A Little Life
August 24, 2015

My rating: 1 of 5 stars
I am perfectly aware that I'm going to be a dissenting voice, as this novel has already appeared on many people's lists as one of the best novels of 2015. I did not like it.
After reading the first chapter, I would have put the book down if it hadn't been so well-regarded. To me there was nothing in that chapter that captured my interest, and I thought, "Another novel about beautiful, talented, young New Yorkers [sigh]." For about half the book, I would have put it down if not for the reputation. The reputation compelled me to keep going, wondering if I was missing something or at least determined to discover what others like so much about it.
Maybe "Dear Comrade?" That section I found well-written and compelling.
Otherwise I have a host of negative responses to the book. For one, I thought the structure was often awkward. I enjoy non-linear storytelling, but there were unnecessary and awkward flashbacks and use of time. Here, for instance, is the start of a chapter "The first time Willem left him--this was some twenty months ago, two Januarys ago--everything went wrong. Within two weeks of Willem's departure. . ." So, we learn from that awkward beginning that we have now jumped almost two years since the last chapter (a feeling which disappoints us given what had just transpired) and from that future vantage point are looking back 20 months and then immediately two weeks forward. I was so dizzy and annoyed by this I read the sentences aloud to my husband, one of many times I griped to him about the book while reading it, and he returned a bemused look, unclear what I was talking about.
Near the end there is a scene, a significant scene, between the main character Jude and one of his best friends JB. Yet, nothing after that scene references it. Their relationship appears unaltered, as if this huge moment is forgotten, hanging out there.
Speaking of JB, I wanted to know him so much better. In the very beginning of the book I found the introduction of him to be the most compelling of the four friends at the center of the story, and yet we don't ever really get to know JB. Malcolm, one of the four friends, is a virtual non-character.
My second big complaint, then, is that characters go undeveloped. The story is supposed to be about the friendship of Jude, Willem, Malcolm, and JB, with Jude as the central character. And, yet, neither Malcolm nor JB are well-developed. Instead, some other supporting characters, such as the physician Andy and the artist Richard, are slightly more developed. The novel includes a dizzying host of supporting characters who most often appear as names in a list of people invited to a party or holiday dinner but never receive any serious character development. If you are going to write an epic story covering decades with scores of characters, then like Trollope or Galsworthy, you should spend some time actually developing your minor characters into real people.
Yet, my biggest complaint is that the plot defies all credulity. These friendships are incredible (in the strict sense of the word). They are catastrophically bad friends. ****Spoiler Alert***
I cannot imagine any group of friends living over the past thirty years who would go decades before seriously confronting their friends illness, suicide attempts, cutting, etc. Their motivation seems to be "If I confront him about this, then I may loose him." Well, no shit. The moral responsibility of the friends (and family) is to confront him about his destructive behaviour, whatever the costs to them or their relationship. So, throughout the novel I kept exclaiming, "No group of friends would act this way (or not act in his catastrophically bad way)."
Finally, the author appears to be a sadist, throwing every imaginable evil, horror, and suffering at Jude that an author could throw at any character. The stories often repulsed me and, as far as I can tell, for no good reason. In some ways the plot felt like porn in always having to go one step further in order to titilate--"That disgusted and horrified you, then listen to this even worse thing." Supposedly the book's power is that the story delves into this darkness, I found this delving-into-darkness to be peurile in its obscenity and sadism.
In other words, I recommend the novel to no one and wish I had never read it.
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