Of course, art is not ‘real’, but good art tells us truths about ourselves, about what it means to be human. So why write a review at all? It is important to me to show that this book is not ‘true’ or ‘real’. That makes it a compelling read, but does it make it good writing? I cannot understand why it has received such praise the writing is nothing special (Mendelsohn describes it as “often atrocious”), the passages that get quoted in the reviews are good, but they faded from memory fast compared with the negative emotional effect.
#Think thunk book of demons full
I kept reading because I wanted to know what happened, because not knowing would have been unbearable (and I accept full responsibility for starting and continuing this book, nobody held a gun to my head and forced me to read it). I feel I was manipulated into an unearned emotional response, and I am angry with myself over the fact that I was crying over this made-up suffering, at a time when real refugee children were drowning in the Mediterranean. The reader (at least, this reader) is put through an emotional wringer by a story that is, upon reflection, completely unrealistic, both in terms of plot, and in terms of psychological realism. Although I don’t agree with every detail of the review, it helped put everything into perspective, and articulated doubts I had started forming about the book after I had finished reading it.Īt the end of his review, Mendelsohn describes the reader as being ‘duped’ by A Little Life, and I think he is absolutely right, there is something completely fraudulent about this book. I had read many other reviews since finishing A Little Life, wanting to see if I had been the only person so shaken up by it Mendelsohn’s was the first actively negative review I read, and reading it was a huge relief. Re-reading small portions to fact-check an earlier draft of this review had a similar, although not so long-lived, effect.ĭaniel Mendelsohn’s review of A Little Life was published in the December 3rd Issue of the New York Review of Books ( see also, his exchange with Yanagihara’s editor in the NYRB’s letter’s page). It is an emotionally disturbing book, it left me unable to eat or sleep properly, and I burst into tears several times during the reading ( from other reviews, I am not the only person to be affected in this way) I was afraid it might be inducing some kind of emotional collapse. I read Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life in early November last year, starting during my commute to work on a Friday, continuing Friday evening, and finishing Sunday evening of the same weekend. ***SPOILER ALERT*** for discussion of all the major plot points of this book. ***TRIGGER WARNING*** for descriptions/discussion of child abuse and self-harm.
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