Hanya Yanagihara on trauma, nostalgia, and the endurance of friendship
Chiara Greco, Nutgraf Press Creator
TW: sexual abuse, physical abuse, self-harm
I first read A Little Life two years ago in the middle of July while finishing up summer school courses and I'm still thinking about it now. That alone should tell you how engulfing Hanya Yanagihara's writing is. Upon finishing the novel I felt a slew of emotions: envy and jealousy—mostly towards Yanagihara's writing to the point where I had wished I wrote the novel myself. But underneath those emotions were pain, sorrow, and a certain sense of what I can only describe as easeful nostalgia. I couldn't stop thinking about the novel after I read it.
Yanagihara’s writing is timeless. Her characters transcended the novel and became people I could recognize. Through her writing I was able to view each character as a fully developed and flawed person. Her novel follows a group of four friends from college—Jude, Willem, JB, and Malcom—as their friendship deepens and they transition into adulthood. The novel centres upon Jude and his traumas while also delving deeply into the lives of his friends. While Jude may be considered the central character, Yanagihara does not leave any stones unturned as she explores the experiences of each friend and their relations to each other. Her story though was not one of friendship alone but of the human experience in all its elusiveness. Yanagihara captured the lives of real people, of real friendships, and of real pain.
As the novel progresses, we find ourselves within this group, experiencing their connections and beginnings through a mix of present and past narrative form. Yanagihara traces back each characters beginnings to their current friendship and along the way presents us with images of nostalgia. Her narrative style highlights and explores the male bond as it transforms from friendship to love. But the better part of the novel is spent uncovering Jude’s deep traumas. The ins and outs of living through sexual, physical, and mental abuse as Jude copes through self-harm. Yanagihara’s treatment of these topics is done so with a careful hand and eye. Though this is not to say that the novel has gone without criticism on this topic. In fact, while many have criticized Yanagihara for romanticizing trauma I think that her novel as a whole presents the very real image of living within trauma. In this sense her book is not for everyone. But despite the content, she is able to write about trauma in a way which paints the debilitating picture of utter brokenness and the endurance and importance of friendship through it all.
Though to say that the reading experience was "un-joyful" would be wrong (at least for me). Rather, Yanagihara’s writing was so seamless that it did not even feel like reading but rather listening to the stories of old friends. This way of writing made the reader themselves feels conjoined to the friend group, in turn making each loss, fight, and celebration feel all the more real. The novel was written in such a way that I felt as if I was within the pages, hidden beneath the text, experiencing each moment alongside the characters. But more than that, her writing allowed for the characters to become more than mere words on a page, I was able to think of them as real people. People that I may know. This is something I'd imagine any writer hopes for, to have their characters live outside of and beyond their novel.
Now, to the term I’ve called “easeful nostalgia.” I’ll admit that I found it hard to finish this novel, partly because I never wanted the story to end. I didn’t want to say good-bye to the characters. Closing the novel itself felt like closing the chapter of my life that I had spent with each character. Though reading those last pages didn’t mark a definitive end for me. Two years later I’m still writing and thinking about it. There is a sense of nostalgia I’ve developed not only for the novel, but for the experience of reading it for the first time. The comfort of returning to these characters and their stories, of their friendship and their love presents itself as easeful. In this way, Yanagihara’s writing makes you feel at home. The novel, in all its horror and joy, provides itself as a place of comfort. A place of nostalgia.
In lieu of this, Yanagihara writes: “[…] your life, will always graciously allow you to step back inside of it, no matter how far you have gone away from it or how long you have left it.” I think the same can be said for her novel. Sitting on my bookshelf now, stacked between Virginia Woolf and Atwood poems, Yanagihara’s novel waits. Inside the worn pages is the space for me to return, to read it again and again. To experience each character as I did for the first time two years ago. Like any novel, A Little Life is asking to be read. To be picked up and felt, whatever the emotions may be—and quite frankly there’s plenty.
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