Rating: 5/5
Review:
Quite magnificent
I think this book is quite magnificent. I tried it on the recommendation of a friend
whose judgement I trust, but I really didn't like the look of it: it sounded
like 750 pages about four high-achieving friends all having their little identity
crises in New York. No, thanks.
I was completely wrong, though – it turns out to be one of the best
things I have read for a long time: a superbly told story which is readable and
completely gripping, and also outstandingly thoughtful, insightful and
intelligent with some very important things to say.
(At the start, by the way, I thought it was going to be
exactly as I had feared because the first 70 pages or so are pretty dull and
made me rather grumpy, but this is principally Jude's story and when he takes
the central role the book really begins to grip and it never let me go after
that, so don't be out off by the opening.)
Jude is a highly successful lawyer in New York with an
astonishingly traumatic past which has left him physically disabled and
mentally scarred – which sounds like the set-up for an overblown load of
manipulative tripe, but it's a world away from the sort of lazy pop-psychology
and exploitative use of childhood abuse which is sometimes brought in to lend
spurious gravitas or character motivations to a novel. This is an unflinchingly honest account,
showing real understanding of what abuse can mean and its lasting
consequences. It is phenomenally
insightful and thoughtful, and looks minutely at Jude's situation with humanity
and deep compassion. We get the story of
his early life in episodes throughout the book, but principally it is a
brilliant evocation of his internal state, of his effect on those around him,
and of their response to him. Yanagihara doesn't shy away from cruelty and
truly horrifying events and depictions of self-harm, which in places were
positively gut-wrenching and sometimes made me physically wince, but she also conveys
love and true kindness so delicately and beautifully that I was moved to tears
in places. All of this is done in a
straightforward, clear-eyed tone which avoids all sensationalism, mawkishness
or sentimentality.
I found the book as gripping as a good thriller much of the
time. I became so involved with Jude and
his well-being that how things would develop next became incredibly important. Yanagihara conveys brilliantly the desperate
sense of unworthiness, the near-impossibility of speaking to anyone at all
about what has happened to him and that sense (which many of us will recognise
a pale echo of) that if only people knew what we were really like, in all our faults and failings, everything would come
crashing down.
The prose is excellent, in that quiet unobtrusive way which
means that you are wholly involved in what it is saying and largely unaware of
the prose itself. It is generally quite
spare and has a tone which allows each event to speak for itself, without
literary tricks for effect. Just as a
tiny example, the simple phrase "he could feel their careless
derision," is so perfectly evocative; that "careless" is
brilliant but unobtrusive. The writing
is full of such things and the outstandingly good narrative voice makes the
book all the more powerful.
Against all my expectations, I thought this was stunning:
one of the most involving, most insightful and most memorable books that I have
read for many years. If there is any
justice, this quiet masterpiece will be a major contender at this year's
literary awards. It is quite magnificent
and unreservedly recommended.
(I received a review copy via Netgalley.)
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