Notes On A Little Life
by Hanya Yanagihara
From the first page, A Little Life felt like listening to the tales of a narrator who knew how the story ended. Its omniscient narration told in the past tense (except for a couple chapters from Harold) gave it a sense of impending inevitability. You knew where it was headed, but read on in the hope that maybe, somehow, it ended somewhere else. But as Jude seemed to believe, a good story should be worth telling, in spite of how it ended. He hated himself, it's true, and he believed without hesitation that he was doomed from the beginning, but the hope that he would meet and fall in love with someone like Willem kept him alive. But when that story dies, when it ends and there's nothing left to tell, why stay? Is that a sad story? When you've lived your little life, and all the love you have to give is gone, why wait? Jude's fate was tragic, but is its tragedy of a different type than that which we all suffer? That life is filled with only so many happy years. And the rest is just hanging on.