21st Century Literature discussion
2015 Book Discussions
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A Little Life - Part I, Chapters I,II, III (October 2015)
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I was engaged with the story right from the very beginning. This part was mainly about the four boys' friendship in college and beyond, in the beginnings of adult life. It served as an introduction, providing us with a bit of their background. Jude proved to be the most elusive character, and therefore the most interesting one. He is hiding his past from his friends, and it is obvious from the first pages that he was victim of abuse in the past.The most relatable character was Willem, very protective of Jude and extremely empathetic. The background story about his sick brother was very moving. Malcolm was the one who I felt least connection with in this part, perhaps because he seemed the least exceptional (he had a normal, loving and well-to-do family).
I believe emotional struggles are at the core of this novel, with Jude's mostly unmentioned past and suffering being the centre of the friendship between Willem, Jude, JB and Malcolm.
Having read the entire book, I find it difficult to answer any of these questions because I know too much! I guess I will need to wait for the spoiler thread to comment!
Teanka, I do feel and think in the similar vein, but my only problem was the ability to distinguish characters. For the first twenty or thirty pages, I was constantly confusing them. As soon as we know more about them, the confusion disappears. Willem's story was especially heart-breaking: his parents witnessed the death of their three children, and Willem was their only healthy child, and even he was disconnected from them.
Zulfiya, I wasn't confusing them, but that's mostly because I wrote down their names and what I know about them on a piece of paper first. Nowadays I usually do that when I start reading a chunkster, thinking that it will eventually pay off. It's mostly because I'm reading many books at the same time.In Willem's story the most sad part (for me) was that his parents had somehow lost the capacity to love or at least to communicate their love to their sons. Willem didn't have much of a connection with them and stopped visiting after his brother died, and yet I'm quite sure he meant a lot to them. Also, they died quite early in his life, so they never had the chance to make up for the lost time. I think Willem transferred his feelings and need to take care of someone else from his dead brother to Jude.
I haven't read very far, but looking at this book from my (limited) writer's hat, I think I already understand part of why this book is getting so much attention. It is hard, hard, hard to write sentences like many of the ones here -- and to keep it up page after page.
A nuanced observation that caught my attention:"...what parent, Malcolm had asked him, half jealously, have pityingly, says nothing when their only child (he had apologized later) tells them he wants to be an actor? But now, older, he [Willem] was able to appreciate that they had never even suggested he might owe them a debt -- not success, or fealty, or affection, or even loyalty...." pp 13-14
To play that against our own standards/values of what is family, what is love, what is freedom, what are mercy and justice, what are the gifts (beyond life itself) we have received from our parents, ...
Lily wrote: "A nuanced observation that caught my attention:"...what parent, Malcolm had asked him, half jealously, have pityingly, says nothing when their only child (he had apologized later) tells them he w..."
I think Malcolm's statement is influenced by what Malcolm thinks his father expects of him. Hence, Malcolm is flabbergasted that Willem's parents aren't giving him grief.
What do you think "our own standards" are?
Linda wrote: "...I think Malcolm's statement is influenced by what Malcolm thinks his father expects of him. Hence, Malcolm is flabbergasted that Willem's parents aren't giving him grief...."I agree! (Another way to say it might be "what Malcolm thinks his father considers Malcolm's debt to his family.")
Linda wrote: "...What do you think "our own standards" are?..."I suspect a wide range of standards exist -- I didn't intend "our own" to mean all of us, but more either of a particular family or of a particular individual.
An analogy I'll make is this one -- we were talking today about eavesdropping being one effective way to learn the mechanics of dialogue in order to better write dialogue, but how some are so offended by the concept of eavesdropping that they rejected such as possibly a valid way of learning. Or another -- my family was very tough and negative about whining. But a friend taught me that for a child, or an adult, whining can be very effective. She totally changed my way of handling whining from my son. Today, Lamentations in the Psalms are the places I send people who seem to need to engage in the millennia old tradition of lament -- a place sometimes to be, albeit not to stay. Others prefer other paths, other methods of descrying and working through adversity.
Hope this is helpful towards what I was trying to convey, Linda. I suspect some, like Malcolm, would envy Willem the freedom his parents gave him. I suspect others would be rather aghast. I'm challenged to figure where on the spectrum are my standards and where are those of my family.
Lily wrote: "Hope this is helpful towards what I was trying to convey, Linda. I suspect some, like Malcolm, would envy Willem the freedom his parents gave him. I suspect others would be rather aghast. "I think that, like with most things, we'd like to have what we didn't have, so Malcolm would like to have Willem's freedom and Willem probably would prefer to have more caring parents.
Another quote from early part of the book that I liked and could relate to remembering how I felt when I was younger:
"...(Malcolm) made lists of what he had to resolve, and fast, in the following year: his work (at a standstill), his love life (nonexistent), his sexuality (unresolved), his future (uncertain). The four items were always the same. "
Teanka wrote: "...Willem probably would prefer to have more caring parents...."Yes, and it is often difficult to define "more caring." How to put it all together with loving balance in a single package can be very difficult. Those "debts" or "expectations" of obligations can be awfully stifling.
Lily wrote: "It is hard, hard, hard to write sentences like many of the ones here -- and to keep it up page after page."I do see your point, Lily. The prose is both crisp and clear, but also complex and nuanced. It is very hard to find this kind of balance in a book this big.
Teanka wrote: ""...(Malcolm) made lists of what he had to resolve, and fast, in the following year: his work (at a standstill), his love life (nonexistent), his sexuality (unresolved), his future (uncertain). The four items were always the same. " This one is one lovely sentences. The parentheses and the visual structure of the sentence add so much to its rhythm and its flow and its mild irony.
I thought the prose was stellar. I marked a number of passages, which I do not always do as I tend to "speed" read but her prose caught my attention and made me pay attention.
I have finished part I after some unexpected interruptions this week. Like Teanka @5, I jotted down the characters' names and referred to the general intro on the book jacket as the author began to reveal them. I find myself intrigued by all of them, but as a number of you have noted, more so by Jude. Why in nine years has he not revealed anything to these friends? The cutting emergency in Ch. 3 caught me by surprise, and I learned as much from Andy's questioning as I did from Wilhem's reflections.I agree with all of you that Wilhelm's home life was very strange, and his compassion toward his brother was beautiful and pure. His parents, immigrants, suffering tragedies with the loss of children and with one with special needs, trying to eke out a living on the ranch were probably coping the best they could. The image of him arriving at college with all his possessions was striking - too often those of us who have don't consider the path those with less or nothing have traveled.
Finally, the writing is stellar, pure beauty, at times poetic in the imagery, the descriptions, and in the philosophical questions the characters pose or muse over. From the hardback, p. 41, paragraph 2:
"But these were days of self-fulfillment, where settling for something that was not quite your first choice of a life seemed weak-willed and ignoble. Somewhere, surrendering to what seemed to be your fate had changed from being dignified to being a sign of your own cowardice. There were times when the pressure to achieve happiness felt almost oppressive, as if happiness were something that everyone should and could attain, and that any sort of compromise in its pursuit was somehow your fault."
Not only do all four characters grapple with this, but it seems our current American society is caught in the angst of this tension. I think this thought lends itself to the building of a thematic vein of this novel.
Thank you, Zufilya, if you were the one who nominated this novel. I am in rapture reading it, and at its surface, I am not sure I would have picked it up on my own!
Maureen wrote: "The image of him arriving at college with all his possessions was striking - too often those of us who have don't consider the path those with less or nothing have traveled."This one is one of the most memorable and painful images in the novel.
As for the nomination remark, I nominated it for September, but it did not win, and then Teanka nominated it again for October, and now we are reading it. Persistence pays off, and yes, and it is a very engrossing and (view spoiler)
Zulfiya wrote: "This one is one of the most memorable and painful images in the novel. "Say more, please, Zulfiya. (The ones about self cuttings are the ones currently getting to me, although I am not far enough to trust that I have reached what with be the most painful images in this novel.)
This one was about the initial chapter in the novel. Obviously, I am with you about other images - they are much more disturbing and very memorable. There are moments in the novel when I could not read any more.
2. Among the four main characters, who is the most intriguing and why? Who is the most relatable?
3. Financial and emotional struggles play an important role in part I. Which of those two affect the characters the strongest?
4. if you were asked to identify the leading theme in this part, which one will it be?
Yet again, the questions are only for a reference point, and you are not obligated by any means to answer them. Please simply post your thoughts and share your feelings, and I would say feelings would be the key word here because the novel is an emotional powerhouse.