Note: this was posted well before announcement and publication of To Paradise. I own it but am not quite ready to read it yet. At some point when I finish it, I’ll change “third” to “fourth” in the title above, as long as I continue to look forward to her output.
A Little Life (2015)
It’s too long by 175 pages at least, the two serious acts of violence (one aggressive, one accidental) dramatized in the present story seemed cheap and almost cartoonish, and throughout there was an irritating and I suppose intentional antecedent issue where the pronoun “he” could refer to more than one character but always referred to the section’s primary subject (Jude or Willem). But these are wabi-sabish flaws built into a solidly structured, extraordinarily characterized, steadily and flowingly told fairy tale of contemporary life in New York lived by four friends from college (Cambridge, MA).
It’s sort of a post-identity novel, with black characters saying they’re not black, with Jude described as “the post-man,” with Willem claiming he’s not gay when he lives with a man. It’s the sort of novel that exaggerates human specificity to evoke the complexity of existence beyond reductions of race, class, sexuality. Which is what great lit does.
Reducing this to “a gay novel,” which I saw online somewhere, seems really off to me, really shallow, since this seems more about friendship, long-term bonds, relationship depths/complexities than what you might expect from “a gay novel.” Really most of the gay sex is unwanted if not always nonconsensual in this — and most of the gay men are sexual predators/pedophiles in Jude’s past. The central relationship is definitely “emotionally homosexual” but its physical aspects are minimal– I think it’s a great strength of this novel, the way it complexifies simple reductive terms in general.
Generally, this is the best Bret Easton Ellis book ever written, the work of a mature BEE pumped up on Tolstoy. At times reminiscent of 2666 (the part about the critics), of Cormac McCarthy (The Judge in Blood Meridian), structurally reminded me of Anna Karenina the way it gracefully revolved through characters so time seemed to really pass section by section.
Loved the intermittent switch to Harold’s letters to Willem. Loved JB’s paintings — felt like the writer knows her art (liked googling references to artists I didn’t know to reinforce her descriptions). But also I didn’t feel the author’s presence throughout — no winks to the reader etc, no cutesy word play or sense that she was savoring the language, not even when it streaked in solid, gorgeous sentences across and down the page.
Loved most essayistic, insightful jags, for example about how this was the age of discipline. And the memorable descriptions like for example of an Asian woman near Canal Street walking three steps behind her husband (something I’ve noticed so often since first reading here).
Really an impressive, fully realized, ambitious, audacious, gripping novel — its density and depth reduce possibility that it seems emotionally manipulative since it’s emotionally charged to the max and would’ve been too much in something much shorter.
Its withholding of pertinent backstory through the first two thirds works because so much of Jude’s relationships are about withholding — all he needs to say is “sex isn’t fun” and things would be so much easier but he can’t say that because of his past.
Also the withholding herein worked as it always does — to amplify the narrative drive — without annoying me.
Anyway, a major novel, a major writer.
The People in the Trees (2013)
It had to have taken more than 18 days to read this. Read it after A Little Life — author said somewhere that her second novel was a response to this one, the story of the abused, not the abuser.
Her novels are like 10+-mile runs: they’re worth it and filled with wonderful moments but also there are always times when I want them to end.
I admire this for the steady descriptive tone, the lush island atmosphere, the invented vocabulary perfectly deployed, the dual unreliable narrators, the boldness of some of it, and most importantly the imagination and ambition, especially for a first novel.
After the first 80 or so pages, I was thinking this seemed like the dictionary-definition example of a novel that didn’t need its frame (a prologue explaining the scientist’s discovery and later trouble with the law and imprisonment), but by the final 50 pages I appreciated the structure.
Throughout, it’s also a top-notch example of seeing around an unreliable narrator — realizing that there’s more to the story than a narrator reveals.
Lots of narrative drive since we know upfront that the scientist narrator Norton has been arrested for pedophilia, so we’re waiting for those bits to come up, but they’re not really even introduced as a theme until maybe 200+ pages into it.
Not at all as graphic as A Little Life, not even close. Other than the islander’s ritual, described with something like a cross between poetic engagement and anthropological detachment, it’s all suggested until the very end.
Like A Little Life, it’s clear she’s concerned with matching structure to story.
Loved the section edited out as a footnote and then allowed at the very end — changes pretty much everything.
Innocence and experience. Socialization and sodomy. Rape of island and child. Closeted ’50s sexuality/sensibility — almost a sort of historical novel that way.
Norton didn’t strike me as such an obvious monster, as derided in many reviews. He’s not exaggerated, in any case. He’s believable.
The author, as in A Little Life, excels at presenting the complexity of character and situation.
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To support the kind publishers who have taken a chance on my writing, please acquire a copy of Neutral Evil ))) and/or JRZDVLZ. Or my translation of Horacio Castellanos Moya’s Revulsion: Thomas Bernhard in San Salvador. Or Thanks + Sorry + Good Luck: Rejection Letters From the Eyeshot Outbox directly from the publisher. Or even a copy of The Shimmering Go-Between directly from me (the publisher is kaput).