Sipped Ink vol 3 issue 6

A Little Life — Week 6

Writing these letters on a weekly basis has a strange way of breaking the book up along arbitrary 80-page fault-lines that don’t naturally exist within the text. Whilst last week’s reading seemed almost entirely consumed with the cataloguing of Jude’s exploitation as a child, it feels as though this week has dealt almost exclusively with the relationship between Jude & Willem. It’s testament to Yanagihara’s skill in constructing the book, however, that the same major themes are still at play within the microcosm of the relationship.

To understand Jude & Willem’s relationship — and particularly to understand it from Jude’s vantage point — we first have to understand the extent of the damage that his time with Brother Luke, and later with Caleb, has wrought.

The primary source of this damage is, of course, the horrific things Luke forces Jude to do as a child. Yanagihara explores the legacy of this sexual abuse as it manifests in Jude’s adulthood with sensitivity and a keen sense of what it might feel like to live with a deep-seated emotional trauma.

Secondarily, it is Brother Luke that teaches Jude how to cut himself, and who persuades him of the act’s efficacy. That the same man should be the cause of so much pain, and then offer a means of ‘relief’ from it that is also so destructive, seems particularly sadistic. Even more so when we witness how convinced of the need for it Jude is:

If Brother Luke hadn’t given it to him as a solution, who would he have become? Someone who hurt other people — 490

Thirdly, Brother Luke’s betrayal of the trust that Jude places in him also has deep and lasting impact on Jude’s psyche. Even in the midst of the prolonged sexual abuse he suffers in his early teens, Jude deludes himself that Luke’s intentions are not impure:

he wanted to believe that, through everything, in spite of everything, Luke really had loved him — 423

On reflection however, the sum of his relationship with Luke is the stripping from Jude’s life of all confidence, faith, ease, and enjoyment:

Luke had taught him how to find pleasure in life, and he had removed pleasure absolutely — ibid

Similarly, Jude continues to believe that the campaign of physical and psychological violence that Caleb visited upon him was ‘because of who he was, not because of who Caleb was’ (p.449). (Perhaps one of the book’s most devastating lines yet is the depiction of Jude as ‘incapable of conceiving of a relationship that wouldn’t end with his being hit’ (p.452).) And he has mistakenly internalised the lesson that he is destined, by dint of some immutable failure in his person, to destroy any and all future relationships he might enter into:

Wasn’t it foregone that he would inspire a kind of hatred from even Willem? — ibid

In the recent pages we are witness to some small movement in this thought process, in that Jude does come to believe that his relationship with Willem is without precedent in his life. However, he also retains the steadfast belief his ability (perhaps even his destiny) to sour it: ‘it was different unless he made it the same’ (p.457). Jude continually struggles with the tendency to analyse his present in terms of his past, and despite his reasoned judgement he can’t help but make comparisons between Willem and Luke. Yanagihara shows us the guilt of this struggle within him:

How dare you, he would argue with the voice. How dare you compare Willem to Brother Luke. — 483

I was heartened to see Jude making so much progress in — and as a direct result of — his relationship with Willem. He makes the decision to trust again, and he shares more of himself than he ever has before. The moments of his revealing both some of his personal history, and also his naked body, to Willem are delicately handled and very affecting. And yet, whilst much has changed, the adult Jude is realising that some things may always remain beyond him. Within the last couple of days’ reading, when the topic of the sexual element of Willem & Jude’s relationship has come into focus, it has been saddening to see Jude agonise again over his self-perceived shortcomings:

The sorrow he felt when he realized that even Willem couldn’t save him, that he was irredeemable, that this experience was forever ruined for him, was one of the greatest of his life. — 483

As such, sex has proven to be something of a crucible for Jude’s conception of himself and his relationship with Willem. His inability or unwillingness to admit to Willem that he finds it so unpleasant is a source of continual guilt for him:

He hated lying so much to Willem, but what was the alternative? The alternative meant losing him, meant being alone forever. — 484

Jude is unable to conceive of the possibility that Willem might understand the way he feels. This seems likely to persist so long as he remains unwilling to discuss with Willem those parts of his history that still remain a secret between them, and it is perfectly in keeping with Jude’s psychology: he feels underserving of anything good that he has because he feels permanently damaged by that which he has suffered; he considers himself to be the root cause of all his life’s pain, and fears that if he doesn’t work tirelessly to keep the truth of himself at bay he is destined to ruin anything good that remains in his life. It is this manner of thinking that leads to Jude harbouring the deeply sad belief that ‘[i]f he truly loved Willem, he knew, he would leave him’ (p.488).

For Willem’s part, at the best of times, he more correctly conceives of their relationship as ‘an extension of their friendship’ (p.476). This evolution seems absolutely natural as Yanagihara draws it, but it’s also integral to the nature of their bond: the heart of their togetherness is not the sexual element, or dependency, or shared interests, or anything other than what has kept them so close for so long: friendship. That is what truly makes the relationship unique in Jude’s experience, but it’s not a distinction he allows himself to place any faith in.

• This particularly verbose description caught my eye this week, particularly as it had me reaching for the dictionary for the first time since ‘uxorious’: ‘taciturn and casually vituperative’ (p.428)

• There were a few good comments on last week’s post from Melanie and Helene, which you should check out. (Thanks both.)

• This week the Bailey’s Book Prize 2016 was awarded to ‘a superbly original, compassionate novel that delivers insights into the very darkest of lives through humour and skilful storytelling’… but that wasn’t A Little Life (which was also on the shortlist) but Lisa McInerney’s The Glorious Heresies. I’m taking that as a recommendation. Has anyone amongst us read it?