Review: A Little Life

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

Just to start: as someone who unashamedly judges books by their cover, I was not incentivized to read this at all until I accidentally stumbled across the 10th Anniversary Collector's Edition box set of this at a bookstore with the pretty artwork (that also conveniently subdivides the novel into 4 digestible physical books). 

Having finished it, I'd say the original cover is pretty representative of its contents, and also representative of my personal distaste for this work. Ironically, the box set artwork is closer to what I was "hoping" the experience of this would be: a touching reflection on the lives of 4 friends across decades.

One can debate on whether this could be considered "misery porn" or not. I'm not really interested in arguing over the definition of that here. I'll just discuss my overall thoughts:

The first 25% of this book, as well as parts of the middle, are actually decent. Yanagihara strikes me as someone who could be capable of writing a compelling novel if she tried.

Jude and Willem in particular come off as characters that I want to root for. I actually like the exploration of their relationship dynamic, in its imperfections and yet them clearly still caring about each other and figuring out how to make things work amidst the larger shadow that is Jude's trauma.

But all of that said, it comes off at the end of the day feeling in the same manner I might guiltily find myself rooting for two characters in a fanfic. Because the actual execution of their storyline is bad fanfic quality. 

By that, I mean in that story events are orchestrated in a way to satisfy some arbitrary wish-fulfillment of the author that feels at odds with the natural progression of the work.

So many elements in the latter 3/4ths of this book felt unnecessary. 

- Caleb (as a person who literally fits the "worst-case" profile of a partner for Jude) felt unnecessary. 

- Dr. Traylor adding onto Jude's already well-developed existing trauma felt unnecessary.

- Without spoiling, the last 25% of this book in its entirety felt unnecessary.

- Given the way things pan out, Malcolm (one of the 4 main characters) felt unnecessary.

There are already components of a believable narrative arc baked into this book, but they otherwise feel half done (see: JB) and then tossed to the wayside to focus entirely on Jude's suffering and why it continues to be never-ending. For the first 200 pages or so it is compelling. And then it becomes exhausting. And then at some point I'm just hate reading to see how it ends.

And it's not that this kind of suffering doesn't exist in real life. It's just at some point, the point has already been made, and any more additional suffering after that makes me question what the author is really trying to accomplish here. 

A lot of people point to the Yanagihara interview where she shares her thoughts on talk therapy and how she doesn't really believe in it, as a way of casting doubt on this book. I take less issue with that belief in itself, and more with how she set about to write an entire book that in its execution argues against the use of talk therapy for some people, while admitting that she didn't do any research into this subject. 

And then using all of that to basically say, some people are beyond saving anyway.

Even if that notion were true (I wholeheartedly disagree)... I find it incredibly disturbing the extent that it could be weaponized against people for whom this isn't actually true at all. Full disclaimer: I'm writing on this as someone for whom talk therapy didn't really work for years, until switching therapists and finally finding someone who did work for him.

Moreover, the talk therapy sessions that do exist in this book barely feel like real therapy sessions at all. Ask anyone who's actually benefitted from a therapist who actually knows their shit, and they can tell you that more things happen than the bullshit that's showcased as "therapy" in this book. It barely is given any thought, because the author has nothing to show for what real talk therapy actually looks like. Or she's only ever seen shitty therapists. But really though, I can't even say that Jude experienced shitty therapy because I have no idea even after reading this book what feedback he actually got from his therapist.

Anyone with a background as traumatic as Jude's deserves better than the treatment showcased here. It would be one thing if the book ended at the first quarter (with a tinge of hope), or as a cathartic Greek tragedy that ends quickly, but instead we're treated to a decades long treatise on how to live "a little life" in the aftermath of trauma without ever really trying to confront it in good faith, while accruing even more pointless personal tragedies just for the hell of it.

Sure, some people never get around to addressing their trauma either. In other books there is usually a broader point to be made when that happens (e.g. classic literature) but in this case it feels like the only point is to argue against a straw-man that was never convincingly strung up in the first place. 

Clearly others enjoyed this book. I'll admit I enjoyed it too at moments. I just... ultimately can't recommend it personally. Unfortunately.

Review: The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep

The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep by H.G. Parry
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I loved the concept behind this setting: one of the two protagonists has a special power than enables him to conjure the characters he reads from books into real life. Or rather, the characters that manifest into reality are his interpretation of that character from reading their book. From a fantasy and world-building perspective, this premise has a ton of possibilities. On some level it's almost Frankenstein-esque.

Also Dickens' David Copperfield is one of my favorite books of all time (see: Uriah Heep). So what's not to like?

As it turns out the execution was just okay; maybe a little too conventional for my taste. The narrator was frustratingly obtuse to his own character flaws (I may be biased because I too am an elder brother), but seriously this guy needed to get with the picture waaay before the climax.

Or basically... do you ever have that feeling where you get 25% into a book, figure out that you already know how to solve the main character's relational problems, and then realize you still have to drudge through a couple hundred more pages of interpersonal conflict and bickering just to see it end? That's basically what this is.

(I still felt emotional during the climax, but again that's because I too am an elder brother. and probably needed this catharsis in my own life lol)

Also if you haven't caught up on your 19th century reads yet (Sherlock Holmes' Hound of the Baskervilles; Wuthering Heights; Pride and Prejudice; Dorian Gray; of course David Copperfield; and more), then beware before reading, because this book spoils ALL of their plots.

Review: The Devotion of Suspect X

The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Lately I've been going through the process of reading a bunch of Japanese mystery classics that finally got translated into English the past few years (the Kindaichi series; Decagon House Murders; most recently the Tokyo Zodiac Murders). For the most part I've enjoyed them as comfort fare, but none of them have really stood out to me yet in the same way that this one did.

Basically in this book, the culprit is revealed the moment the murder happens, but the real crux of the plot is showing the detective figuring out how the crime was covered up. It's hard to say more without spoiling it, but let's just say I was pleasantly surprised.

I really appreciated that none of the actors in this book are "dumb" so to speak. The police especially are believable, rational actors who in my opinion never really feel too far behind from the detective (unlike other books where you find yourself frustrated with their incompetence); in some ways they function almost as a stand in for the reader trying to play catch-up. I could honestly believe real police functioning the way that they do in this book.

And really, everyone here is suspicious of each other. I had as much fun following the police trying to figure out what the detective was thinking as well as the culprits trying to figure out what each other were thinking. A good chunk of the enjoyment is figuring out what is happening on the fly during the investigation, because so many variables are changing in real time after the murder happens. Seldom do I see mystery novels place such emphasis on the progression of the investigation, on the same level (if not more so) than the event of the crime itself.

It's a refreshing take on murder mysteries. Or rather, I probably just haven't read enough of this style yet. Looking forward to the next one.

endnote: I just read that Higashino died of cancer last week. This is the second author this year who's died within a couple of months of me reading one of their books. I'm hoping this doesn't become a trend ;_; 

Review: The Trees

The Trees by Percival Everett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is framed as a murder mystery, but at its heart it's less a mystery and more almost a meditation on the legacy of racial lynching across America; not just on African Americans/black people, but Asian Americans too. There's some subtext involved that may slip notice if you aren't already familiar with the historical references (e.g. the classic protest song "Strange Fruit"), but the end result is far from subtle.

It crosses a bit into the supernatural especially towards the end of things; on one hand it's attempting to be retributive by forcing a social reckoning in our collective faces, but on the other hand... I'm not sure what to make of it in light of the reality of how American culture actually is today. It almost feels like too much of a wish fulfillment to me. But at the least, it makes clear the pain in a way that isn't always apparent otherwise. Black folks in America have always been more culturally conscious of this fact and the rest of us are still playing catch-up generations after. 

The one chapter that painstakingly lists out of the names (and still not known names) of all the victims tracked in this book alone, Emmett Till and everyone that came before/after, is sobering. Like you turn page after page and think "when will this end?" and you realize that is what the victims' families and communities have asking all this time.

Review: Lincoln in the Bardo

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Don't think I've seen another novel written in this style before, with each chapter being a series of discrete quotations from different sources and custom prose styling for each of the narrative voices (easier to explain if you just look at a page sample).

It's refreshingly unique... if perhaps a bit overwhelming to keep up with. At some point I stopped trying to keep track of which external sources were being quoted in favor of trying to follow the longer term narrative they were contributing to as there were so many of them.

As far as vibes go, it's giving uplifting Haunted Mansion. If that makes any sense lol. Definitely not what I was expecting from the premise, but in retrospect I enjoyed it a lot.

Review: The Man Who Died Twice

The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Turned off a bit by what felt like the lack of regard for human life from the main characters. Granted this is a murder mystery so dead bodies are expected; I'm referring more to evaluating risk towards people who might (and actually do) end up dying in advance, even though some of those folks probably had it coming.

It kinda left a sour taste for me, particularly in comparison to the previous book in this series which I felt put more thought and care into the same subject.

Review: I Who Have Never Known Men

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

This feels like the kind of book that if I had had to read it in school-- which is likely today given how short it is, it's the perfect length for high school scrutiny-- I probably would've disliked it.

Not that it's bad by any means (actually it's quite good); just that it's intensely focused on a subject that objectively is worth looking into, but not something that personally interests me as much, even though I can see what it's going for.

Basically to appreciate it you need to look past the "why" of things (a lot is left unanswered to both the reader and the narrator) and rather focus on the "what" that actually happens. What is it like to live as a human when stripped of all the hallmark things we traditionally associate with human life on Earth? Culture, the opposite sex, nature, a common sense of time, etc. It's enough to drive anyone mad, but that's in part because we already know what it's like to have all of those things. And then you have a narrator who literally is the embodiment of never having known any of it (the title itself is a misnomer -- it's not men so much as it's everything).

And it's all hopeful and depressing at the same time. If you're someone who likes to see things resolved in one's lifetime then maybe more of the latter. The unanswered questions still bug me even after finishing this and knowing that those answers weren't the point. Kind of like how I felt when I decided to quit the TV show Lost in its final season when I realized where the show was headed.

It's a good read for sure, and I'm glad to have read it. Just maybe thankful I didn't have to write a school paper on it.

Review: The Bone Clocks

The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Similar to Cloud Atlas in that the story is split across 6 different narrators, and yet despite the plots being more interconnected in order to tell 1 larger story, somehow thematically the result feels a bit less than the sum of its parts. Each individual section feels like it could be its own novel in style and substance, except that as soon as a given subpart feel about to come into its own, the novel moves on to the next story. So basically they all feel underdeveloped.

Part 1 was where I felt most invested initially due to the way it built up intrigue towards the bigger picture. There were some scenes where I remembered thinking "I would love to see a film version of this"; they felt familiar in ways I've seen from a good supernatural thriller that knows how to pull you in.

People say the fantasy aspect in part 5 feels contrived. Personally, I was engrossed despite it also feeling underwritten-- like it had climaxes that felt unearned because we wasted time on side plots and characters and digressing genres in parts 3-4 that should've been spent building more up to this (1 and to some extent 2 at least did a decent job). I would've preferred interspersed moments with the Anchorites and Horologists more directly involved with the narrators than the detached appearances we actually got: casual interviews that the narrators themselves proceed to immediately forget for story reasons.

All of that said, I still enjoyed each part for what they were and got pretty invested every time despite the lurking lack of cohesion, so it wasn't entirely for naught.

Ultimately I'm looking forward to more stories in the Mitchell-verse after The Bone Clocks. Between this and Jacob de Zoet I've been pretty enthralled so far and like seeing how all the connections play out between books. Really looking forward to the Hugo Lamb related one coming next year. It's not often I get to enjoy reading from the perspective of an asshole, and I felt I needed more of him in this book.

Review: Doctor Sleep

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Tbh not sure why this needed to be a sequel to The Shining rather than its own work. Because in comparison to that work, it... doesn't feel in the same league at all, but it's a fine enough work on its own.

I guess it's nice to imagine how Danny turned out as an adult (about as traumatized as you'd expect) but the villains and rest of the book don't feel as related to the first apart from a major Shining tie-in near the end that feels shoehorned in (to the point that I think the movie version stripped it entirely).

That said apparently the film also restored elements of The Shining book that got cut from Kubrick's film so I should probably watch that later...

Review: The Wings of the Dove

The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Henry James, why do I have such a love-hate relationship with your words? Why does it take so many of them to describe simple things like what two people said to each other last night? Why do I feel like I still don't have a handle on what happened even though I literally just read what happened? Why am I such a masochist? (Don't answer that.)

If Hemingway is the master of icebergs (leaving many things hidden under the surface of what's spoken), James is the master of... showing many things including what's hidden under the surface, but leaving you confused anyway. Because it turns out that what was hidden was just a long sequence of words that stretch the definition of what a paragraph (let alone a sentence) is, which is probably meant to be something tangible but I'm also probably too much of a fool to see it. Trying to grasp the meanings of James' language is like trying to hold onto a cloud.

And then whenever people actually do talk in dialogue, it's only to make statements like:

She's magnificent.

She's prodigious.

She's an actual person.

She's a dove.

Only to have to bang your head against the pages trying to answer, what do these people even mean???

I think that captures the gist of what it feels like to read this.

Oh also the villains of this book are not the type of people I expected them to be (if I were to summarize the latter half I would call it "what happens when you suddenly realize you have morals and agency") so kudos to James for that. Although I would've preferred less of Merton and more of Kate.

Review: Mason & Dixon

Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Honestly need more time to dwell on/revisit this one (I have a backlog of essays I want to read on this lol). But initial thoughts:

I was drawn to read this one first over Pynchon's other books on account of the subject matter: the charting of the Mason-Dixon line, today known as that weirdly straight line that now marks the border between Pennsylvania and Maryland. The parts of this book that actually deal with that and the long trek into the heart of the American country; the tense encounters with local tribes and colonial slaveowners; Mason and Dixon's philosophical differences and their intereactions; those segments were the most engrossing for me.

And then you have a talking dog (who makes you go wtf and then somehow touches your heart when he shows up again 600 pages later). And a revenge-seeking sentient animatronic duck. And George Washington getting high on home-grown pot with the main characters while his wife serves munchies. And it's like I can't tell what's real and what's not anymore.

It's not as "difficult" to read as Gravity's Rainbow experientially speaking but that's not saying much if you've ever tried to read that book and know what it's like. Pynchon will continue to Pynchon with his random digressions that seem to go nowhere, only this time in a 18th century dialect and an Archaic Printing style that Randomly Capitalizes words like This (except wait the words that thematically matter are capitalized!). I appreciate the dedication and commitment, but seriously.

What it comes down to though is trying to capture what the Enlightenment was like experientially, in all its fantastical possibilities. And then you think about the absurdity that came about because of it. That the powers that be on the other side of the world (including the British East India Company) decided they could arbitrarily put down a straight line as a border subdividing land without accounting for the people who already lived across it (Middle East, anyone?), and that this line would have profound implications for the debates and livelihoods of folks affected by slavery, the Civil War, Native American displacement, among other things. And that moment near the end of their journey, when Dixon starts to realize this...

It all builds up to an experience that is larger than life, which I guess is maximalist bread and butter at this point.

To be honest at this point I am probably much more interested in reading articles about this book than immediately re-reading at the moment (a problem I find with a lot of other text heavy books these days) but I think I'll come back to it again someday. Merits a selective chapter re-read if anything.

Review: Martyr!

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Would agree with others that it's not perfect (felt a bit meandering in the middle until the bigger revelations) but ultimately I appreciated the way all the different threads in this book came together in the end and the message that it had. Think it touches well on our need for closure in difficult life/family circumstances vs the way life actually pans out in reality.

Review: Ivanhoe

Ivanhoe by Walter Scott
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I originally had to read the first half of this book for school some 2 decades ago and never got around to finishing the second half (my teenage self thought it was terrible)... but as it happens I'm also a masochist who regularly retries foods he doesn't like every year just to see if he still doesn't like them (read: how I learned to love mustard after 30 years of hating it. or Stockholm'd myself into doing so), so the same concept must apply to books, right?

Well, to quote a video essay I listened to on this... "it's a Romantic novel with great prose and terrible ideas about the Middle Ages." Maybe worth considering that the 3 other people I follow on goodreads who've read this book also rated it 2 stars.

Basically it's an interesting historical window into how people who lived two centuries ago were thinking about how to think about people living six centuries before them. Because when we think about all of the modern day ideas we have about the Middle Ages today (knights and jousts, chivalry, Robin Hood, the Black Knight, etc) we don't realize how much of these are really anachronistic reinventions from a Scottish guy...

who didn't live in the times himself and really was just trying to build a vision of a unified England and Scotland through the lens of England's own unification of Normans and Anglo-Saxons, which wasn't actually even a concern at the time Scott said it was (sorry that was a mouthful).

Anyway, the book itself hasn't really aged well. It's progressive for its time (see: treatment of the Jewess Rebecca) but also still unfortunately racist (see: treatment of the Jewess Rebecca. and others). It's overly concerned with historical matters that don't really matter much today. And of course the dialogue takes a while to get used to (not quite Shakespeare difficulty but it's trending in that direction).

So was it worth it? Let's just say I'm more interested in reading Scott's Waverley novels (on the Jacobite risings) that actually take place in Scotland now lol (curious how he treats a subject he's actually well versed in). But it probably helps that I literally ran into his monument in Edinburgh on accident a week after reading this and then was bombarded by all the "we <3 Walter Scott" quotes/propaganda in public transit there.

Review: The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As someone who's personally benefitted from 2 of the treatments discussed in the second half, I am predisposed to like this book. Overall I think it's a good survey of the subject matter and what options exist, and helping start to demystify what trauma really means experientially because it's more than just whatever culture normally thinks of as PTSD.

I found the frequent backhanded comments about the DSM and its limitations interesting (this author really has a vendetta/axe to grind lol) but also in a way that makes me prone to see parts of this book less objectively. I don't know if I gleaned enough of a sense of why the system that leads to its revisions is set up the way it is other than "this is frustrating." 

Some caution on trigger warnings for some of patient anecdotes discussed. Other reviewers have mentioned concerns about the lack of consideration for the victims of the patients who themselves caused harm on others-- I think it's partly reflective of the cycle of abuse, but worth noting especially if that is likely to bother you.

Review: The Complete Persepolis

The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
My rating: N/A

Revisiting this now, this hits harder after finding out that Marjane Satrapi died literally a month ago (of heartbreak over losing her husband last year).

I have mixed feelings on rating memoirs as I see them as highly personal and who am I to judge? But overall I really appreciated the insight into what life was like in Iran during Satrapi's childhood and her struggles to reconcile feelings about leaving in adulthood, although the story ends relatively early into that. The childhood chapters highlight the deep intellectual current in Iranian culture and the adults in Satrapi's life, and the loss they experienced with the Revolution. In light of current events even as of this year, even moreso what could have been.

tbh I wasn't as invested in some of the adulthood parts otherwise (life/wanderings in Europe) but understand ultimately that it helps setup the narrative later when she finally returns home and realizes how much she's changed, and why she eventually leaves again.