A Little Life: When An Author Gets In The Way Of Their Own Story

I recently finished reading A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. The novel had been on my reading list for quite some time, and I was looking forward to finally unpacking the story that had garnered a lot of attention worldwide.

However, the more I read it, the more I disliked it. And afterward, the more I thought about it, the more I hated it. I suppose, in some ways, it is the author's job to evoke feelings and emotions. In that case, Yanagihara was successful. I did feel a certain way about it.

But my disappointment doesn’t stem from the overall message of the book. Rather, what the book could have been.

Let’s start with broken promises.

The way the novel is initially structured, it seems as if we will be following four main characters as they go through their life. There is JB, Malcolm, Willem and Jude. All four of them are given plenty of room in the earlier part of the novel as we come to learn about their pasts, insecurities, ambitions, and character traits.

And I was sold.

I was interested to see how JB’s inner demons would wrestle with his artistic talent and the need to be wanted. With Malcolm, I was curious to see how he would grow and mature out of his insecurities as he is presented as this rich kid who has everything given to him and doesn’t quite know how to live up to his parent’s expectations and carve his own path in life. Willem was perhaps the one character I was most looking forward to seeing unpacked. He has such a tragic backstory and his connection with his brother was incredibly moving.

However, we only get a glimpse of these characters moving forward as the narration shifts and we follow Jude for the majority of the novel. Which is fine. But not something I had initially committed to. However, Jude’s story was compelling, so it wasn’t like I didn’t want to know more about him.

But I also wanted to know more about the other characters that were introduced.

Each time JB comes back into the narrative, he grows more famous, and we see a little of what ambition can do to an artist, as his want to be great leads to him crossing the line several times, especially when it comes to Jude. But we never really get to see how JB deals with his flaws. How he matures. What he is going through. We get glimpses but not the whole picture. Instead, he is just a plot device after the initial introduction. A character there to poke holes in Jude’s psyche. But not a real character.

What happens to Malcolm is even worse. At least JB still had a character arc. Every time we check back in with Malcolm, his life has gotten better. He has found his passion, excelled at it to an incredible degree, found the love of his life and is living happily. The only real struggle we see from him is whether or not he wants kids. Everything else has just happened. We never get to see how he overcame his self doubt or dealt with the expectations put on him.

Meanwhile, Willem’s arc is tragic. And not just in the way it ends. Rather, the story sets up this powerful past and deep connection with his brother, and all of that goes nowhere. We see Willem mention his brother maybe one or two more times, and that’s about it. Again, his struggles as a character are overlooked. We don’t see how he deals with his trauma. He essentially becomes the perfect actor with the perfect roles. His only real struggle is maintaining a relationship. Other than that, he is a crutch for Jude. The perfect friend. Even that friendship is soured by plot decisions later on but more on that in a little bit.

I guess my main issue was the fact that there was so much potential to unpack various different themes of what it means to be human. But all of it is brushed aside for what essentially becomes a torture porn storyline.

It seems as if the author is hellbent on getting the point through that sometimes our pasts are so tragic that there is no escaping it.

That I do agree with. Sometimes, there is no overcoming our demons.

However, the way that subject matter is handled in the novel goes from somewhat realistic to absurd.

The initial characterization of Jude was honest and moving. A kid who had clearly been through sometimes horrific and couldn’t get himself to open up to others. Even his closest friends. In fact, the self-justification of his past even led to him blaming himself and punishing himself.

I’m not saying that a character like this has to go through an arc where he learns to deal with his past and lives happily ever after. That is unrealistic. Sometimes, we are scarred so deeply that there is nothing anyone can do to help.

However, if the story had treaded this theme without going in an extremely absurd direction, I might have enjoyed it.

The absurdity begins with the introduction of the character Caleb. When it comes to writing, authors talk about how you are essentially trying to find what’s the worst case scenario that can happen to your main character and going down that route. But, there also has to be a threat of logic and reason behind the worst case scenario. And the Caleb storyline did start with some of it and then it quickly went off the rails.

That’s a theme I noticed. Good ideas, executed poorly.

Caleb basically ends up being this extremely abusive boyfriend who does everything Jude believed would happen to him if he opened himself to another person. After that, we basically see that every adult Jude met as a kid ended up abusing him. Once he is rescued from that abuse, he is given back to the care of people who continue the cycle of abuse. He escapes them and hitchhikes for a while. And every trucker he meets happens to like young kids. But there’s more. After going through all this hell, Jude meets a comically evil pedophile doctor. The scene where the doctor is chasing him down with his car was meant to be moving but I couldn’t help but laugh at how absurd this story had gotten.

And then we have the theme of friendship, which I felt was derailed by poor plot decisions.

One of the most charming aspects of the novel is the friendship between Willem and Jude. Willem always acted as Jude’s night star, someone to steady him and help him through his struggles. But, unpacking this relationship further, I should have known that this theme would end up disappointing me because the entire time, we barely get anything from Jude that helps Willem. Maybe that’s because other than JB’s addiction, none of the other characters outside of Jude have an arc where they might need Jude’s help. The relationship is portrayed only one way. This happens to be true for most of the relationships in this novel. Everyone seems to have this innate desire to help Jude, meanwhile, Jude really does nothing to show why or how he earned the trust and affection of these people and also what he does in return for others. `

We are simply meant to accept that Jude is special, which is why he has these unbreakable bonds with certain characters. But then, that bond is distorted when the author decides to make Willem and Jude a couple.

Having finished the book, it’s clear why this was done. As if Jude hadn’t been through enough or had enough reasons to commit self-harm, he needed to go through Willem’s passing and the breaking of his one true relationship to push him over the edge. However, in doing so, Willem’s entire character arc was thrown out of the window. He became a plot device. Someone used to exploit Jude’s insecurities to make him finally open up, trust someone, and then exit the stage.

The entire relationship dynamic was a pain to read. It unnecessarily added another 100 pages of text. And the worst thing is that it wasn’t needed at all. Jude would have felt the same effect of Willem’s passing whether or not he was in a relationship with him. It was already clearly established that Willem was the one person Jude cared about most in his life. So, there was really no reason for this inorganic relationship to come about.

Besides, if Jude had opened up because he felt this desire to do right by Willem, who had supported him for the majority of his life, it would have strengthened the friendship theme. Instead, it felt as if Jude was obligated to tell Willem what happened to him because otherwise, the relationship between the two would fail.

All in all, I feel as if the author tried too hard to get their message across. In doing so, they failed to tell an organic story about something serious and important. The message of the book is real. It is worth telling. But that message gets watered down with each poor choice, pointless plot decision, and caricatures of individuals rather than real portrayals of human beings.

The main lesson I take away from the novel is that you shouldn’t put yourself ahead of the story.