So little life
So little life —A little life, by its original English title—is a novel written by American editor and author Hanya Yanagihara. This work first appeared on shelves in the USA in March 2015. Later, in 2016, the Lumen publishing house acquired the publication rights, with a Spanish translation by Aurora Echevarría Pérez. To date, the book has gone through three editions, and has been nominated for several awards, in addition to having won many others.
Hanya Yanagihara and So little life They were selected for various awards such as the Booker Prize for Fiction (2015) and the National Fiction Book Award (2015). On the other hand, the novel managed to win the Kirkus Prize for Fiction the same year it was published. Well-known media of the likes of The Guardian, Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal y The Washington Post declared it unfair that So little life won't get more recognition.
Synopsis of So little life
Of the friends that stay
So little life is a story about the friendship between four men, which takes place throughout their college days and middle adulthood—a period of forty years, give or take. The main actors in this novel by Hanya Yanagihara are: Jude, Willem, Malcolm and JBAll of them black, except for Willem, who is white.
Each of the protagonists is successful at the work level. The book is divided into VII sections. At the beginning of them, the narration runs by the four characters.
Later, the story begins to focus only on Jude, the true protagonist. The actions and behaviors of this character are often described as "dark."
His friends realize that there is something in jude, a mystery that it has to do with his past and that he is unwilling to reveal. However, Willem, Malcolm and JB accept their friend, their circumstances, decisions, behaviors and they let it be, although they cannot stop caring about it.
Literary parallels?
The most tortured character in So little life invites you to think about Thomas Hardy and in his novel Jude the dark (1895) Like Hardy's Jude, Yanagihara's protagonist is a man who suffers because of the actions of others, which bring him to a disastrous end.
Despite the constancy of his friends, and the fact that they always prove to be present at every moment of his life, Jude he doesn't know how to appreciate it. The latter does not happen out of pettiness or selfishness, but because this character he is a broken man.
In addition, he is the only one of his group who seems simply ineffective in the world of affections. In parallel, Malcolm has a girlfriend, and shares a house with his parents and his sister; JB is openly gay; Willem and Jude live together, but the former is a Don Juan, while the latter is a stubborn loner who refuses to be liked. On the other hand, friends do not share professional interests either.
The mirage of job success
The professional success of the protagonists is tangible. Each one works with ease in different areas of the economy: JB is a famous plastic artist and photographer; Malcolm is an accomplished architect who works at a prestigious firm, where he meets his future wife; Willem is a renowned film and theater actor; and finally, Jude is a talented lawyer who belongs to a law firm of international stature.
In sum, all four meet the standard of what the American male should be like. This, at least, in appearance, because this novel does not focus on praising the concept of the American dream, but on exposing the abuse and its consequences. So little life tells how the interpersonal relationships of his characters are manifested. Each chapter has several narrators. Which change randomly.
This fact produces that the same event is related from several perspectives.
The support of the plot
Much of the specialized criticism alleges that So little life It's a gay novel. For his part, the author has mentioned that, before that, it is a work with “queer aesthetics”.
However, the true plot pillar is Jude: the story of his parents' abandonment, child abuse that he suffered from his caregivers. It shows his sinking into unhappiness, and how she tries to free herself from dissatisfaction through self-flagellation.
Jude He is a man who, because of his traumas, does not know how to socialize. This character does not allow them to love him, because he has the impression that he must return those "favors" in another way. His whole life has been based on mistreatment, and he does not understand that he can act under a different conception.
Throughout the 1004 pages of the book, the main character is a victim of every calamity that a human being can suffer from. Therefore, this reading is not recommended for highly sensitive people.
About the author, Hanya K Yanagihara
Hanya yanagihara
Hanya K Yanagihara was born in 1974, in Los Angeles, United States. The author is the daughter of Ronald Yanagihara, a Hawaiian oncologist and hematologist. Her mother is South Korean, so Hanya has always had a wide cultural background. Through the years she has resided in various cities of the American State, such as Texas, New York, California and Maryland. He did his high school at the Punahou School. Later, he studied at Smith College in Hawaii.
After graduation, she moved to New York, where she worked for several years as an editor and publicist for Condé Nast Traveler. Currently, she is the editor-in-chief of T: The New York Times Style Magazine, an activity that has been criticized for being "a provincial community, more or less as snobbish as the fashion industry."
Today Hanya K Yanagihara continues to create literature. His biggest contemporary influences are John Banville and Hilary Mantel.
Other books by Hanya K Yanagihara
- The People in the Trees (2013);
- Paradise (2022)