Why I’ll Let “A Little Life” Break My Heart Over and Over Again
A beach on Crete, Greece. Children running around. People swimming in the ocean. Silt on my face. Not from the sea, but from the tears running down my cheeks.
That was my first encounter with A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. I don’t remember who recommended it to me and why I thought reading it on holiday would be a good idea. All I do know is that roughly 700 pages never flew by so fast and left me so empty and heartbroken. Like I’ve just gotten to know four new best friends, feel like we’ve spent a lifetime together and then lose them forever.
A short summary
For those who haven’t read A Little Life (no shame, I get it), the premise in short: the story revolves around four friends that live in New York. Malcolm, an architect that comes from a wealthy family. JB, an artist who struggles with drug addiction. Willem, an actor that ultimately becomes a movie star. And Jude, the most mysterious character out of the four. He’s a successful lawyer, but his past haunts him all through his adult life, both through trauma and physical disabilities.
You start the novel knowing little to nothing about Jude. Everyone in his surroundings wants to know where he grew up, things about his past and what happened to his injured legs. Bit by bit you learn more about the horrible life Jude has lived and is actually still living. And it isn’t pretty.
Experiencing it all again 3 years later
The first time I read A Little Life was in 2018. Around that time there was also a Dutch play adaptation that I saw. Both with the book and the play I remember being shocked and crying heavily, but not being able to look away or stop reading. I had to endure it.
In 2021 there was a revival of the play and I decided to pick up the book again. I started underlining quotes and passages that struck me and there were different things that stuck with me compared to 3 years ago. It’s funny how I only remembered the gruesome parts, because rereading it, I caught more of the happy moments.
Basically torture porn
I hear you thinking “happy moments? All I heard is that it’s basically torture porn.” And it’s true that a lot of readers and reviewers have called it just that. Now, I wouldn’t go as far as calling it torture porn, but I do admit that it can feel like a lot, all the time. You’ll barely get to experience some happiness before it plunges into dispair again.
You’re right in thinking that I’m aware that A Little Life isn’t for everyone. So, you’ll won’t hear me recommending it to too many people. But I do know that the few people I know that have read it, hold it close to their hearts, just like I do.
Why I’ll always let it break my heart
For me, it’s not the fact that every bad thing happens to Jude. That it must be too much for one person to handle. It’s the fact that abuse, trauma, self-harm, assault: they are real and they are happening. And that it’s usually the case that once it happens to you, you’re caught in this circle that’s hard to get out of. Because it damages your soul. It damages the way you think about yourself. It diminishes you. It causes you to be afraid to ask for help and even when offered, you’ll find it hard to accept it, because you’ll hardly believe the person that offers you help.
Even though Jude leads a gruesome life for most of the book, in the end it’s about the people that care about him. His best friends, his professors, his adoptive parents, his boss and colleagues, his doctors. They. All. Care. They keep caring and they never give up. That’s where the happiness lies. Just like life it’s a fluctuation between happiness and sadness, beauty and terror, pain and healing. Through it all you still feel the love that all the characters have for each other. That despite everything there’s always love.
It teaches you a great lesson in never really knowing what someone is going through and how we all need love and a helping hand sometimes. Even when we push people away and find it difficult to accept help. There’ll always be people who love you despite everything and decide to stay.
So, I’m sure I’ll pick it up every few years to reread and check the quotes I’ve underlined. Maybe this time noticing even other things than the last time I read it. Because that’s what a good book does: it changes along with your perspective on life, each time highlighting different things that matter. Whether it’s the heartbreak or the love.
