A Little Life
question
A gap I don't understand
Liz
Jan 29, 2016 09:41AM
I was with this book until Willem died. Before, all the suffering that happened to Jude made sense in light of his childhood abuse and his personality. However this incident seemed like non-sensical suffering. But then when Jude became so broken that he started to let Harold and Julia reparent him, I thought perhaps the reparenting was the point. Jude even begins to speak with his therapist. But, then, suddenly, the narrative switches to Harold's POV who only sees Jude on a downward path and the reparenting theme is dropped. This gap frustrates me. The point might be that even reparenting and therapy can't save him. But why not see the process of why this doesn't work from Jude's POV?
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I didn't have a problem with this gap. I thought Jude's POV was extremely apparent from almost day one. Therapy never helped him. That was something I found challenging. While I know therapy can't help everyone, it seems to me that the first step in being helped from therapy is recognizing you need it. Jude was brilliant enough to realize that. However, he was just too damaged emotionally. I wonder, as I'm typing, if the pain we as readers would have seen would have been unbearable without the change?
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I think it helps you feel the same frustration that Harold and Julia feel. They can't know why it's not working, Jude himself might not know.
Well that's true. I was frustrated. I've since read that the author doesn't believe in talk therapy.
Harold asks Jude to please promise him (Harold) that Jude would never cut himself anymore. But Harold doesn't ask Jude if he (Harold) can help Jude in anyway. Harold never really "adopted" Jude, Harold simply replaced Jacob with Jude. My interpretation of the book was that every single person abused Jude in one way or another, and Jude rose above them all, became successful in the face of a lifetime of abuse, pretended and then finally realized they never had his best interest at heart, and then finally and beautifully leaves their lives for good, much to Jude's benefit.
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