you just need to die. Yet she can't come up with a realistic story that supports that idea. So in the end, doesn't the book actively work against her own views?
in japan there is a genre called "utsuge" literally "depressing story", the fact that there is a genre just for sad stories shows that some people like to seek that stuff out.
Yeah. It’s like ryona.
Bojack Horseman did the whole pitiful self-destructive (horse) man so well that books like these just feel like shallow try-hard misery porn in comparison. I'm sure I would've ate this book up in my late teens/early twenties though.
I've read SO MANY good things about Bojack, it's really interesting. I haven't watched it yet, but I do intend to, a this comment gave me one more reason for me to. I honestly don't think I've ever seen this happen with a tv show, specially an animation. Not even ATLA.
Anyways, random comment, but yeah lol
@@r4.v3n I cannot recommend it enough. Its NOT trauma porn like this book, it's easily the most accurate and human depiction of damaged people I've ever seen. I'd suggest giving the first half if the first season your time, it takes a while to get going. It's also one of the most rewatchable shows I've ever seen, there are so many funny background jokes and witty lines that you can't catch them all on first watch.
He
@@r4.v3n yeah it does take a few episodes to find its feet and then it hits the gas and never lets up until the very last episode. Just be warned it can be emotionally draining at times. In a good way but still.
Two of the things I appreciated most about Bojack were:
1. He doesn't mess up a narratively satisfying amount of times and then have convenient character development. He fucks up over and over, and consistently fails to learn or fumbles his attempts at redemption, just like a real person like him would.
2. The series didn't end on some horrifically bleak note but a more neutral one about how you will have to deal with the consequences of your actions, that the hard work of being a better person is worth it but not always rewarding and definitely not a clean streamlined process like a character arc on a sitcom such as Horsin' Around.
Omg a new long book video! I love the memes but these videos are truly why I subscribed
Also you’re so right about the “four friends” concept going to way of the dodo. Seems the author forgot some of her children at the store XD
Yet friendships do fade and alter and ebb and flow over time...life changes and so does the centrality of certainfriends - geography, work, health, relationships etc...friends we have at eighteen may still be in our lives but in a lesser way, if at all. People become peripheral. I'm an old cynic in my late thirties, so perhaps I sound a little negative but I think the fact that Malcolm and J.B are not as central later in the novel is quite realistic of life.
@@Journalistwoman Regardless of how realistic it may or may not be I personally also got a bit disappointed but because I had heard it being advertised as a story of friendship/ 4 friends going through obstacles and growing older together. I found Malcolm and JB interesting as characters and was disappointed when I found out we wouldn't really get to know them that well. I think I would have liked the book more if it was less Jude/ Jude and Willem centric and instead included a bit more from Malcolm and JB's lives too.
@@alcs-ir1ev I understand. It may have been interesting, say, to have Malcolm's point of view when Jude first attempts suicide. Malcolm's input in this section is to merely replace the blood-stained marble he initially designed in Jude's bathroom. How both Malcolm and JB found Jude to be so puzzling, wary and unusual as a sixteen-year old at university is briefly described but more insight and dialogue exchange may have enforced some of their (quite ephemeral) thoughts and feelings.
Gay men are a safe demographic for women to see inflict harm and have harm inflicted upon because it doesn't have any impact on them as a demographic like it would if the subjects were straight/bi men (potential perpetrators against women) or women (identifying with the perpetrator/victim). I haven't read this book in particular (though I wanted to until I found out more about it) but it's a thing I've seen and heard mentioned a lot, particularly in fanfiction. It's kind of like torture porn, which is something that can be very cathartic or even fun if it's done properly.
Jude doesn't have a sexual identity but as you said "I haven't read this book in particular"🙂
@@hibellla tbf hanya has an obsession with mlm, be it gay, bi or unlabeled. so op isn't wrong technically
lmfao it’s crazy that you act like gay men don’t do this shit too. a gay man wrote american psycho which is full of unnecessary, overly bleak violence against women.
Gay men harm women… sexuality doesn’t take away the position they benefit from in society at the expense of women for being men. This may not have been said with cruel intent but it’s important not to forget this fact.
This feels a lot like the way I felt about Shameless on HBO. I just couldnt take it anymore: watching these people continually make horrible selfish choices and then continue to fail at life due to these horrible choices.
I don't like feeling perpetually bad about characters in a show lol
Like at least Vince Gilligan knew when to cut it off with Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. He made self destruction, while none the less devastating, fun to watch, with characters that find a degree of redemption like Jesse Pinkman and Kim Wexler, or score the emotional/philosophical victory if not the material victory like Nacho Varga and Mike Ehrmantraunt. It's not just a slog of misery.
@@tjenadonn6158 Not to mention those shows are surprisingly hilarious.
@@shamsham1229 Seriously, does "A Little Life" have a lawyer screaming "HE DEFECATED THROUGH A SUNROOF!" or mentions of the elusive Hoboken squat-cobbler? I don't think so.
I felt the same way about euphoria. It just became way too much
piggybacking off your comment and another, i agree that shows like shameless and euphoria have “gotten too much”. these shows started out great, there was room for improvement but a majority of the stories were compelling enough to want more…and then i feel the writers/producers put more shock value or kind of comedic stupidity and selfishness of characters we were rooting for all for the sake of profit and views. it’s one thing to write a flawed character and/or story, but it’s another to write a *good* written flawed character and/or story. idk. sigh.
I couldn’t stand the novel, personally. Not when it initially came out, and even less so now. Hanya Yanagihara is far too eager to dwell in violence, both physical and sexual, and takes an almost fetishistic lens to disability, mental illness, and suicidal ideation. It is made worse in the fact that she projects this all onto a lifestyle she knows little about. Beyond that even, the very fact that the violence and disability with which Yanagihara is so morbidly obsessed are also something she also knows so very little about is not only frustrating, but downright offensive. If not on an ethical or emotional level, then certainly on an intellectual one. It’s a bad book, not necessarily in its execution, but in its spirit. A mask of good prose, with a pockmarked and utterly rotten face hidden behind it.
(edited for spelling)
I agree it seems f-tishistic, I've always gotten the vibe from this book that it's the same thing as men writing about the beautiful suffering female r-pe victim yada yada and they seem so turned on by it, this book gives the same vibe, the fact that Jude is so damn perfect at everything and intelligent and goodlooking even though he thinks he's so ugly it's just ughh..
What? Where do you get the vibes that it‘s fetishizing these things? In the book they are all portrayed as being an immense source of suffering and misery to Jude.
Beautifully written.
@@lendrestapas2505your comment doesnt contradict op at all tho. Also, op is not stating his opinion as fact, so chill
Despite the skits getting many more views, this is much more satisfying. Very thoughtful and well made! I appreciate a booktuber who gets specific and even spoilery - too many are petrified of spoilers to the point that they aren't able to really communicate their ideas on the book. Great job!
This video put together all the thoughts I had while reading a little life into actual words!! I read this book right at the end of 2019/beginning of 2020 (FOMO got me good) and while I think it handled the cyclical insidious nature of trauma and how it makes a nest of your brain through Jude really well, I also think that the simple act of experiencing this book is traumatic. I think that a lot of issue with this book is the lack of empathy that the author shows towards her characters, as well as toward the readers of the book. While reading it I often felt as though I was reading something I shouldn’t, like I was getting these glimpses of Jude’s life I didn’t deserve while everyone around him who loved him wasn’t aware what was going on. I’ve heard a lot of folks say they found articles of Hanya saying she had the intention of writing a book that made people cry and that hurt people and that’s how a little life was born, and I’m honestly not shocked to hear that if it’s the truth, especially after reading it.
I felt that Jude was actually very lucky later in life, he had so much support and wealth, and that really seemed to undermine her intention. She made the story life-affirming in some ways, and then went back on it. I too wanted more about the inner lives of his friends, but to mee Andy was the least convincing part of it. Don’t know how to explain why.
The story is life affirming at some point but the point is to show that even when life seems to give you everything, there are people who are so scarred that they cannot accept the love and kindness they are offered. Jude‘s mind has been so profoundly altered by the abuse and manipulation he suffered that he cannot keep going on.
@@lendrestapas2505 yes Jude suffers toxic stress and ptsd and cannot escape his horrific childhood. The accumulation of wealth doesn't negate his ever-present imposter syndrome. Education, intellect and work are Jude's resilent factors and even though he is greatly accomplished in each sphere, wariness and fear are a constant.
I take it that Hanya Yanagihara is a literary sadist and she wants to make her readers suffer as much as she makes her characters suffer.
I dunno, stories like that make me feel that I‘m reading or watching a cheap pornographic novel/film, with the only difference that the subject matter isn‘t sex but suffering. And it usually feels as if the author is exploiting the characters.
I think authors/directors of such stories usually have a sadistic intent towards the reader. And that doesn‘t bother me as long as they’re honest about it. But it angers me, when they don‘t and instead claim that they just want to „show it as bleak as it really is“. It‘s a strange form of tackiness.
i haven’t read the book but i saw the stage adaptation directed by ivo van hove in london. it has polarising reviews; some critics love it and others called it trauma porn, so i was nervous going in. i bought tickets cos i’m a fan of the director. after the 3.5 hours onslaught, i concluded that the original author has a morbid God complex who takes pleasure in inflicting pain and has probably never suffered any hardship herself. when Willem died in a car crash, i yelled “WHAT?” so loudly, people in the audience looked at me. the music and the acting were stellar tho.
I've watched the London play too, yet I can't imagine going to see the play without having first read the book. Not a criticism. The play is a condensed textual 'sketch' despite the length of the performance and of course because of the (different) dramatic medium. I actually thought Willem's death scene in the play was questionable in how it was conveyed/performed (whether the actor or the script/direction - I think the script because Luke Thompson was excellent and should have played Jude in my opinion - apparently he was first chosen to read for the part of Jude and Norton for Willem). Neither the book or the play are 'torture porn' to refer to that now over-used tabloid like critique of a novel which I think is really interesting, and horrific in its subject, and pathos-ridden and frightening and awakening (as are many stories/books/songs and fairy tales etc). Jude's suffering is heightened but the continuum of abuse/abusive situations is not unreal.
I’ve hated this book for years, and sometimes I wonder if that’s to its credit? But honestly, no, I just deeply resent how it’s treated and talked about as an important trauma narrative when it has nothing to contribute - rather, the precise opposite.
I often think about it in comparison with Edward St Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose novels, the author having experienced essentially the same things as his protagonist: prolonged child abuse, addiction etc and all the trauma that came with it. You experience severe lows with Patrick in the books, then moments where you think he’ll heal, then relapse, and then just when everything seems helpless and you do think he’ll give up, St Aubyn lifts his protagonist to his feet again in such an understated yet beautiful way - and you know that it’s going be difficult, but that he can make it, and you believe he will.
That is the kind of work that contributes something meaningful to trauma narratives, written by someone who knows what it’s like to live through these things. Someone with immense privilege, like Yanagihara’s Jude, but who doesn’t let that alienate the reader from a story that’s about humanity above anything else. The Patrick Melrose novels were hugely upsetting and disturbing but they felt like they meant something, and they had heart.
I really can’t say the same about A Little Life. And honestly, who is Yanagihara to talk about when death is the only answer? She’s clearly not reached that conclusion for herself, thank god, so why on earth would she suggest such to anyone else? Vile.
Honestly, this book was praised so much for being sad and heartbreaking, while the only thing I noticed out of it was the heavy use of shock value to make a strong impression. Really disappointing
When I read this book, I was looking forward to crying. I love books that give me an emotional reaction. But this was so over-the-top that I didn't even feel sad at any point. Most people don't read a lot, so I understand why they would be swept up in this book. Let's not forget, people were swept away by Fifty Shades of Grey, but avid, intelligent readers are affected by it too. I just don't get how they can't see through the bad writing.
Spoiler: This scene perfectly encapsulates why I hate this book.
Jude's doctor has been trying, for well over a decade, to get him to seek help for his trauma. Jude attempts to unalive himself and ends up in a hospital. In the span of less than one page, the doctor goes from asking Jude to stay there to getting the doctor to release him to go back home. And Jude doesn't even have to fight him on it. He just calmly says that he wants to leave and the doctor's like, "Yeah, sure. I'll go let someone know." The doctor I spent all that time reading about would not give up that easily. But the doctor I spent all that time reading about wouldn't help move the story toward a devastating ending, so screw consistency.
I get that the author doesn't believe therapy is the miracle cure everyone thinks it is, and I agree with that, but this book did a terrible job of showing it.
As someone who lost a parent to suicide and has struggled with suicidal ideation and has known other people who have committed suicide as well….I think the author might have a point about not all mental illness being treatable. I know that’s a controversial take but I’ve always secretly felt that it is not possible for every person, nor is that necessarily a bad thing. And yes, I do think therapy and drugs have their limits, as I’ve seen the struggle with my own eyes. Why is it wrong to point out these limits when people in long term therapy take their lives on a daily basis?
I’m not suicidal anymore but I still stand by this. What is inherently wrong with taking one’s life if one is suffering that intensely? What is inherently noble about living a life of pain? As someone who HAS dealt with this trauma, I think these are valid questions to explore.
I think it’s about capacity to give consent
@@bruhmoment1761when you say capacity to give consent, can you clarify what the consent is for? I'm not sure I understand what you are saying
hello !! I am not sure where I stand on "not all mental illness is treatable" yet, however, I think it's an incredibly valid and discussable point, specially because, as you said, there are many people who seem to be beyond any kind of help. You asked why it was wrong to point out those "limits" when they present themselves, and I think the problem lies on WHERE those limits are, and how anybody could pin them down. How could you possibly decide when the things you've gone through make you beyond "saving"? Although they didn't elaborate, the person above mentioned consent, and I think there's a discussion to be had about if people who decide to take their own lives are level-headed enough to even make that decision; not to mention what the author said about professionals assisting with the endeavor. In my personal experience, when looking back at my attempts and the thoughts that led me to them, I was NEVER thinking clearly. I was always pushing my own ideas about myself that were not true, and even though people in my life proved me wrong time and time again, I could never see it. When in that state, I NEVER saw a way out. I thought there was absolutely no way I could ever recover or even feel happy again. But, sometimes, a little, even if just a tiny tiny bit of light, shined through. I pushed through because I thought there WAS a way.
What I mean to say is that even if there are "limits" to what a person can go through before becoming absolutely unsalvageable, I'd say MOST people with any experience with suicide think they're at their limit; that there's no way out. That's where I think that line of thinking becomes almost impossible in practice. If we told all the people with suicidal intention "Maybe YOU ARE truly unsalvageable", I believe it'd be terribly irresponsible.
About "What is inherently wrong with taking one’s life if one is suffering that intensely?", I don't think people think badly of the person who takes their own life usually (aside from a select few, who think they're "selfish", will go to hell, or some more nuanced situations like a parent leaving a child alone). And "What is inherently noble about living a life of pain?", I think the admiration comes from a person willing to work through their struggles instead of simply letting go. However, I think it's interesting how this admiration does not commonly translate to hate when a person DOES decide to let go. Albeit, I didn't understand these questions well in relation to the original argument, so if you could elaborate a bit more on them I'd love to listen!
But, that's why I don't like this book at all. Sorry, I know you don't mention it lol, but I just wanted to say this. I saw so many reviews of people who read this book saying they felt relief when he died because they felt it would just be better. I've actually dealt with a similar situation before, when people thought a dear friend just dropping dead would be "better", and, I think nobody gets to decide that. To me, it's almost insane to say that someone would be better off dead than trying their hand at any kind of recovery. In the book, the fellow tries to heal multiple times, but the author just kicks them down, time and time and time again, as many people have said, to an almost "comical" degree. It angers me how the author says that living through those issues (which they did absolutely ZERO research on) means that you SHOULD just die because it's better that way. That's absolutely insane to say about things you don't know a drop about, imo. I don't think I would dislike it nearly as much if the author actually poured some research on the book, because THEN maybe they would've read about people's story of getting better, or getting worse.
Anyways, sorry if this was long or all over the place. I hope it came off as respectful because that's what I intended; I think the questions you raise are very important and need to be discussed. Nothing should be dismissed without discussion just because of its controversy. And lastly, if you liked this book that's fine !! You can find comfort where I don't. thanks for reading if you did !!
@@sebunpallainteresting comment. It seems to me (and this is not necessarily directed to you) but that a lot of people's reaction to this book exactly proves how people can't deal with the notion that suicide is a way out. I know, unfortunately, people who have said at suicide of own child: "There's a sense of release" and if you knew the case and the people you'd find it very hard to argue.
Yet writing a book about it incenses people so much. People are entitled to dislikes the book but I feel a lot of the justifications (her view on therapy, that she didn't research etc)) are just retroactive justifications for what is basically discomfort with the story and the life depicted therein
Sad stories and experiences are something I love to indulge in. I can even enjoy things that seem to completely crush me with despair. It definitely can come down to that sense of catharsis, a temporary indulgence in emotions with intensity I never want to experience on a daily basis can actually make me feel better. But I think the hardest thing to do is to have a point to it. Its tempting to write a story where nothing good ever happens to evoke that crushing sense of despair, but on the contrary I feel the things in a story that can truly evoke the most emotional, saddest response in me is showing a character growing and healing from trauma instead of just wailing in it. True sadness needs some happiness to go along with it, and healing from trauma is often more interesting and valuable than just showing trauma.
I had interest in this book, wondering if it was really as sad as people said it was. From the way you describe it in this video, though, it sounds like the opposite of everything I was describing previously. Trauma porn is just exhausting, there's only so much suffering you can take before the story makes you numb to it.
Lots of great things happen to the main character in the book as well as suffering. Read it, then make the judgement.
I’m actually incredibly curious about how you feel about the book No Longer Human, where these themes are coming from a much more autobiographical place. Do you think a concept like this would be improved by being based on the author’s own experiences, or do you think that the concept of something like this is so flawed that it would be difficult to salvage even with a greater sense of understanding from the author?
That book is on my TBR, so I will be reviewing it soon
@@ManCarryingThing Ooh! I’m very excited to hear about it. Do you plan on reading the Juni Ito adaptation afterwards? I’ve heard very good things about it.
I just read both of these books, No Longer Human overall a much more solid work, even less fun read because of the relentless despair but better put together and shorter books often have less fluff. I think it's going to haunt me in ways that A Little Life will not.
Gay CSA victim here! I feel like I could understand this book’s existence if it was written by someone like me as a way to cope with their own trauma, but the fact that it’s written by a woman who hasn’t gone through the things she wrote about, nor researched it, really icks me out. I feel like this sort of literature has a place as a form of coping with and venting trauma through a character like Jude, but this obviously isn’t that, and that leaves a really bad taste in my mouth
I read about that book for the first time a week ago, and only reading the reviews on it makes me mad, and sad. I'm a suicidal person who hopes to find help in therapy, and to know that there's a book out there that's been praised for the "unique and hard to swallow message" that life sometimes doesn't get better, actually, is just awful. I think so many suicidal and mentally ill people have felt that way at some point. I don't know whether i want to read it, but honestly I'm so glad for the trigger warnings provided by the internet, some of those things could seriously jeopardize my already unstable mental health and i hate that people can find a book like that and start reading it without warning.
Great analysis that made me rethink other stuff I’ve read. I felt similarly about A Thousand Splendid Suns, the second book by Khaled Hosseini who wrote The Kite Runner. The fetishization of sadness and trauma is a personal gripe of mine because the point for me is to find meaning in stories, so when there is no meaning and it only serves to be sold as cry porn it disgusts me. It reminds me of sitting back and watching a mindless action movie that only exists so people can see action scenes and explosions. The problem is that the scenes need to mean something outside of their plot descriptions. I think I was first exposed to this when people would recommend one of my favorite show, Violet Evergarden around as “an anime to watch to have a good cry” or “tear-jerker” because similarly yes, the story contains trauma and sad things in people’s lives but they do not just exist to give the audience the “feels” and cry, the audience needs to think and engage with what they experience in show, and therefore better engage with how they act in their own lives. Bit of a rant but I appreciate an honest review. There’s a lot of pressure to make reviews that fill be positive and satisfy people to avoid negativity towards your channel, but being honest I find much more engaging, and I like to challenge things myself by reading and learning about things that I don’t agree with or haven’t been fully exposed to. TLDR: thank you for an honest and engaging review. Your review existed to share your thoughts and experiences, not just to fill an upload to get views.
Look at 0:04, he really is Man Carrying Thing. Perfectly embodies it.
Thank you for this. This book made me so angry and the widespread praise of it is concerning. I worry that someone in a vulnerable place could come away from reading this thinking, "Huh, maybe I'm also broken beyond repair. Maybe I should just kill myself". It's for sure due a reappraisal.
Personally, I really REALLY dislike this book as well as the author. Thank you for touching on many of the points as to why this is the case for me! As someone who has struggled with mental health since I was younger and who has experienced the benefits of talk therapy and CBT, I hate the limits to therapy things. Also, it felt like trauma porn which for me is problematic.
Of late I’ve been realising a distaste or unease that I have for straight women writing gay male fiction. I’ve been uncomfortable with disliking this trend that I’ve seen because it feels reactionary and I don’t want to be in any way sexist, especially since a lot of my favourite voices in fiction and poetry have been women who I feel have been misunderstood or marginalised.
But it annoys me that a lot of the popular image of gay men has been decided by straight women, in the same way that it would annoy lesbians to see straight male writers presenting tired tropes about butch and femme. Just recently in the UK we’ve had two works of fiction by young women about gay male relationships, which in and of itself is fine, but both (Heartstopper and In Memoriam) speak to a very airbrushed vision of gay males as cute heartthrobs that wouldn’t look out of place on an issue of Seventeen or Tiger Beat.
Having really struggled to see myself as an “authentic” gay man because of my weight and mental health issues and self-esteem issues, basically because I’m as complicated and messy and not always pleasant as everyone else, that is frustrating. And based on your description of it and relation of comments about therapy by the author, A Little Life seems irresponsible AT BEST.
I’m never going to touch this book for a few reasons so I’m grateful you’ve made a quick video about it
I think this is a really interesting discussion!
That said, I think this video might have benefited from a quick summary or synopsis near the beginning for context. I am not familiar with this book aside from watching this video right now, so this seemed to jump right in and on occasion I had to make assumptions to keep up.
Refreshing to see a booktuber put into words exactly why I DNFd this book 200 pages in. I enjoy books that are bittersweet, but this book was just bitter and it felt like the message was "nothing will ever improve, life is misery, you might as well die" which is just not a message I can spend 800 pages of my energy on.
Just finished this book a few days ago after reading it in four days. I didn't cry, not even once, it just made me absolutely angry, we get it, Jude faced a lot of trauma and sadly some people do experience similar trauma in real life, but come on, it just felt over the top. By the time I finished The Happy Years all I could do was roll my eyes, ofc Willem was going to die and ofc Jude would follow suit, they can't be gay and happy. Honestly this book felt like reading a long fanfic, a lot of things didn't even make sense once you stop to think about them.
And and also I think a lot of people decided to read this just for the challenge that it presented after being labelled "the saddest book of all time", I don't get why you would film yourself crying and telling people how awful and traumatising this book is.
I feel like there's almost an obsession with sadness, and maybe that's not something new, but I think when there are so many of us that no longer feel some kind of threatening end, like nothing in their life makes them feel those kind of sad or terrifying emotions, makes people seek out these bleak, traumatising, miserable, stories that they latch onto to try and emulate a feeling that doesn't naturally occur in their lives.
While I really loved this book, I do have to agree with most of the criticism about it. This was a great review.
thank you for saying that! i liked a few parts of this book but feel so weird saying that because everyone seems to hate it so much (for good reason but still) even though some of it showed real promise.
@@christine0382 same here! I completely understand why this book is so divisive, and why so many people hated it (especially considering the author's lack of research and views on the very serious issues in it), but there's just something about this book that's stayed with me since I first read it. Like you, there are just certain parts that I liked a lot too.
But yeah, even though I love this book, I think it's really important to acknowledge and be critical of a lot of the problematic aspects of it as well.
@@michelledoesstuff yeah definitely, i agree, the book is flawed in a lot of ways
It's because of something that you both have in common. Pleasure from voyeurism is an inherently female trait. Murder shows, trashy shows, this ignorant, ridiculous, stupid fucking book. It's a pattern. Accept it.
@@michelledoesstuff This is what is amazing about reading, it's totally subjective. There will always be people that doesnt like a certain book, there isn't a book that everyone objectively likes - its impossible. Every book has flaws, because there will always be that one person that thinks about that certain flaw. This is something you have to come to terms with yourself. You make your own subjective opinion. If you like the book you like it. Don't let other people influence your opinion.
I know someone has said that before and that it seems like a very weird non compliment but I really like how your videos aren't very long. And I say this not bc I have the attention span of a goldfish but there is something so wonderful about taking big ideas and talking about then in a very concise and compact way, which you do. Most video essayists are self indulgent and boring in their desire to convince you how intellectual and funny and subversive they are. Which is awful. In conclusion, you're not like other girls and I really appreciate that.
There were many basic problems with the book - lack of study into trauma and abuse. it was also written by a woman who was not disabled or gay, making it seem as if she was profiting over someone else's life. More importantly, it was a sadistic book. To some extent, I could bear the injustices happening to Jude. Anyone can justify these incidents by claiming the pathetic nature of life in general. But I feel the whole intention behind these injustices wasn't to give a message at all. It was only to explain to people that when chronic trauma touches you there is nothing that can save you. No man you love, no form of therapy, no family can protect you anymore. It is not comforting, not helpful, not relevant, and frankly anti humanitarian and a cheap solution. If people find solace in this conclusion, then the author has succeeded in being awful. Also, since this work is inspired from a real life event and not from her life, it is safe to assume that the main character Jude isn't a biographic sketch of the author. Thus, she doesn't really have a say on trauma, the solution, the Limations of therspy, and sexual abuse. To make art, to make opinions, and hurt an audience especially when you are not a trauma victim is downright cruel. Hanya Yanagihara is cruel. That is pretty evident.
As a PTSD survivor, I really appreciate your review and the fact that you opened the conversation up for others to express similar views. It's extremely disappointing that the author hadn't even researched that kind of child abuse. Sure, use your imagination, but there are a whole lot of us out there who have actually gone through serious trauma, myself included, and who have been recommended this book as a 'sad novel'... Not one that espouses viewpoints that are flat out harmful, and reflective of failures in a health system and society, not failed people.
I had wanted to attempt it at some point, but had a feeling even if it weren't such callous trauma porn that it would be triggering. I'm realising with more context that this book, while lauded as a shocking yet moving portrayal of trauma, misery and hopelessness, just ain't it. There are many other books about traumatised people that, while still disturbing, resonate more for me and don't contain a message that would be harmful to read. People with PTSD often deal with intrusive thoughts and triggers that can wipe us out for days; I can't quite bring myself to read Yanagihara's book for the knowledge that this is certainly what would happen to me.
Oh be quiet you, you are not a survivor. You don't have PTSD. You are a weak narcissistic child and you need to grow up. Just stop it.
5:09 I have some complaints and gripes with the limitations of therapy, both in practice in the modern sense and the concept itself, but the author saying "ya know sometimes your trauma means you should just like, ya know, die." killed any desire to read that book.
I've been in dark as shit places before, and that comment sounds an awful lot like the people that would tell me and others to end it because they either thought it was funny when they contributed to a suicide (happened more than once where i grew up), or were weak bags of squish that need people with actual problems to stop existing near them because they don't wanna acknowledge how easy they've had it or don't wanna have to care about others. I genuinely hope that author is just a horribly sheltered idiot and not something worse, because i'm getting a really bad vibe it's something worse.
This is kinda how I felt about this popular Manga called Goodnight Punpun, it has really interesting imagery to show punpun’s mental health struggles, but by the end feels like a kinda shallow cycle of just the worst possible things that could happen and choices that could be made by everybody
I really enjoyed this book and got a lot out of it - appreciation for my own life and health, and a renewed sense of how much people in my life love me, and how much I love them. Her writing kept me reading, and I didn’t feel exploited as a gay person.
I think sometimes people want to focus on a certain aspect of something and blow it out of proportion. I could say I felt the same way after reading this book; I felt a renewed sense of the people in my life and how I should appreciate them more.
After I read this book I felt so devastated. I don't even know if I liked it. It was just sad and my feelings were in a mess. If you asked me for one single thing I liked about it, I wouldn't be able to give you an answer. I thought it was a masterpiece but for what I don't know.
The book was unnecessarily depressing. Jude was faced with one traumatic event after the other. For no realistic reason other than Hanya Yanagihara wanting to depress you.
This is awesome! This is by far the best book review if watched :) Keep it up!
wow. the thing about talk therapy is some of the most removed stuff i've ever heard. i can't imagine coming to that conclusion, i say that as someone who has quite frankly stared at that particular bottom-of-the-barrel option a few times.
This is a really great review that encapsulated every single thought and emotion I had reading this book. “I’m ready to read something different.” My exact thought after finishing it 😖
This is my favorite book of all time... It is the most beautifully written, heartbreaking book I have ever read. Not a lot of books can invoke such strong feelings from me. A lot of people like to label this as trauma porn, but it is so much more meaningful. If you've ever experienced some of these traumas or forms of abuse, I can guarantee you will understand that these are real things that happen to real people- and the realistic struggle on how people cope with it. Or you may know someone who has had the same outcome. To me it is illuminating, I can relate to Jude in some ways and I have so much love for him. I fell in love with all of the characters as if they were my own family. It's all written in the most impressive prose. I will never come across another book like this. I have such a strong bond with all the boys and others. It took my breath away.
Great to see book content again! As much as I enjoy your short skits, I also think you do great with book content and I can't wait to see more
Absolutely agree on all points in spoiler sanction. From very vivid alive depiction of friendship with all its ups and downs it turned into suffering porn to the absured extend. I hated how there was nothing about Jude's character outside of his trauma, he felt like some kind of "Mary Sue" of abuse existed only for us to be sad.
Ah, yes, the take I've been waiting for
I read this in the 2020 craze and was expecting to feel a lot, but it honestly read like bad fanfiction, or like a long episode of Law and Order: SVU where the writers gave up halfway through. I don't want to pretend to be an authority on abuse by any means, and I'm sure that a person who went through all the things Jude did probably does exist, but by the time I got through the halfway point of the book, I just couldn't stop rolling my eyes. Knowing now her stance on therapy, makes a lot of sense
It's a shame because the bones are good, but I don't like how sloppy and lazily done this was. You didn't want to do any research on the very complex childhood traumas you're writing about? This is the one you thought would be fine to just wing it?
I also don't love that she's writing a "bury your gays" story when she's not in the queer community (presumably? I tried looking it up and didn't find anything, if she has mentioned she's queer at some point and I just didn't find it, my bad), and when called out on it, her answer was essentially just "you can't tell me what to write." Which, uh. Helluva stance. And with that in mind, having the thesis of your novel be like "sometimes it's cool to just give up and die" when your book is, at least partially, being marketed to queer folks, particularly young adults, where suicide is the second leading cause of death for people under 25, is fucking gross.
My thoughts exactly.
She's a straight Japanese/Korean women in her forties who writes about white gay predators.
THANK YOU
Whole lotta words. None of them were “okay, I got a cat!”
Sometimes abbandoning all hope can be the start of the proccess of getting better. Cioran once said that knowing that he could commit suicide anytime and that it was always a possibility at his dispousal was precisely what kept him alive. Ironically, it's the pressure of never giving up no matter how tough things get what makes some people to give up.
Ridiculous nonsense. This is what happens to humanity without god.
"That's a no." amazing! Loved hearing your thoughts on this, MCT! I hope you are doing well and you will be at 200k before you know it ^__^
Heyy been following you for awhile and I like that you speak your mind instead of hyping this book! Such a breath of fresh air. I feel like booktubers are so boring with their uniform opinions. And btw I’ve just read Jean Patrick Manchete because of you and I want to thank you for introducing cool writers that none of other booktubers (that I know of) are recommending!
in almost every reading vlog of ALL that i have watched, the reader dismisses the fist part/chapter of the book, "Lispenard Street", as a mere introduction to the characters. but that is my favourite chapter because there we get the story all four friends in details, jude a little less. from "The Postman" it becomes SOOOOOO jude-centric. every single person's life in the book revolves around jude, and if it does not, they are almost dropped. i get bewildered now when people describe the book as the story of four friends and their friendship. nope it's not. it's just jude. and that made me livid. the book peaked too early for me.
It sucks that so many people picked up this book as their introduction to Yanagihara, because, in my opinion, her first book "The People in the Trees" is her actual masterpiece. It uses that nihilism and disregard for human value to much better extent, really zeroing in on a truly vile and reprehensible figure with surgical detatchment.
I mean there are authors who use nihilism well. One of my favorite horror authors, Thomas Ligotti, literally wrote the book on nihilism: it's called "The Conspiracy Against The Human Race," and it's basically to existential nihilism, antinatalism, and philosophical pessimism what books like The God Delusion are to atheism.
I agree. I loved The People in the Trees and I found it way superior than A Little Life in all aspects (characters, plot, writing style, etc)
havent seen a video about this book that ive actually agreed with. as a depressed person it very much after a certain point felt like self-harm, i ended up dnfing after half way because it was making my depression worse lmao
Man, I haven't read A Little Life but it reminds me so much of Oyasumi Pun Pun, in the sense that some people also criticize it for similar reasons, accusing it of being misery just for the sake of it (I do not agree I think it's beautiful). I'd love to hear your thoughts about it. I recommend it, it's very unique.
(Not an english speaker + too lazy to check for mistakes = obligatory sorry for bad english, just in case)
The thing with Oyasumi Punpun is, I personally felt so absolutely exposed with the events of story, and through the characters of Punpun and Aiko, I couldn't see it as either melodrama or manipulation or punishment. Just a boy and a girl who have had a very sad, uncannily similar life to mine.
But still that's a very subjective view, I'm interested in hearing his thoughts on it.
i liked both and i disagree with people saying they are too sad. people like listening to sad music (the smiths for example) and seek out that stuff because art makes you feel things. in the same way people will watch horror films to stimulate their amygdala or watch videos of people dying because of morbid curiosity. i definitely don't think a little life is for everyone, because it's not. but things like bojack horseman, the leftovers... people like sad art.
Goodnight Punpun is a masterpiece imo.
Thank you so much for making this video. It’s a really important conversation that I don’t see many people having :\
Love this video. Thank you for this perspective and for your sensitivity and thoroughness with this topic
I loved the book. People care too much about the fact that Jude doesn't get better but there's so much more to the book than just that. The message of friendship is the strongest point of the book. Personally, the way it depicts a depressed and self destructive person is very cathartic.
agreed
Your review was perfect. My whole book club loved it and I could have done without. It just became ridiculous
It just felt manipulative. I was honestly enjoying it until they started to flesh out Jude's background and then it got worse, and worse, and worse. Nothing rips me out of a book like feeling that author's hand is there. The job is to torture your protagonist, make their journey as difficult as possible, but at some point it also starts to lose it's effect.
Haven't read the book, but about the car crash death:
For one thing, a car crash is more effective in a story where sudden suffering like that is unexpected.
Also, it is normal for car crashes to happen, but no matter what you're writing, it's a story.
They obviously have a belief system and narrative they're trying to show and if your car crash is just too much suffering to be believable in context, then it takes the reader out of the story, thus hurting your narrative, thus, it's bad writing.
I remeber the moment i turned on this book was at the climax of jude's experiance with his abusive boyfriend, it felt comically over the top and almost stupid but the relentless bleakness of jude let me know i was supposed to feel the same i had felt when he was abused in the home. I felt angry for having been invested in something that felt this was a tonally correct direction. then just as you described willem dying just left me flat.
i think the best excersizes in misery are often either over the top to the point where the abusers and despicable people cricle into disgustingly foolish characters or so focused and small scale that it allows you to comprehend the actual effects of violence. for example in salo, 120 days of sodom the nazis literally eating shit and to a lesser extent were so sexually desperate the child victims gained back their diginity as they watched in horror and disgust as the perpentraters revealled how beastly they were as if the kids had set a trap for their captors. or for the latter in snowtown, the film silently shows theses horrifying yet depressingly common forms of sexual abuse and people's contridicting reactions to them to emphasize how sexual abuse can transform someone into a very desperate and bad person.
a little life wanted to have their cake and eat it too, she wanted to depicted extreme forms of violence and abuse while making everything hit with that same grounded realism. its impossiable. if you're first exposed to uhhhh yeah so this little boy grew up in a locked room with monks and was beat up a lot and sexually abused and uhh also could only wear a table cloth and like would shit his pants but he had no pants to his room was covered in shit, there is no where to go from there that actually hits emotionally. at some point its just gross and voyeuristic.
if i had to guess why this blew up on booktube i think its two fold. there was search for percieved intellect which comes reading "smart" books which manifested in a year of donna tart love, or at least obsessive reading of her works, and a search for queer storys a la foxhole court, dream theives, evelyn hugo. a little life bridged that gap as kinda the best of both worlds with the added clout of having read "the saddest book ever". also i think able bodied people really have a poor perception of what represents good disabled depictions (source i am able bodied and didn't really think about it till it was point out here) so there are like on paper a lot of "diversity wins" which led to higher levels of recomendations.
I ordered and got this book after watching Jack Edwards' review on it. I love the man and his videos and I trusted his opinion on it. I've never got past a few pages. One, because it was a mammoth of a book and I was really intimidated, and second because I was just fucking terrified. Now, after watching videos that criticise the book and learning about Yanagihara's lack of research and her "interesting" views about therapy, I've started self reflecting and realised that even I fell into fetishing mental illness as a source of entertainment that is inherently "meaningful" because of how depressing it is.
I genuinely enjoy melancholic and depressing stories that delve into disturbing topics, like Omori and Oyasumi Punpun, but they have their own merits outside of being "le sad story". They aren't just great works for being melancholic.
Yea this is basically a poorly structured ramble. It's something I wanted to discuss and today I just felt like it
Jack Edwards liking this but refusing to read dune messiah or even watch the movie because he misunderstood the theme of the first book is hilarious.
@@Sayajin3321 Even the best of us fumble. I for one can't wait to get my hands on it